Your Recommendations for Desert Tombs

[archaeolept]

high order/high misfortune (money for sauromancers and mercs)
moderate sloth (production not too important - a handful of falchioners and city guards a turn)
Magic: you could go high drain as your sauromancers can easily forge skull mentors. the problem with this is that you are constantly strapped for death gems. as such, I'd try to stay away from high drain, although the MR bonus is very nice. also, always send a sauromancer w/ your invading armies to immediately search for death sites.
Dominion: not much need. 6.
Castle: something cheap, pointwise. mausoleum?

the problem w/ DT is the extraordinarily high theme cost, and fairly slow effective ramp-up, and the weak selection of purchasable units. An early game supercombatant would really help w/ expansion, though you won't have many points to spend on pretender magic paths.