How to become a dragon, in 1 easy casting

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

My specialty as a magus is animal transformations, spending most of my time as a bear (heartbeast), wolf, falcon, shark, or giant (+2 size) versions of each. Usually my creation of these spells is combined with study of corpses/ live specimens.

Now I want to learn the spell to turn into a dragon.

I have a dragon skeleton and (intact) heart to study, I can combine this with the study and dissection of various lizards and similar creatures to get an idea of how the 'innards' might work.

But we're not sure how many magnitudes the huge size of the beast is going to add to spell creation.

My thinking is that an actual dragon is a hugely magical creature, who's innards are it's own business and a live specimen of which I am unlikely to be able to study in enough detail without getting eaten...

but, my spell isn't turning me into a dragon as such, it's turning me into a dragon-like creature. Which really is just a huge lizard with wings. I won't be able to breathe fire, I won't be able to fly as both of those are magical abilities possessed by dragons, but I should be able to turn into a 250 foot long dragon impersonator.

Anyone got an idea of what magnitudes would be added for the size?

Once I know that I can consider tailoring the spell to add effects such as fire breathing and flight etc.

2

Change a human into a bird or fish is level 20 base, level 10 for land animal.
Although I'd go with the animal guidlines of radical change, base 25 and a requisite if you want "abilities"

I'd then add 1 magnitude for each size level past horse size (2) (mist of change allows toad to horse changes all with the same base)

So your looking at size 8, which is +30 levels. starting you at base 50, then add you magnitudes for durration, putting you at least at 55.

Adding "abilities" i'd say your looking at 60+ with requisites.

3

Kicking it to a 50+ spell outside of an item, also makes it a Ritual now too. If I am not mistaken.

4

Which is somewhat fitting!

Though I havent made the calculations myself.

5

That seems a fitting conclusion.

I quite like the idea ofd it being a ritual actually. Turning into a dragon shouldn't be easy or everyone would be doing, but when you do need to kill absolutely everyone in the room (castle, town, etc) then a ritual to turn yourself into a massive fire breathing, flying dragon should do nicely.

And i REALLY think you should use pre-reqs to fly and breath fire. It just wouldn't be the same otherwise. All the other dragons would laugh at you.

6

If I want to make the spell any time in the next 40 years I'll have to leave out the prerequisites for now.

Instead I could get some items or spells made that allow me to breath fire and fly.. then I'd also be able to fly around as a fire breathing bear :stuck_out_tongue:

7

hmm, thinking about this.. i'd be better off making a number of spells..

i) turn into (size 2) dragon shaped beast.. lvl 10

ii) grow to size 8

'Beast of outlandish size' gives +1 for lvl 15, plus 1 magnitude per size level as discussed earlier, so lvl 45

drop the range from touch to personal to make it a lvl 40 spell.

iii) fly

iv) breath fire

(not worked out levels for the last 2 yet)

Still high level spells for me, but designing a lvl 40 spell, and a few lower level additional spells is going to take a lot less time than a lvl 50+ ritual!

edit: thinking about it some more.. the first spell, instead of turning into a size 2 beast, I could add three magnitudes and turn into a size 5 beast. (and at that level could design the spell in a season of lab time).

Meaning the second spell could be 3 magnitudes less, so just a lvl 30 spell...

it'd still take about 2 years of lab time dedicated to just this one effect, but I might have my dragon in time for the next tribunal!

8

flying, and breathing fire are both going to be base 25 MuAn spells (look at the animal guidelines) with a requisite...

base 25, +1/requisite, +durration...Minimum level 35 spell. Probally 40 so you dont have to concentrate...

On a side note...Breathing fire - what kinda damage would the +1 requsite give you? Pillum of fire level? more? less? how would you design that?

9

Rather than actually breathing fire, I could just redesign Pilum of Fire so that it comes from the dragons mouth, and would be just lvl 20 to cast.

And as for flying.. Something along the lines of Rego Animal with an Aurum Pre-req? Again I don't need to make the dragons body capable of flight, simply to magically fly, whilst in that body.

I'd be a sham of a dragon, it'd be all smoke and mirrors to give me the appearance of being a dragon, whilst really only being a huge, fire breathing, flying lizard, but.. who'd know :stuck_out_tongue:

10

You'd know. I mean, sure, you'd know that you did wreck the castle and killed your enemies and their servants and brought fear to the region, but you, deep inside, will still know that you had to resort to dirty underhand illusions. The greatest prize of all eluded you to the last, not because you tried and failed but because you chose not to try at all...

Go back to the lab. Look, I'll even lend my assistance for as many seasons as it takes. Strive for the great prize or never again look yourself straight in the mirror.

And yes, that's an Infernal Influence total of 12 to induce Pride (appearing as Driven) +2.

11

I'm likely very wrong in this. BUt isn't this going a bit beyond the realm of a "spell"?

Besides the Dragon form that is?

Would a spell be able to ape two entirely seperate situations? The Draogn Form, and the Fire-breathing? Even if it did do more than one thing, would it not make sense that both things had to be in the same general area of effect?

I ask because even rituals generally focus on one thing. storm control. raising a tower, teleportation...

What's coming across to me here is a magic item, not a single spell. To get multiple effects like this is going to require either multiple spells cast, or a item that casts the effects all simultaneously[which is of course entirely plausible].

And with proper bonuses, and help, you can get to those levels a LOT sooner than "40 years down the road".

12

That's what Requisites are for. Ignem for Fire Breathing, Aurum for Flight (Vim for being magical, if you were using Creo to create one whole cloth), etc. As these are all related to a dragon, a spell to change into a dragon or a spell to create one whole clothe would be abel to handle it. It's when you want a spell to do 2 entirely different things that it's easier to do it as seperate spells.

So our spell , Muto Corpus, would have Animal (free), Ignem (+1), and Aurum (+1) requisites, plus lots of Magnitudes for Size (At Size +8, you could easily play "Godzilla Vs. Tokyo" in Paris, you know...)

As for the firey breathe, use Arc of Firey Ribbons as a reference.
For flying, Wings of Soaring Wind is good.

Steve

13

Not to argue, well I lie; to argue a bit with that statement.

Even Winds of Change which is level 60 only has the base effect of changing targets into an animal.

The thing I am trying to get across is that Shape change, and fire creation are not even in the realm of similarity of the same spell. Requisites only apply to a spell to get the end fucntion of the spell.

No matter how you rationalize requisites, it's not happening . Anymore than I could likely create a high level spell that lets me tunnel through the earth, pop out at will and sling lightning bolts.

The idea is funationally the same. In the case of the Dragon Form, one is a Muto Corpus, and the other is Creo Ignem(For flame), versus my tunneling human[varying techs plus Terram] with a static personality[Creo Arurm]... so to speak.

If being a Dragon REQUIRED Flame as a requisite. You could use it as a requisite, but it still wouldn't allow you to breathe flame.

The sheer fact of the matter is, this little charade is going to require two seperate spells to get the desired effect.

Now if you want to change to the physical form of a Dragon that has living Flame for a skin? THAT, I would buy as a Muto Corpus with both Creo and Ignem as requisites. Required ones as a matter of fact, both adding a magnitutde to the spell no less(PG.114)

NOw creating a Drqgon WHOLE CLOTH, not changing into one. is a difffernt matter entirely. UNder Creo Animal it's a Level 50 effect with requyisites adding to create the extra desired powers.

The only reason it works this way for that effect is that you are trying to creat ethe animal itself in it's entirity, which alows for the requisites to make up the extra powers. The proposed Human to dragon is not a creation whole cloth, but a mutation of an existing form.

Magic Item
Muto Corpus
Change a Human into Land Animal Lvl.10 [Animal Req]
Change a human into a Fish or Bird Lvl.20 [Animal Requisite]
Base 30 [?] Lvl 20 +5 for ANimal, [+5 for animal bird style mix?]
Range :stuck_out_tongue:ersonal [+0]
Duration :Concentration [+1]
Target :Individual [+0]
Modifiers
Frequency :1 Use p/day [+0]
Maintains Concentration :+5
Size :+8
Total Level :75
Effect - Change to phsyically become as a Dragon.

At best guess to assume the form of a dragon. But it doesn't change the stats of the person changing form, who may very well be incapacitated by the size of the beast.

The Animal form[Pg.132] also does not appear to take into account the possibility of a fantastic creature form. Making allowances only for common animals in the effects lists.

This also does not take into account the power of flight, or the ability to breathe fire.

Seems to me a nice little Imaginem spell mixed with a flight spell and flame creation spell in a magic item would get the same results over all, for far less experience, and would be far easier to achieve.

14

Don't mind the typos too much. I'm not a great typer, and I don't usually spellcheck

15

To make the spell easier, I'll be casting it from my heartbeast form, so rather than looking at the human to animal guidelines, a better comparison is:

Transformation of the Ravenous Beast to the Torpid Toad.
lvl: 25
R: voice
D: sun
T: individual

I can drop the range by 2 to personal to make it lvl 15.

This spell changes an animal (no size limit specified) into a toad (size -8 ).
So in practice, it could be cast on an elephant (size +4) and have an effect of changing it's form AND reducing it's size by 12 levels.

I'll come back to that in a minute.

Beast of Outlandish Size, lets you grow an animal by +1 size, and is level 15.

Beast of Miniscule Proportions, lets you shrink an animal by -2 size, and is level 20. That's a one magintude higher spell, and one magnitude greater change than the Outlandish Size spell, which ties in with what's been accepted earlier in this thread that to boost the change in size, you add one magnitude per size level.

What this indicates is that to grow an animal by a size takes the same magnitude of Muto Animal spell as to shrink it by a size.

So, going back to the Torpid Toad.. If for a level 15 spell you can change the form of a beast, AND shrink it by 12 sizes, it follows that a similar level 15 spell would let you change the form of a beast, and grow it by 12 levels.

So in theory, I could turn from a bear (size +1) into a humungous dragon (size +13), for sun duration in a level 15 spell.

I'm sure that's wrong.. but why is it wrong?

16

The standard animal target is of size +1 (a pony) at most.

17

Even then, it's still a change of 9 size levels from +1 to -8

Would still let me be a size +10 dragon..

18

You still run into the lilely problem that the Animal effects do not allow for mythical creatures. A Dragon doesn't truly qualify as an Animal per se. MYthical ANimal tes, normal, no.

At least I would not think so at any rate. Too many mixed qualities, Lizard, size, wings.. espeically the lizard and wings part.

I don't think there are any spells of precedent that have shown a change from non-mythical being to mythical being.

And even if it did, I'd rule some heavy usage of Vim to be involved. Adding yet another prereq to the whole situation.

Still say it would be over all easier to do it through Illusions and a magic item. 5 senses illusion, flight, and flame creation in an item.

I just don't think the combination of all traits. Size. appearance,flight, and flame would be pssible with a single spell cast.

19

That's what Animae Magic is all about: creating faeries and turning things, plants and animals into faeries on a temporary basis. Of course, it's a Mystery, not plain old Hermetic magic. And you don't exactly control what you'll get.

20

Ryce

Its most definately NOT a lvl 15 spell. Nice try though.

The reason its not is because of the little disclaimer at the start of the spells section in the main Ars book. Specifically the bit that says the rules can't cover every situation and sometimes the GM will have to rule on it if the lvl of the spell if the rules make it too high or too low.

Realistically if you want to go from vanilla flavour ryce (in bear or human form) to a dragon size lizard (or even + flight and fire, a real dragon) then its going to be a ritual and probably around lvl 55.

If you want to turn yourself into a small dragon, say size +1, then use a spell to grotesquely boost your size, that'll be two spells.

Either way its going to make it very hard to chuck out in combat (which is what i KNOW you want). This is appropriate, after all you can't have very powerful effects without very powerful spells.

For the growth spell, use Beast of Outlandish size as you did but add +1 magnitude per +1 size increase. i.e. to go up by 7 size categories you need to add an extra +6 magnitudes (the first +1 being part of the base spell). This would make it a lvl 45 spell.

For the mini-dragon spell use a standard shape change spell (e.g. Transformation of the Ravenous Beast to the Torpid Toad.) but add +2 magnitudes to change to a mythical beastie. This would make it a lvl 25 spell at personal range.

What do the boards think of these? do they sound right?