another noob question...

[Aleph]

Just as a follow up on freespawn - they are, in fact, pretty good in areas where you have temples and fortresses. Temples alone will, I believe, upgrade a chunk of your Ermor freespawn to Longdead Horsemen (who are exceptionally useful with a Hold/Attack Rear approach while your crapspawn hold the enemy line in place) and Rl'yeh to Void beasts of various stripes. I'm not sure what Forts do for Rl'yeh, but they upgrade much of your Ermorian freespawn into Roman Legion style warriors (decent armor, tower shields + javelin with either short sword or spear) and in combination with temples give you some sacred undead horsemen.