Dragon Knight

Dragon knight
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai
Japanese name	竜の騎士 (ドラゴンのきし)
Romaji	Ryū no kishi (doragon no kishi)

Dragon Knights are a species from Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai. They are a long line of hybrid warriors created by the gods. Their purpose is to protect the balance and deliver divine punishment to whoever dares to conquer the world.

Appearances

Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai

The God of Humans, God of Darklings, and God of Dragons created the Dragon Knights as a response to the constant disharmony between their races. They created a being that possessed the strength of a dragon, the magical abilities of a darkling, and the heart of a human, and gave them the purpose of fighting to purge the world of conflicts; effectively serving as the world's arbiter to maintain the balance and deliver divine punishment to whoever dared to conquer the world.

The Dragon Knight was birthed by a being known as the Holy Mother Dragon, who would then leave the infant Dragon Knight at the care of humans where it will grow as a normal person, as their powers developed for the time when their interference would be needed to maintain the balance in the world. A Dragon Knight's fate is an honorable but rather sad one; as they exist solely to keep the world's balance and peace, they are usually destined to live a life of battle before ultimately succumb to their injuries, at which point the Mother Dragon mourned its offspring, collecting its spirit before departing and repeating the cycle anew.

Originally, only one Dragon Knight can exist at a time due to their immense power, although there are certain exceptions. Dragon Knights can use any spell they want, by having the sky, the sea and the land as their allies and are also masterful warriors, thus granting them frightening power with which they can also destroy the world if they wanted. Dragon Knights are identified by a dragon crest which appears on them typically in their forehead. Dragon Knights are feared and worshipped in the humble kingdom of Teran which has a temple at the bottom of their lake which only allows entry to Dragon Knights. Inside lies a crystalized entity, a guardian that is meant to provide guidance to the Dragon Knights. There are lakes with special properties that can heal Dragon Knights of their wounds.

Many years before the story begins, Baran, the Dragon Knight of his era, would come to serve his purpose by fighting Velzar, the King of the Abyss. Being the last intelligent dragon in existence and a ruler of the Underworld, Velzar was considered a far more serious threat than the Dark Lord Hadlar. Following months of grueling battles against Velzar's forces and then the great Dragon himself, Baran deafeated Velzar, but incurred serious wounds in the process. Trying to heal himself in a Fountain of Miracles, he almost succumbed to his wounds but was saved by Soala, the princess of Alkeed who gave him the sacred water and nursed him back to health. Baran and Soala fell in love with one another and bore a child, whom they named Dino. Unfortunately, discrimination from the King of Alkeed would end with Dino's separation from their parents and Baran to almost be executed in public, which ended horribly with Soala dying shielding him. Angry at the King's cruel disowning of his daughter, Baran destroyed the kingdom and developed a severe misanthropy, joining with the Dark King Vearn in destroying humanity, therefore effectively subverting the Dragon Knight's intended mission by causing destruction and imbalance and aid an objectively evil force bent on world domination.

Dino, adopted as Dai by the wise Lump shaman Brass, would grow into a fit young boy with the potential to be a hero, then be tutored by Avan the human hero who defeated Hadlar and brought peace to the world, filling Baran's forsaken role. The boy would ally himself with the Disciples of Avan against both Vearn and his father, making it the first ever known instance of two Dragon Knights fighting each other in opposite ends. As Dai sided with humanity, Baran, in an attempt to regain custody of his son, forced a memory erasure through the use of Dragon Crest resonance, regressing Dai as an innocent child, although Dai would regain all his memories back with the help of his friends and ultimately defeat his own father in a brutal battle between Dragon Knights, Dai being even able to move his own Dragon Crest from his forehead to his fist, another thing no Dragon Knight before had ever achieved. Following Baran's defeat, he would learn of Vearn's true purpose of destroying the entire surface world, not just humanity; seeing that Vearn's goal was destruction on a far larger scale than he imagined, Baran defected from the Dark Army and waged his own battle against the evil Dark King.

As the war between humanity and the Dark Army progressed, Baran ultimately sacrificed himself to save Dai from a cowardly attack by Vearn, expiring after passing his crest onto his own son, granting him an extra dose of power and making Dai the only known case of a Dragon Knight with two crests. After his near death experience due to his disastrous first fight against Vearn, Dai met the Holy Mother Dragon in person, who had come to collect his soul, only to discover that she has sensed Baran's death instead. Due to her very existence being slowly eaten away by an evil presence, with not much time left of her lifespan, she nevertheless originally planned to make Dai the last Dragon Knight. However, after being reasoned with by Baran about just how special Dai's nature truly was, the Holy Mother Dragon, recognizing it as a divine act, changed her mind; instead spending the last of her power by giving it Dai and disappearing forever. With her passing, no new Dragon Knights would be born from nothing, and for their lineage to continue from that moment forward, it would depend solely on Dai and his descendants.

With the newfound increase of power, and his allies help, Dai would eventually defeat the Dark King for good. However, Vearn's last servant and Velzar's envoy, Killvearn, attempted to enact a last-ditch plan to destroy humanity. Dai ultimately stops his plan but ends up missing somewhere far way; still his allies, certain thanks to the soul-linked Sword of Dai of his wellbeing, decided to wait for him, believing in his eventual return to the world. Thusly Dai followed through the mission of the Dragon Knights, despite being the first and only hybrid one.

Dragon Quest of the Stars

Both Dai and Baran appeared in multiple crossover events with the Japanese version of this game. Many of their equipment was available to players as gacha items, some of them even have Alchemy and Awakening. Defeating Baran in his fiend difficulty boss fight might reward the player with items to look like Dragonoid Baran.

Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: A Hero's Bonds

Main Article: Dai (A Hero's Bonds).
Dai is one of the main characters in the game, while Baran appears as a boss in both of his forms, and as a playable character.

Dragon Quest Tact

Dai appears as a S-rank member of the Hero family as part of the limited The First Adventure of Dai event on his own banner alongside Popp. He can participate in Maam's Battle Road as a party member and appears as a boss in the special Disciple of Avan battle alongside Popp and Maam. He later appears in his Papnican Armour as Dragon Knight Dai who is an S-rank member of the Hero family as part of the limited The Second Adventure of Dai event on his own banner alongside Martial Artist Maam and Mage Popp. He can also participate in Dark Armour Spear Hyunckel's Battle Road as a party member.

Baran appears in the final part of the limited The First Adventure of Dai event, with both his human and Dragonoid forms appearing as S-rank members of the Dragon family. His Human form will join the party by clearing Dragon Master General Baran! on Advanced mode, and he can be fully awakened by collecting Baran Crystals from completing various challenges. Baran in this form also stars in his own Battle Road. Dragonoid Baran appears on his own banner, alongside Flazzard. This form of Baran can participate in his Human form's Battle Road as a party member.

Powers and Abilities

Dragon Knights are single-handedly the most powerful species of all of existence in the entire Dragon Quest franchise, having a multitude of traits and unique abilities that would grant them incredibly power over any known life form in existence. Dragon Knights are prodigious warriors with great swordsmanship and will grow stronger at a faster rate than normal. Dragon Knights would also have an abnormal ability to synthesize with all kinds of spells, something considered extremely rare even by talented mage standards, although their ability for spellcasting may not fully develop without further training or activating their Dragon Crest.

As a child, they aren't as monstrous as the legend says but they're no different to humans, because when they grow up as an adult, they'll possess power to cause fear to the people. Dragon Knights have the ability to fuse magic spells with sword skills call the Magic Sword ability that can create an attack both physical and magical in nature to greatly reinforce its overall destructive power and bypass spell resistant protection, predating the Armamentalist vocation. They also have access to zap-type spells that are used by heroes.

Dragon blood is the blood of a pure dragon knight that can not only resurrect someone similar to the resurrection spell zing, but it can also make them stronger.

Dragon Crest's Power

The signature trait of the Dragon Knights is the source of their power within them, typically activated by a strong surge of emotions, an energy crest will materialize in their foreheads increasing their power and defense and allowing them to cast any spell they synergized with. A Dragon Crest can be inherited, making the user possess two crests in the same body, although such instance is incredibly rare, next to impossible as typically only one Dragon Knight exists per era. While the Dragon Crest is inactivated, they are similar to a human, being possible to kill them with weapons and magic. Normally as a kid they can't control the power of the dragon crest until they become adults but it's possible for some Dragon Knights to control the dragon crest from a much younger age.

Draconic Aura

When the crest is activated, a blue aura will increase their power and defense making their skin harder than steel can be released. While on this state, all spells are useless against them, the only way to inflict damage is by surpassing their aura, typically through extremely powerful physical attacks. However, weapons not made from Orichalcum material cannot be used for long, as they will crumble even if made from the second strongest material in existence. An orichalcum blade that was made by the gods solely for the use of the dragon knights, the Demon Dragon Blade, the sword of choice of the dragon knights, as this self-repairing weapon was one of the very few weapons that could withstand their Draconic Aura. Normally passed down from one Dragon Knight to the next, after Baran's death, in a manner not unlike Dai's own sword, the Demon Dragon Blade accepted Dai as its new master.

Draconic Aura can be concentrated into a laser-like beam of pure energy which burns with the crest of the Dragon Knight. Hybrids can concentrate their aura in another part of the body, creating a powerful piercing blast.

Dragonoid

A pure Dragon Knight can break all boundaries between humans, demons and dragons by using their Dragon Fang accessory, gaining a great increase in power. While in this form, the Dragon Knight becomes ruthless having difficulty discriminating between friend and foe, and largely abandoning restraint as they focus on attacking fundamentally anything in their proximity, even going as far as attacking someone from the back. Dragonoids have the power to use the spell Doruora that is able to annihilate an entire continent. In this form, a Dragon Knight's blood turns a blue coloration like the blood of Darklings. Hybrid Dragon Knights can achieve a power similar to this one, if after inheriting a second crest, the user fuses both crests on their forehead, though in truth, their power far surpasses that of Pure Dragonoids.

Genetic Battle Memory

Each and every dragon knight has the battle memory experience of all those that precede them, best known as Combat Instincts. The Combat Instincts of a Dragon Knight is what makes them truly formidable, even against the most dangerous of opponents.

Gallery

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  Profile (Draconic Aura, Magic Sword, Crest Beam)

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  Profile (Dragonoid, Dragon Fang)

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  The Combat Instincts of the Dragon Knights

Trivia

• The only known cases of Dragon Knights are Baran and Dai, as such it is unknown if Dragon Knights can also be female.
• Because of his heritage Dai is technically 4/6 Human, and 1/6 Dragon and Darkling each.
• As confirmed in Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai (2020), a Human-Dragon Knight hybrid does have the ability to take on a Dragonoid form.