[AreaOfEffect]

Whenever a unit goes to make a melee attack or trample a unit who has awe, they need to succeed on a moral check. The check gets more difficult based on the strength of the units awe. (Awe +0 means they need to beat 10 + DNR with their moral + DNR, I think.)

Buying a dominion of 9 will grant your pretender the awe ability with a strength of +0. Going all the way to dominion 10 will grant awe +2. This of course assumes your pretender doesn't already have awe. The Virtue, who starts at awe +4, will move to awe +5 at dominion strength 9, and awe +7 at dominion strength 10.

Edit: The bonus from the shield stacks. It will be one check, just a point higher. Assume that Awe +0 means awe 1 and awe +2 means awe 3. If you add awe +0 to awe +2, you get awe +3. In other words 1 + 3 = 4. This makes more sense when stacking fear. As it takes fear 5 to get fear +0. Each rank of death magic grants fear 1, but it won't produce an effect until you have five ranks. This explains why equipping two items that each grant fear +0 grants a total of fear +5. Also, fear and awe is synergistic as fear lowers moral.