[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to integrate it once I manage to bull my way through and finish up. You've given me food for thought. I haven't had a clue yet w/regards to battle-spells except that I can afford to spam earth elementals and that all my mages are nearsighted.

A preview of things to come...

As a result of my experiment with suiciding my Pretender (Twiceborn Crone), I've experimented with Wight Mages a bit.

First, you can cast Twice Born with 2 death. Either you empower an oracle, get lucky (.10x.25 = 2.5%) with a random death pick (happened with my second Oracle), get lucky with independent or random necromancers (it happens with death 3, luck 3) or mercenaries. The simplest solution is to have a pretender with two points of death magic, and forge a Skull Staff.

Give the staff to an oracle, cast twice born, and pass it along. If your Oracle dies in combat or starts feeling the ill effects of old age (and you suicide him) you get yourself a wight mage. It's not entirely a trade for the better- you do get certain vulnerabilities, lose your ability to go underwater, lose half your hitpoints, some leadership, generally get a wound, and lose some MR. Most importantly, your former oracle is no longer sacred.

Now that I've gotten the bad out of the way, you get a second life, of course, cold immunity, poison immunity, certain undead immunities, chill(3). You lose old age, and your precision jumps from 7 (or worse) to 10. Throw in an eye of aiming, and you have a mage who can cast spells without deviation to a range of 26 squares. Two out of three times I've done this (and taken note) I've gained one free level of death magic. You go from 6 encumbrance to zero. You lose that pesky cold-blooded, you keep your magic (including holy three - though you don't get any undead holy spells), and your mage goes from moving only 1 province a strategic turn to three. And last, you get to haul around around 100 undead, 70 up from the default 30. It is a real pity I can't do this with my crafters.