Dragons were originally created by the Saurians as pets and slaves. The first generations of dragons were modified clones of Exthilion. The Saurians wished to use his ability to decode magic but they couldn't perfectly replicate him. The Saurians were unaware that their creations were sentient until they rebeled against them with the help of the Shadows.
The war ended with the Saurians decimated and the Shadows exiled to the Beta-Phase. The dragons took control of the Saurian's city of Civ-Alpha and flourished there for millennia until The Great Cataclysm occured when a meteor struck Earth. To survive, the dragon Arkanaton created the "Sleep of Stone" to put the entire draconic race into hibernation until the crisis had passed. Many did not survive and Arkanaton himself has never awoken.
Upon awaking, the surviving dragons found that humans, elves and dwarves now inhabited the Earth. Some dragons wished to assert dominance over these new races but T'mat, leader of the platinum dragons, reined them in. At a council of the clan leaders, T'mat claimed the the spirit of the planet had spoken to her and revealed to her that the Earth was now these new creatures domain and theirs lied elsewhere. While this did not sit well with many dragons, Exthilion called them to order.
Eventually, Earth's ether began to fade and the dragons realized they'd have to go elsewhere to survive. Only the exiled Dreadwing was determined to stay. After he obtained the power of the Time Raft, Dreadwing tortured T'mat and decimated her court. He then forced the other dragon to submit to him through torture and murder. In seeking to prevent any retaliation, he turned of the Time Raft to conceal it's location, however he found he couldn't turn it back on. Dreadwing was forced into hiding on Earth while the rest of his race migrated to Jade Realm.