[Torg] In the Meantime

[Kansas Jim]

Jerry writes:

[I asked where the mage was from]

> The mage would be Tharkholian.

Ah, that makes it very simple then! I knew there were cyberdragons
written up in the game material but my Tharkold blind spot prevented
me from thinking to look there....

If it's a Tharkold mage, all he needs then is to summon a Cygon,
a cybernetic dragon native to Tharkold (dragons which the techno-
demons initially cybered up. Some escaped from Tharkoldu control
and set up their own demenses, so presumably their offspring have
been cybered by slave Race/Tharkoldu who have been dominated by
a Cygon.)

> with implants.  And what implants should I put on it?  One I think would 
> be an intergrated plasma field blaster?  And added armor to simulate the 
> artificial look and feel.  Like Exodermal and interdermal plating.  
> Maybe some diffrax and screens.

Cygons have lost their natural breath weapon so they come with a
Thav-7/Nu plasma gun cybermounted in their mouths. The writeup in
CoTharkold doesn't include any cyberarmor, they have a natural TOU+10
armor rating so cyberarmor would be superfluous.

[...]

> So, control would be good.  Since we are establishing this as a true 
> cyber dragon then I would have to use the enchanted knowledge.  I guess 
> I can take a look at the other charm spells and adapt them.  However I 
> did not really see a "holding" type of spell.  So, it would be a 
> Divination type of spell?  A ward of some sort?  Anyways it will be a 
> second and third spell I would have to figure out.

You could probably model a protection spell off of an existing spell
like Animal Shield, just change it from Earthly to Enchanted and if
powerful enough it would prevent the dragon from attacking anyone within
the protection circle.

Though that and a couple other similar protection spells all work
backwards from the standard image of a magician summoning/conjuring
up something dangerous, the Torg spells all have the magician inside
the protective circle rather than the summoned/conjured creature being
a captive inside the circle when it appears. It might not be possible
to do that, at least not easily, due to the Principle of Definition.
If you cast an Alteration/Enchanted protection circle spell and then
cast a Conjuration/Enchanted spell to bring forth a creature within
the circle that might be considered two Enchanted spells working on the
same target and you can't do that so one would cancel out the other.
Could be bad if the conjuration cancels out your protection spell!

Hm, for that matter if you created a creature from nothing (rather than
summoning it) you'd run into the same problem trying to charm it -
because your Conjuration/Enchanted spell is still running (ie, the
creature exists) the Alteration/Enchanted spell you would use to try
and charm it would run into the same limitation!

The way around this would be to use a different pattern AK, you could
probably use Folk for the protection spell (ie, the mage is protecting
himself).

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html