Dragoon Spirit

See Dragoon for more information on the origin and history of Dragoons

Meru is recognized as a new host by the Blue-Sea Dragoon Spirit

A Dragoon Spirit is the essence of a Dragon's soul taken form in a crystallized colored stone. It allows a being of its choice to become a Dragoon. Currently there are only 8 Dragoon Spirits in existence - specifically, 7 original spirits and 1 new spirit.

When the Dragoon Spirit recognizes a prospective host, the stone glows brightly and the stone levitates toward its new owner.

Dragoon Spirits

• The Red-Eyed Dragoon Spirit recognized Zieg and Dart
• The Jade Dragoon Spirit recognized Syuveil, Greham, Lavitz, and Albert
• The White-Silver Dragoon Spirit recognized Shirley, Shana and Miranda
• The Dark Dragoon Spirit recognized Rose
• The Violet Dragoon Spirit recognized Kanzas, Emperor Doel, and Haschel
• The Blue-Sea Dragoon Spirit recognized Damia, Lenus, and Meru
• The Golden Dragoon Spirit recognized Belzac and Kongol
• The Divine Dragoon Spirit recognized Dart

It is sometimes misconceived that Lloyd was recognized by the Divine Dragoon Spirit, and although he possessed the Divine Spirit Stone, it did not react to him, as he notably mentioned after initially acquiring the Stone. (See Trivia, below)

Transformation

Rose explains that war is not in the Human nature. In fact, humans fight by making themselves enter insanity, and that insanity is the source of power for the Dragoons. To make this more clear, people often refer to this insanity as "Battle Rage". The Dragoon's need for this fuel is the reason that transformation into Dragoon form is extremely difficult outside of battle.

Within the game, this "insanity" is measured in units known as SP (Spirit Points) which is needed in order to transform into, and sustain the Dragoon. When enough SP has been accumulated, a new command appears on the command bar, and Dragoon Transformation is possible. 

It is also worthwhile to note that Dragoons do not have a specific appearance, as the same Dragoon may look drastically different with different people, an obvious example being Shana and Miranda.

Battle

While transformed, the only two options available to the player are D-Attack (Dragoon Attack) and Magic. D-Attack displays a rotary dial, and successfully activating an attack all four times the indicator moves around the dial unleashes a combination of four attacks plus a bonus attack on the opponent. Each dragoon has an exclusive list of magic appropriate for their respective element. Progressively powerful and costly spells are added for each Dragoon level achieved, with a maximum of four (except Kongol, whose maximum is three and Dart's Divine Dragoon form, whose maximum is two).

D-Attack (Dragoon Attack)

Rose about to preform a Dragoon Attack

In Dragoon form, the character's who transformed into it has their attack mode changed and enhanced, known as D-Attack. It's different from addition, but timing system precision remains. The timing signal turned from the box system to a "Dragoon Spirit Time-Dial", when the light reaches the mark at the top, that is the moment to press the X button. The standard attack is pressing it each of the four (or three, in Kongol's case) times it goes around. However, if the player press the X button a fifth time, with absolutely precise timing, right as the light stops at the top, the player will do a "Perfect" attack, which involves a powerful explosion of elemental magic. This attack combines Physical and Magical Attacks strength. Due to the Magical Attack attribute also calculated, D-Attack will cause more damage to the enemy with opposing element.

Magic

Main article: Dragoon Magic

Magic is a special command that appeared and usable only by Dragoons. Every dragoon has their own magic skills and also represents their elements. Magic is calculated by magic attack attribute, which makes the damage caused by magic attack cause less damage to enemies with same elements and cause more damage to opposing elements. Magic uses MP (Magic Power), every dragoons has the same number of MP with the minimum 20 at dragoon level 1 and maximum 100 at dragoon level 5. Not all magic is used to attack, some of them are used for healing and supporting.

Advantages and Disadvantages

As Dragoon Spirits amplify the user's powers, it grants tremendous advantages for battle, but also some disadvantages. Dragoons will gain special elemental powers corresponding to the user and the spirit, also with great attribute boosts to the user. The new attack command D-Attack, or Dragoon Attack, uses a spirit dial, where timingis key.Iif done perfectly, it will give a powerful finishing attack. Also, the magic command allows the Dragoon to unleash their element energy power. As Dragons are immune to human ailments, Dragoons who possess their soul and power are also immune to the ailments. If they were affected by one, turning into Dragoon will eliminate the ailment.

The weakness of Dragoons is that they are unable to run away, guard, use items, and unable to return to human form until their spirit power gauge empties. Furthermore (and a frustration among players) the Dragoon Form does not have the same offensive potential as a character's Master Addition, thus the strength of the Dragoon Form falls off hard beginning around the time of disc 3 (though Dart's Divine Dragoon Form is an exception to this rule). In the second battle with Lloyd, he utilizes the Dragon Buster, an ancient weapon capable of killing a dragoon in a single strike. Some other special characters also have a skill that causes instant KO to Dragoons instead of normal form.

Spirit Points and Dragoon Levels

As mentioned before, the "insanity" that fuels the Dragoons is measured in units of SP (Spirit Points) which act in 2 ways: 

First, and most noticeably, SP fills the lowermost gauge in the bottom menu inside battle. It takes 100SP for a single bar, which grants a single turn as a dragoon inside battle. 

Secondly, SP is used to level up the Dragoon Spirits, which is an incentive to work on some of the less powerful, but more SP rich additions.

Gaining SP

There are three ways to gain SP in battle. The most important is through additions. Of course, different additions at different levels are capable of different amounts of SP. The second is Spirit Potions, which are an item that can be acquired by randomly finding them, (or in the Lohan minigames in exchange for tickets), that heal 100 SP. The third way is through equips. Some equips will increase the amount of SP gained through additions, and some simply generate SP when attacked. 

The Dispirit status effect makes SP gain impossible until the character is healed, by using a dragoon (if he/she had enough SP before becoming dispirited), by using a mind purifier, or visiting a clinic.

Special

Main article: Element Dimension

When all characters in the team are at maximum SP and in normal form, any character can initiate a Special Dragoon transformation. The battlefield begins to glows the color of the Dragoon Spirit initiating transformation, attacks of that Spirit's element are given a bonus, and attacks of the opposing element are weakened. The initiating character gets the highest number of physical attacks automatically, without having to use the Dragoon attack dial.

Dragoon levels

Gaining experience from victory in battle only has any effect of the character Level, not the addition or the Dragoon Level. As mentioned above, accumulating SP is what levels up the Dragoons.  The number of bars of SP you can accumulate is directly proportional to the Dragoon's level. (At level 5, you can accumulate 500 SP, in 5 bars, which means maximum of 5 turns as a Dragoon inside Battle).

In addition to being able to spend a greater time as a Dragoon, gaining Dragoon levels increases the Dragoons' stats (stronger attack, defense and magic while in Dragoon form), and unlocks new magic.

A character with Dragoon Level two or more will gain more than 100 SP. This additional SP is displayed as a turquoise colored bar over the first blue one, then a yellow over the turquoise, orange over the yellow, and finally the fifth red bar. Each of these bars are sufficient to remain in Dragoon form for one turn, and each is used up at the end of the turn; the only way to return to human form is to end the battle or run out of full SP bars. Only a full bar of SP is sufficient for the transformation; if a character has one full bar and a partially filled bar and transforms, the partial SP is lost.

The chart below depicts how much SP you must accumulate in order to reach the next level of Dragoon. SP does not stop accumulating towards your next level when your bars become full, so try to constantly reach the end of your additions. 

Name	Lv1	Lv2	Lv3	Lv4	Lv5
Dart	100	1,200	6,000	12,000	20,000
Lavitz/Albert	100	1,000	6,000	12,000	20,000
Shana/Miranda	100	1,000	6,000	12,000	20,000
Rose	100	1,200	6,000	12,000	20,000
Haschel	100	1,000	6,000	12,000	20,000
Meru	100	1,000	3,000*	12,000	20,000
Kongol	100	1,000	6,000	12,000	20,000

*(Meru's Dragoon Spirit really levels up faster than the others until level 3 because she gets her Dragoon Spirit in the last battle of disc 2)

Dragoon Elements and Colors

The system is designed to be simple and intuitive, but just in case:

Name	Element	Color	Opposite element
Red-Eyed Dragoon	Fire	Red	Water
Jade Dragoon	Wind	Green	Earth
White-Silver Dragoon	Light	White	Darkness
Dark Dragoon	Darkness	Violet fading to black	Light
Violet Dragoon	Lightning	Purple	none
Blue-Sea Dragoon	Water	Blue	Fire
Gold Dragoon	Earth	Golden Brown	Wind
Divine Dragoon	none	Gray	none

Gallery

Rose draws the Dark Dragoon Spirit from the Darkness Dragon

The Red-Eyed Dragoon Spirit awakens

Lavitz is recognized by the Jade Dragoon Spirit

The White Silver Dragoon Spirit chooses Shana

Albert is chosen by the Jade Dragoon Spirit

The Violet Dragoon Spirit chooses Haschel

Meru is chosen by the Blue Sea Dragoon Spirit

Lloyd holds the Divine Dragoon Spirit

Miranda becomes the new wielder of the White Silver Dragoon Spirit

Kongol inherits the Golden Dragoon Spirit from his brother

Zeig is still recognized by the Red-Eyed Dragoon Spirit

The Divine Dragoon Spirit is handed to Dart

Trivia

For the discussion go to the forum page.

• The Jade Dragoon Spirit has the most chosen wielders of any spirit, at 4 total.
• The Dark Dragoon Spirit is the only spirit whose wielder remains unchanged, as the spirit never chooses a replacement for Rose. (Actually, this is also true for the Divine Dragon Spirit and Dart. Lloyd explains that it doesn't shine for him so by the end of the game, Dart is the only wielder of the Divine Dragon Spirit.) 
• Lloyd's wingly armor has been confused for the Divine Dragoon armor, but it has noticeable differences. It clearly lacks the iconic wings of a Dragoon, and Lloyd himself states that "the stone doesn't shine for [him]".
• As "The Legend of Dragoon" is similar to the sentai genre of anime in Japan, the Red-Eye Dragoon may be the destined leader of the seven Dragoons. 
• It is not really understood if Dart was chosen by the Red-Eyed Dragoon or if he was simply allowed to use it. There are many theories on the subject. 
• Strangely, despite the fact that the Wingly race was enemy to the dragoons' cause during the Dragon Campaign, Winglies Lenus and Meru were chosen to be Dragoons. This would suggest the Dragoon Spirits hold no prejudice to race or alignment. Kongol (A Giganto), Damia (Half-Mermaid), Lenus (Wingly), and Meru (Wingly), are all non-humans who are also Dragoons. Greham, Doel, and Lenus are also villainous characters, implying the Dragoon Spirit does not hold itself to a heroic standard, either.
• The Blue-Sea Dragoon Spirit has never chosen a fully-human wielder. Damia, the original Blue-Sea Dragoon, was half Human, half Mermaid. Lenus and Meru, the others chosen by it, are both Winglies.
• Dragoon Spirits are indestructible. Clearly seen in the ending FMV after the Moon-That-Never-Sets exploded, killing Zieg and Rose, the Red-eyed and Dark Spirit Stones lay on the ground, apparently unharmed.
• Dragoon Spirits are listed as key items. and in the beginning of the game until the events in Hoax, Dart's Red-Eye Dragoon Spirit is named "Father's Stone".