[Alneyan]

A shame; it would have been so amusing to see your Pretender die because of his own heat aura. *Improved* Imps (notice the irony) with the Heat aura should certainly do the trick however, especially if you happen to cut down their wings and thus make them immobile. You do not want the Imps to go away before their summoner has been completely killed; these Pretenders can be so bothering and refuse to die, even when they are about as powerful as a limp and blind dragonfly.

I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the part of the thread when artifact Pretenders were mentioned. Credits go to the original poster then. How wonderful a Rainbow mage is indeed, especially when its paths mirror your national mages strengths (I did it in Try Something New, though I managed to pick one path not already covered by my own mages at least).

Going back to the topic of Pretenders, may I have a nice Succubus as Pretender? Please? A Vampire Queen might do the trick here, but she is definitively too powerful, and so will not qualify under my tastes for "nigh useless gods, whose only purpose is to give a good casus belli to invade neighbours". It would also be one of the few Pretenders able to meddle in assassinations, and assorted pastimes.