I am rrally not. People arr regularly swayed by offers of immortality of turning into vampires and chaos. And thousands of heros of the empire are famous for sacrificing their lives to hurt chaos. I sincerely doubt you couldn't find a dozen people from millions available to the empire.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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Sure. But consider this. This is a world where the empire is regularly invaded by millions of being bent on their destruction fairly frequently. The sheer usefullness of the dragon force would be too useful not to use.
The people who are swayed by the offers of Chaos and vampires are not the ones you want to give vast powers (and terrifying mutations) to and the people who die heroic deaths are not the ones who would agree to having magic pumped into them to turn into horrible mutants (from the perspective of the average imperial citizen). The ven diagrams do not touch because they are on opposite ends of the emotional and cultural spectrum. 'surrender your humanity' and 'be a hero of the Empire of Man' respectively.
Sure but i refuse to beilve they couldn't find some peasant willing to do it for money if nothing else. They have millions of people to choose from.
I will grant there might be a theoretical peasant who will turn into a dragon for material gain and then not go mad from the sudden transformation into an inhuman monster. The question is how do you find him or her among millions of their fellows and is it worth the risk considering the consequences of failure (for the empire a mad possibly Chaos Dragon, for the colleges being known to have instigated that).
Yes. The dragons are a massive force multipliers. The empire is always pressed by military threats. Even a single dragon per provenance is well worth the effort.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
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Add "we can trust that someone with that much power" and it gets even harder.
Ericwinter
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There seems to be a disconnect here. What everybody keeps saying, and you keep ignoring, is that the simplest fact of the matter is that those people willing to become dragons permanently--and sure, there'd be plenty for all sorts of reasons--are not the kind of people those who can make them into dragons would be willing to use. Mainly because due to it being culturally viewed as an unwholesome and unnatural act, those who would do it are essentially willing to do unwholesome and unnatural things, which is not the sort of person you want to have such power. Sure, some people would do it for money, but why would you trust someone like that? Sure, some people don't mind being mutated and transformed for a large amount of power, but why would you trust someone like that? The only reasons it's even being done by us is because one: the transformation is not meant to be permanent, and two: the cultural differences makes it possible for us to find someone willing who doesn't believe it's inherently a bad thing.
And a single mad dragon could savage an army and destroy the reputation of the Colleges of Magic, potentially ruining the lives of hundreds of wizards and crippling the Empire's ability to fight in the future. I find it reasonable that the people in charge are not willing to take the chance given the risks.
You would do it for having dragons to throw at enemy armies.
Finding people who are willing to turn into dragons and which you are willing to turn into dragons is a hard and rather unnecessary project, with all effort spent on it better spent on finding more wizards that can turn into dragons and do a lot of other cool things besides. Not to mention that Kadmon Battle Altar might have less obvious downsides that Lord Magister mentioned.
Ericwinter
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Sure, if I could actually trust, one hundred percent, that I would actually have that dragon and it would be on my side. That's the fundamental difference. This isn't a case of "do this and you have dragons', it's a case of "do this, and you might have dragons, but most likely you've either given your enemy one, or just set them loose to wreak havoc and destruction wherever they please". The calculus becomes very, very different at that point.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Okay, you do it, it works but the dragon dude is left permanently a dragon, less than a year later he goes insane and goes on a rampage destroying part of Altdorf before being brought down by the collective might of the colleges of magic incuring huge magical collateral damage.
The colleges of magic face a huge back lash, political opinion pushes towards the full banning of magic (this doesn't go any where) public sentiment against wizards becomes that they are little better than chaos cultists or witches. Newly found magic users are burned with almost certainty.
Congratulations you've set back the work of a hundred years of the colleges trying to gain acceptance and push their reputation. Less wizards now are recruited and you've nigh permanently reduced the forces of empire. Also that battle altar probably gets destroyed.
Now i'm not saying this will for sure happen, but a scenario like this is perfectly plausible.
When dealing with a superstitious medieval empire you have to take into account much more than just the force potential, you have to look at what consequences exist for failure, the backlash for success because there will be some.
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@BoneyM, Old World Armoury says that magical weapons and armour are immune to mundane damage. Is that the case in Divided Loyalties? If so, does it extend to all magical items or just some? One idea I had was to enchant the walls (or perhaps simply the gates) of Karak Eight Peaks with petty magic (for ease and speed) to make them indestructible by most means.
Don't forget that after turning into a dragon their personality will change. They will have a dragons brain and experience the world the way a dragon does with a dragons instincts. This will effect their personality and thought process. Meaning even if you found the perfect candidate there is guarantee they would still be the perfect candidate after the transformation. For one battle it probably would not matter to much but what about after they are transformed for a day? A week? A year? Each transformation is a ticking time bomb. So how do you deal with that? More dragons? that just escalates the problem?
I'd wager it meant 'immune to combat wear-and-tear', rather than 'literally impossible to break by any means'. Either way, no, that won't work.
Chlof
Her Ladyship
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Are you really expecting a late medieval/early renaissance empire to be able to sort through millions of people in order to find dozens with the right combination of fanatic, martyring loyalty and rock solid mental stability? I don't even think a modern country could do that.
I'm a bit confused. Did I miss a QoG on this? WHat we know about the spell from the tabletop says that when Transformation of Kadon is dispelled the subject turns back into their original form.
I think there are suggestions in some sources that different High Magic spells have different amounts of each Wind in depending on the specifics of the spell. Not all High Magic might have all the Winds in as well.
I think there are suggestions in some sources that different High Magic spells have different amounts of each Wind in depending on the specifics of the spell. Not all High Magic might have all the Winds in as well.
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Please don't try. That's one of the ways the thread consistently annoys Boney.
Ericwinter
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Yes, Boney has stated that dispelling simply keeps someone from being able to turn back, not forces them back for... I actually can't remember his reasons. I'm fairly sure he explained it at some point, but it slips my mind. @BoneyM You mind explaining?
I believe it's that the lingering magic is what allows turning back into a human in the first place. So the transformation spell is basically two permanent spells, human->dragon and dragon->human, linked together.
My idea of how the magic works is that it would take just as much to go from dragon back to human as it did to go from human to dragon, instead of there being a convenient snap-back effect. And the subject won't be an Amber Mage that can handle the transformation back themselves, so the enchantment needs to provide that means.
Ericwinter
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...Hmm. If that's true, it really does make the whole "permanently trapped" thing not much of a problem at all, since we would just have to get the reverse spell cast, since it already exists. Which means we may need a reverse altar... unless it comes with, but I doubt we would be that lucky.
So it is basically two separate spells. I wonder if we can just turn off one part in case of it being dispelled. Or why they don't just load two seperate spells into one altar that can each be cast on their own, though that might be more difficult than just combining them.
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My personal reason was that I didn't want it exposed or visible to the local dragon population. But I guess a squat underground tower could have been possible? *shrug* I made it an altar and got no arguments in favor of a different size category. Everyone was just arguing wether dragon or no dragon.