As there are more and more players here who don't have any experience with DOM1 and little with DOM2, as they just got the game, I though I could shed some light on some of the more obscure aspects of DOM, which aren't found in other games in a similar fashion -
TRANSFORMATION this time ..
This spell (alteration-7, nature-3, 8 gems) transform the caster into a random monster.
Tried with Turmoil-3/Luck-3 Pangaea and Gift of Health up. Results wheren't particularly impressive. Looks like you either get a "medium" monster with only misc. and at best a head slot, or a foul spawn and feeblemindedness (most foul spawn have full slots available, though. Maybe some of them have even more, but I haven't seen such). I'm not even shure if spawn has zero upkeep.
First volunteer was the Jade Amazone Gy, which I ordered to transform to get rid of the upkeep costs - she tried several times, but ...
A Chimera is nice fighting commander, but nearly useless as a mage, so on to the 2nd try ..
Boar
.. being a boar was way to dangerous, so
Black Hawk was the next ..
Ice Drake wasn't sufficient too, so
foul spawn and feeblemindedness ended her career for the time being. Mind the fact, though, that there was no special message, she just transformed into a foul spawn and "went out" ...
Umbra, another Jade Amazone, obviously did something wrong, and ended up as
feebleminded spawn on the very first try.
Other victims of their gods curiosity where the
Dryad Cybele, now a Black Hawk and the
Jade Amazone who turned into a Griffon. A freshly hired Druid turned into an Ice Drake - nobody bothered to ask for his name before, and afterwards it didn't matter
So all in all there doesn't seem to be much variety, and most of the funs seems to come from the nerve-wrecking tension, if your mage blew himself totally or if he's still at least somewhat useful. A heavy investment of gems to get some commander to nature-3 and have him transform into a fearsome fighting machine wouldn't pay off most times, though.
Sorry all pics gone - had remove them from the server