DRAGONS
Variations on the basic dragon theme - reptiles that are either large, dangerous or both - are found all over the world: the Lambton worm from England, the Long from China, even the Rainbow Serpent of the Australian aboriginies can be seen as a dragon. It's generally thought that a good deal of dragon myths were inspired by dinosaur fossils, and the firey breath attributed to European dragons could be an exaggeration of spitting cobras' venom.
Bahamut --
Blue Dragon --
Bone Dragon --
Demon Dragon --
Double Dragon --
Dragon --
Dragon Zombie --
Fire Lizard --
Flying Dragon --
Green Dragon --
Nept Dragon --
Red Dragon --
Salamander --
Sea Dragon --
Thunder Dragon --
Tiamat --
Two-Headed Dragon --
White Dragon --
Wyvern --
Wyrm --
Yellow Dragon
These are basically generic European-style dragons (as opposed to Oriental-style, like the coloured dragons from FF3).
IMAGES: The Welsh flag, showing a European dragon
Generally speaking, European dragons were associated with fire and lightning and Oriental dragons with clouds and water, but the idea of dividing dragons up into different groups with different types of breath - and colour-coding them to match - originates in Dungeons and Dragons. The blue/lightning, green/poison gas, red/fire and white/ice system is taken directly from D&D, as is the idea of dragons that use ice and poisonous gas as weapons (as I said, fire and lightning were associated with dragons, although there was no distinction made between "fire dragons" and "lightning dragons"). FF3's yellow dragon, however, doesn't have a breath-based attack - unlike D&D's yellow dragon, which breathes scorching air and sand. The FF yellow dragon could've been taken from Chinese mythology - a yellow dragon was said to have introduced writing to the Emperor Fu Shi - or Square might have just given a random colour to another generic dragon.
Later FF games divert from D&D's colour/power patterns - by making the blue dragons ice-based and the yellow dragons lightning-based, for example.
IMAGES: The Welsh flag, showing a European dragon -- Illustration of the Buddhist patriarch Hui-Neng and a Chinese dragon from the 1914 book Superstitions en Chine -- A blue dragon from D&D -- A green dragon from D&D -- A red dragon from D&D -- A white dragon from D&D -- A yellow dragon from D&D
Two-headed dragons seem to be few and far between in mythology. At the bottom of this entry, I've included links to pictures of the only examples I know of: the amphisbaena of Greek mythology and the dragon ridden by the Goetia demon Volac. On a side note, the double dragon could be a reference to the Taito game of the same name.
IMAGES: Illustration of the amphisbaena from a 13th century bestiary (MS. Bodley 764) -- Illustration of Volac from Dictionairre Infernal
The bone dragon is probably based around the dracolich from D&D ("an undead creature resulting from the unnatural transformation of an evil dragon", according to the Monsterous Manual. Erm, right. It goes on to say that "The mysterious Cult of the Dragon practices the powerful magic necessary for the creation of the dracolich, though other practitioners are also rumored to exist"). The dragon zombie appears to be an extention of this idea.
IMAGE: A dracolich
In the West, dragons are often associated with demons (the Devil is sometimes referred to as a dragon in the Bible, and Medieval depictions of demons often depict them as resembling bipedal dragons) and thunder (basically an extension of fire breath, as lightning was, in turn, connected with fire)
IMAGES: 1626 woodcut showing a dragon-like Satan -- The Welsh flag, showing a European dragon
The wyvern (derived from "viper") was a creature used in Medieval heraldry. It resembled a dragon with wings and two hind legs, but no front legs. "Wyrm" is simply an archaic spelling of "worm", which was used to describe any kind of crawling animal - caterpillers, snails, even serpents and legless dragons, which is what the spelling is usually used for now. FF1's wyrm has legs and wings, however.
IMAGES: Image of a wyvern from the Heraldic Dictionary -- 9th century carving of a "wyrm" dragon from Ramsbury church in Wiltshire, England
Back to...DRAGON, FLYING DRAGON
BLUE DRAGON, GREEN DRAGON, RED DRAGON, WHITE DRAGON, YELLOW DRAGON
DOUBLE DRAGON, TWO-HEADED DRAGON
BONE DRAGON, DRAGON ZOMBIE
DEMON DRAGON, THUNDER DRAGON
WYVERN, WYRM
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