A player in my saga wants to play a Bjornaer who will eventually achieve a dragon (chimera) inner heartbeast (see HoH:MC).
Now, what combination of creatures would produce a dragon? My first guess is (Lizard or Salamander) + Bat. But perhaps my understanding of Mythic Europe's dragons is faulty and tainted by too many modern rpg tropes. Any suggestions?
Well, nothing says dragons have to have "wings". What part of the "dragon" concept does your player want to push? If he wants the "dragon fire", he should go for the mystery of the Anima, fire. Then he could add the power "Dragon's wings", a flight power with wings of fire as a visual effect (p33, Mystery Cults). If you want a more "monstrous" heartbeast, Lizard + Bear = lizard features + bear size, claws, and teeth. Add wings, again, by acquiring a Power(p33). Don't forget that the Inner Heartbeast should be refined several times. Think about the end product, what you want the Dragon to look like once you're "done". Then look at the Resonant Bonus each form gets you. It adds up. Choose wisely.
Hi,
Let's see.
If the character comes from Egypt, we could conceivably start off with a crocodile.
Then add bat wings as a chimera!
That's kind of dragonny.
Anyway,
Ken
Snakes is another decent starter with dragons being the Great Serpents...
I agree - a snake would probably be the best starting point in terms of "personality" and "mythic resonance" to evolve into a dragon.
However, there's the issue of the anatomy (probably this was not too clear in my first post). Is a dragon supposed to have wings? Legs (2 or 4)? 4 legs and 2 wings seems impossible to get as a chimaera starting from a snake. Though perhaps a chimera is not bound to have "the same pieces or fewer" as the starting creatures (e.g. it could have two pairs of bat legs and one of bat wings)?
I looked for old (17th century or earlier, all the way back to Erodotus) bestiaries, and what I could find was the following.
Virtually all dragons have a serpentine body and a crowned head.
Most dragons seem to have wings (always bat like), although by no means not all. I've read a description (can't find it again, but I seem to recall no later than 13th century, probably earlier) saying that it's the lightness of the dragon's venom that allows it to fly. This sounds cool, or, rather, hot! The fiery venom of the dragon is, by Aristotelian physics, lighter than air, so propels the dragon upwards without need of wings. About half the dragons I've seen have legs. Curiosly, in these old pictures most have only two legs, and I've seen extremely few of those with four legs also having wings.
So, right now, I'm inclined towards a serpent/snake/asp as outer heartbeast, either:
adding a bat (two legs and two wings) as the second heartbeast through the mystery of the chimera and lots of +size initiations or
just adding size and either choosing an anima inner heartbeast (fire?) or even better choosing a mystery of the epitome (with the dragon being the epitome of serpenthood, so to speak - what would be the strongest characteristic in this case?).
Historically/mythically, dragons exists both with and without wings and/or with zero, two and four legs so i guess its your or your players choice(as i see you have mostly figured out yourself as well 
).
And either 1 or 2 sounds ok.
First of all, the player needs to define whether the heartbeast is going to a firebreath or a poisonous spit, and whether is going to have wings and legs. If fire is wanted, the anima mystery of fire on a lizard or snake HB is probably appropriate. If not, the Venomous quality of snakes and lizards suffices. If four legs are wanted, make a chimera between lizard/snake and bear. If 2 legs and wings are wanted, make a chimera between snake and bat. if four legs and wings are wanted, either a chimera between lizard and bat, or snake/lizard and bear, with picking wings as a power of lfight with a wing visual effect.
Personally, I'd go with a snake/lizard and bear chimera, since it's one of the best chimera combo available anyway.
Ah! Brilliant idea! How would you bring that into being (preferably in a way that does not make the whole heartbeast "magically resistable"?)
Easy! It's going to be Minor Power (P33, Mystery Cults), because it only affects you. It is going to be (my WAG, your mileage may vary) a Rego(Muto)animal effect, constant. The Muto is cosmetic, so it won't add a magnitude, and might even lower it, if flight stops working if the wings are bound or broken. I wouldn't worry too much about the level of the "spell", because all you need for your lab total is (level of effect) +1, and the ease factor is 21, which is pretty easy.
Hmmm, but wouldn't that 1) cause warping and 2) make the character unable to hit anyone protected by magic resistance (like a sword wielded through a ReTe effect)? I'm actually trying to avoid both drawbacks.
I don't think it will cause warping, it's not a spell, that's just the "framework" we are using, and while the power is "constant", it only affects the heartbeast so it really isn't, and the Mystery cult book was pretty good about followthrough, so I think the author would have mentioned Warping. I could see it either way, and it really depends on what is a "powerful magic effect" in your saga. I'm comfortable with 8th mag. being the cutoff, and this power would be well under that. As to the second part, I would say no, just like creatures with a Magical Might score can use their claws and bite. It would be different if you had "flaming claws", for example, but this doesn't affect your attacks.