Ahah! Yes, Edi is right (DAMN THE EDITORS!).
But Blood ones are particularly easy to come up with. The Thorn and the Vessel are only 20 Slaves (10 normal gems) and the Armor is 40 Slaves (20 normal gems). It's not too hard to bootstrap up to make these things and then have access to the entire selection of blood because of it's nature.
Like I said (again!) the mod hasn't been released at all, so that means any and all decisions haven't been thoroughly tested enough for me to keep them or adjust them based on the limitations of nations and so on.
I may just end up changing the Damage of Lifedraining weapons so that even if a high strength unit is using them they arn't causing enough lifedrain damage to keep them alive (though out of fatigue).
There are alot of ideas out there and I only want to tackle one at a time. This may open up alot more if/when IW adds a few more modding tools (especially Rate of Attack) for the modding community to try to use.
Back to Pretenders: Anyone have a chance to comment on that?