[Taqwus]

Scales: I would take +3 magic, but would be reluctant to take misfortune. Do take 3 death, sloth and turmoil; you'll lose your population anyway, and even if you had the production to recruit indies you'd have trouble paying the maintenance (even with order-3; taxpayers don't count once they're dead).

Pretender magic: I would aim for a rainbow-ish pretender (2, pref. 3, in most of the magic paths, ignoring blood, and minimum of 5 in death). Above 5 death isn't that important compared to, say, having a good dominion strength (you won't be able to afford many temples quickly, but it affects your undead auto-reanimation) and probably a good castle (one with towers, for instance).

I would largely ignore blood magic on the pretender as you won't be able to make good use of, say, a Mount Chaining, even if you found one. Most of the blood sites you'll find will cause unrest and let you recruit weak indies, if you had the money, which you won't. If you want to prioritize, I'd put Earth-3 fairly high on the list of wants, for the reasonably common Firbolg Fortress (saves you considerable money), Fire-2/3 for alchemy reasons... and would not use astral unless it were at least 4 and pref. 5 min with intent to have starshine cap and somebody else toting a Banner of the Northern Star.


BTW, unlike Ashen Empire, you auto-generate unholy priests (weak ones, but priests). Your highest-end summonable unholy priests are very, very expensive but immortal and have better stats than their Ashen counterparts. You will have no cavalry unless you explicitly summon Pale Riders. You will have far fewer sacred units. Your troops will have trouble against high-MR troops (phantasmal weapons are resistable) and will be mauled by flaming arrows (magic weapon ignores ethereal) or even Blade Wind (spells ignore ethereal), as your troops have low prot. Be careful.

Oh, and death is not too hard to boost madly if you research Construction and Conjuration. Construction gets you the +1-death staff and helm, as well as a unique +3 sceptre (!). Helm/sceptre = +4. If you can build the unique blood/death tome, that's another +1. Conjuration gets you a demilich, which is a death-4 chassis, and Dusk Elders are d3/?1.. Yowch. D7 + Conj-9 gets you Tartarians, although it's hard to exploit them without strong nature magic.