Shadow Warlocks and Passing the Torch

[Curbludgeon]

Shadow Warlocks of at least 7th level using the Pass the Torch Elite Talent can effectively temporarily turn a target person into a Nightbane. In that the S.W. does not themselves possess a Morphus a "brand new Morphus" is created, with any time constraints mentioned within the talent writeup seemingly more in reference to delays at the table instead of time spent within the setting. The effect is made permanent if the Talent user dies while manifesting the talent.

How might this be used to allow a Shadow Warlock to become a Nightbane? This thread necessarily posits the death is that of the S.W.'s body, and that they may transfer their consciousness to the newly Became Nightbane before ending the effect. Via the Mimic Spell Talent a Shadow Warlock in a megaversal game might be able to piggyback off of an Earth Warlock's casting of Transferrence of Essence and Intellect, so as to place themselves in a Morphus of suitable material. What other effects might be so leveraged? Note that there are issues of consent involved in the Passing the Torch talent such that the target being incapacitated voids the effect, so some sort of extramundane coercion is generally required. Finally, while Pass the Torch lists "mortal races without psychic abilities" as valid recipients, earlier in the talent description there are a couple of mentions of people, so unfortunately swapping consciousness with an ordinary dog or the like won't work.

Perhaps more interestingly than how, what are some ramifications of a setting where a group of Mystics can pursue what they might see as increased communion with the Formless Ones from whom the Nightlords usurped their power?

[Axelmania]

do you know what page it talks about creating new morphi like this?

[Curbludgeon]

Dark Designs, pg 98: Alternatively, the G.M. can elect for the recipient to manifest a brand new Morphus if time is available to create it. For all intents and purposes, the person under the effects of this power is a Nightbane... The new Nightbane retains his own Facade attributes, skills and knowledge at whatever level he is at the time of the transformation. Otherwise, he possesses all the abilities and P.P.E. (minus 12 P.P.E. permanently expended in passing the torch) of the Nightbane who passed his or her Nightbane Morphus on to the recipient.

[Axelmania]

Ah okay I thought they called out SW by name but it's a generic note. Rolling up a random definitely seems a policy more suited to a SW using it.
obviously in that case we ignore that "now a Nightbane who resembles the ‘Bane who passed his appearance/Morphus and powers on" part

probably a cool middle ground would be if you rolled randomly but whatever result you get, if it's possible to select a trait present in the original you must select at least one (Shadow Warlocks excepted!)

Weird cost formula... it's 10/hour to use normally, you need 20 to do a perm-transfer, and they get "all minus twelve" of the original's PPE.
Makes me wonder what happens if you use it on a mage who has more PPE than you though, should it go down?
Or maybe you just gain the NB PPE (minus 12) on top of what you already had?

I wondered if this might explain how Nightbane reproduce... except "one or more features from the Superbeing, Athlete, or Stigmata tables" means they can't all use it (Shadow Warlocks ignore that since only level limits apply to them) unless they copied it from an appropriate nightbane via the "Copy Morphus" talent...

plus "only if that person is certain he wants this" doesn't sound like it could apply to babies...

One idea occurred to me though: in theory if you used Splittin Image, couldn't your Morphus half use Pass the Torch on your Facade half (is it a "moral race" in that circumstance?) to get a double-morphus? I can't remember what happens if one half or the other dies in Splitting Image...

reproduction idea: what about that one talent that splits you up into tiny nightbane? I think 'Swarm' unless there was 2nd one...

If tiny nightbane can each use talents independently (not really sure if they can, can you have a dozen tiny selves throwing shadow blasts?) then if they used Splittin Image would that create a bunch of tiny humans?

Are you unable to revert into Facade when separated into a swarm, or maybe reveting into a facade without consolidating your Swarm Self makes you a bunch of a babies/homunculi?

The effect is made permanent if the Talent user dies while manifesting the talent.

Phrasing it like that makes it sound like that'd be automatic but it instead actually says "kills the Nightbane Talent user in the process".

"Available Talents can be a copy of the original Nightbane’s or Talents may be selected as a level one Nightbane" is a pretty key contrast because if it's the 1st then anyone you pass the torch to themselves becomes a torch-passer...

Which in theory means that you don't need to sacrifice yourself to give someone powers permanently... you can just temporarily lend them to someone ELSE on their deathbed already and have THEM use it permanently!

Makes me wonder what the target limits are... obviously some kind of intelligence, I can't just pass the torch to my pet dog unless he had humanlike IQ... so maybe minimum IQ of 3?