Dragons are cool, I've roleplayed a dragon before actually. I'm not really sure where dragons would come from or what abilities they would have in this roleplay - I guess the usual Bite/Claw/Tailsweep/Fire breath and flight? Or, I read a bit of FF lore somewhere, maybe in crisis core, that suggests monsters develop magical abilities by eating materia, or by eating smaller monsters which drank water contaminated with mako, so for character growth that would lend itself to gaining abilities be eating defeated enemies or eating 'jewels' (materia fragments) like Spike the dragon in MLP eats gemstones.
Sure, firecats are cool too. Red 13's weapon never made sense to me - how would a comb possibly increase his physical damage? - but he could also be built as a mage of any type.