The balloon is a vehicle in Dragon Quest IV. It allows the Chosen to traverse the world faster and reach certain areas not accessible terrestrially.
Appearances[]
Dragon Quest IV[]
In the past, humans used balloons to travel the world, but Estark destroyed all gas canisters, leaving only one buried with himself.
When the party first arrives in Riverton, they meet a mechanic who claims to have built a balloon, but is missing a key component, a gas that is lighter than the air. After the Chosen defeat Estark and retrieve the last gas canister from Estark's Crypt, the mechanic takes note of the seemingly useless object, recognising it as the component he was searching for, requesting it from the group. Thanks to the canister he completes his prototype balloon, then offering it to the party as a token of gratitude. The balloon is necessary to visit the Yggdrasil Tree as well as the Central Island, the site of The Stairway to Zenithia and the Doorway to Nadiria.
The scholar has expressed the desire to one day build more balloons in the future, and Torneko has expressed his own desire to both use and found the project, However since it was noted that the retrieved gas canister only contains a limited quantity of gas, it could either mean that the mechanic's dream is destined to fail or, now that he has studied the type of gas he was looking for firsthand, that he is now capable of reproducing it.
Considering that no such balloons can be seen in Dragon Quest V, the first option seems to be the most probable one.