An excerpt from Kaska’s journal—

What are the premises of my mission? I was forced to ask myself that question yesterday, while visiting old friends in Bastok. Upon my departure, my dear friend, whose name I shall keep secret, chased me to the Air Travel Agency, her eyes full of tears.

“Why, why do you always leave?” she asked.

I hesitated for a moment, but only a moment, feeling confident in the obviousness of the answer. I was an adventurer after all; travel was part of my trade. “There is more yet to be done,” I said.

“What more?” she wanted to know. “You have mastered your lance, reclaimed the relics of your order, and pushed your strength to no known end. What could there possibly be left to do?”

My answer was forthright, automatic: “Because I don’t know, I must continue on until I do.”

It was a true enough answer, I suppose, at the time, and with a genuflection she was forced to recognize the duty of a knight in what seemed to her the wanderings of a freelancer. But as I took my place on the airship, I could not let the issue go. As it bore me toward Jeuno, I considered my answer and found that, prepared on such short notice, it was not full enough to convince my own ears. In truth, I did have an idea of what else must be done, but I hadn’t yet phrased it to myself, and so my answer was not entirely accurate.

What else might be done before my wanderings are satisfied? To answer this, I decided I must go back to the basis of my quest, whereupon I began this composition. Thus my quest begins some three-hundred years ago, during the height of dragon populous.

During that time, there were far more dragons than there are now; so many, in fact, that scholars are inclined to refer to that era as the Time of the Wyrm, for at no other age were there so many dragons. There were so many in fact, that they came to strife with the nations of Vana’diel, as those selfsame principalities and powers were burgeoning, and growing into the ancient territories of dragons. These were times of conflict, strife, and unease, as the peoples of Vana’diel grew in terror of dragons, and worse than that, of Dragoons.

Dragoons were the heralds, champions, and guardians of the dragons—the literal meaning of Dragoon being Ryukishi (in the Far East) or Dragon Knight.

The agency of Dragoon power I need not explain in detail; suffice it to say, a Dragoon is created when a worthy soul is bonded to that of a particularly brilliant dragon, forging a link between the two. What matters, in all this answer, follows: in a time when dragons flourished, so did Dragoons; the Dragoons of old were mighty heroes, linked to ancient and powerful wyrms, and knowing the secrets of dragon power, were capable of great and terrible miracles. But up amongst them rose a vile element of dark Dragoons, who had bonded with dragons bearing the unholy sign, and together with them they worked to unseat the masters of Vana’diel’s nations.

Using the actions of these few as a pretext, the governments of Vana’diel acted in concert to drive out the dragons, and the Dragoons who came to their defense became enemies of the people, and so too were cast out. In the war that resulted, nearly all of Vana’diel’s dragons were erased by a spectacular deployment of magical super-weapons, ancient spells, and armies of dragon slayers. The Dragoons themselves were wiped out to a man, and all but vanished from history. From that time until now, the nations of Vana’diel have kept a close eye on the number of dragons, hunting them with ardor and often slaying them as young, to prevent them from growing into full-fledged wyrms. So too have the number of Dragoons been limited, for without a dragon, there cannot be a Dragoon.

Therein lies my answer: lost with these Dragoons were the ancient fighting arts which were theirs, and which exist now only in the most rudimentary, basic of forms, but which I have sought earnestly since the time of my inception to recover and restore. The original Dragoon system, which sought to emulate the fighting style of the dragon, consisted of several parts: in evidence were more than three variations of the Jump technique, draconic powers borrowed from their specific hosts (and which may have varied as certain dragons offered unique powers), and different corollary magics, like the wyvern-based magic Khocha sometimes demonstrates. Dragoons were also the premiere dragon-slayers of their day, and while remnants of that charge strongly exist within them even now, history hints at them having a battle ability which was known and feared even by the greatest of wyrms.

In essence, the premises of my mission are thus: to restore the Dragoon system to its former stature; to make a place of honor for Dragoons in Vana’diel.

As you well know, I am the last Dragoon of my generation. All the others who took up the lance during the Dragoon resurgence have died or fallen from the path until only I remain, and of that blackest of days, I am the only survivor. I do this in tribute of those who walked this path and lost their way in the night. I must carry on where they left off—the task of restoring the Dragoon order has fallen to me. Khocha, this armor, and these techniques bind me into a chain of history stretching back to time immemorial. Were I to cast aside my armet, the chain would be broken. Were I to relax, satisfied with my progress, the chain would not reach on and up into the future. Thus I strive onward.

—Kaska, 884 Crystal Era