Part 11: Interlude 3 - Ramza gets a huge dragon and its totally awesome

Shop upgrade! It's in at very weird time and very easy to miss. It doesn't include hats or helmets, leading to a schism in headwear and body armor.


Due to my astounding idiocy, I have to redo Lenalia Plateau's story battle to actually make this recruiting dragons thing possible.


The reward is marvelous. Norma de Sade picks up all these abilities off of a dead Wizard.


Mme. Eldena learns Invitation, which convinces an enemy to join the side of Ramza. Invited enemies become permanent allies after the battle.


Norma becomes a Summoner to learn Shiva to trivialize chapter 2.

During Chapter 2, she'll learn some tricks that trivialize the whole game.


The plateau has something interesting in random encounters from the south.


Dragons.


Dragons are cool. I'll take one.


(MA+20)%. A character needs the support ability Monster Talk to be able to use Talk Skill on a monster. Mediators have it innately, which is why Eldena isn't a Wizard right now.


Don't Move's incantation.


It takes so many tries that Eldena becomes so uncomfortably far behind in EXP and JP from missing that I reset before I get the dragon.


I reset and try again and I get the fucker first try.


Now that he's my buddy, the other monsters try to kill him. But since he's a huge dragon he tears the panther apart without effort.


YES.


A regular Dragon isn't that exciting, though, is it?


Igros sells new swords, bows, and now axes, which deal random damage and take two hands so they aren't good.

Their PA is a few steps above everything else, though, if you need something that cares about PA.


Anyway after a few weeks of walking around I have all the dragons I could want, including a Red Dragon.

That's right, before Chapter 1 is even over, I already have a Red Dragon.

I guess I'll explain how this is possible while a chorus of lesser wyrms beg to stay.


You see, monsters randomly lay eggs, which can hatch into other monsters of the same line. I say line because it can go up in or down in tiers. Monster lines have three tiers.


The first is weakest, second is stronger, and the third is a total badass. You can only go up one tier at a time, and it's random, so to get a Red Dragon here, I needed my Dragon to lay a Blue Dragon egg, and for that Blue Dragon to lay a Red Dragon egg and not another Dragon or Blue Dragon.


So, I took a Dragon from the plateau, wondered around Ivalice for a month, resetting every time I got a random battle, occasionally pruning my monster lists in hope of getting a Red Dragon.


Oops, sorry Delita. I didn't mean to try and kick you out.

The level a monster is when its born is taken from one of your units. I was scared the Red Dragon would be level 3 after Delita instead of 8 like Ramza.


But it all worked out and I have a Red Dragon. It's totally awesome.

Hold on...


You can destroy eggs to prevent a birth in the first place.


Let's take him on fights! It's so awesome having a Red Dragon around!


Even if his lightning breath attack is under attack by several typos at once, he's still the best.


His default name is boring, so it's time for a cooler name!


And that's how you can get a Red Dragon in chapter 1. A Red Chocobo is probably far more dangerous but Red Dragons have a certain style to them, you know? No one expects cadets to be buddies with a huge fucking dragon.

And guess what? The Death Corps are gonna have to deal with this thing.