What use is death magic?

[Shovah32]

Death magic is VERY useful. Use arco's magical diversity to summon banelords (very nice thugs, i like to send them out in groups of 3 when not facing pd/indies) and black servants (very cheap, stealth, ethereal and lifedrain. Give them luck, fear, heavy armour and strength boosters and you have very nasty raiders) or even harvesters of sorrow which, aswell as spreading disease have very nice stats.

[Morkilus]

For the low levels, I like getting a couple Revenants going so I can search all the other provinces for death sites, and then hopefully have enough paths to summon a Spectre. Spectres are quite versatile, and can even be used as thugs.

[NTJedi]

Death magic is one of the most useful magic paths. When searching for magic sites you might get lucky and find a location where a death mage can recruit free shades or banes or mummies! Most other magic paths don't have sites where units can be recruited... and some of these death units are mighty powerful.

You don't want your pretender to spend his time casting death spells, so have him summon a mound fiend or two. The first mound fiend should then take a hammer for forging a death staff while the other mound fiend takes a hammer for forging some skull mentors. The mound fiend with the death staff should then summon a spectres to help with summoning. The mound fiend will summon pale riders while the spectres summon spirit mastery. Once a solid army has been developed the mound fiend should either summon a banelord or another mound fiend to lead the army.

Summon some revenants to keep looking for death magic sites to supply the growing armies. You can never have too many death gems.

[Teraswaerto]

The most common death summoning site is probably the Ghoul Cave, which is a far cry from mummies or banes.

[Forrest]

Thanks you have given me much to think on.

I am lvl 6 on construction and evocation(?)(for the eternal prye) and 3 on everything else. Devoting all research to Summoning for now. To get the good death units.

I was about to build a force of ten nature mages with ethreal bows and boots quickness backed by a couple of air mages. Astral and water are Arcoscephale's strong point. I think I can field it in under 10 turns. I fiqure set them for large monsters and see what happens. I hope they will make short work of a stupid dragon pretender and all those bears he summons.

The whole death thing will kick off when I give my revenants some boosts. Which requires my pretender. Dang he is busy.

Any ideas for boosting nature mages when all you have is lvl 1's and +1 nature gem per turn? I am realy sucking wind in nature and blood.

[Endoperez]

Blood isn't usually something you can just tack on to the nation. Don't worry about it with Arcoscephale.


You should have lots of Priestesses. Send them site-searching. That should give you something before or later. Once you have 30 gems, you can empower one to N2 and:
1) forge Thistle Maces, +1 N for anyone wielding it
2) start casting Haruspex, which finds ALL Nature sites in target province.

Nature 1 mages can cast Eagle Eyes, so if they don't have anything else to do they could do well as a bow-squad. Ethereal Crossbows are nice, but MR negates their special effect completely. Try combining them with few Black Bows of Botulf (Death item). Feeble-minded commander have worse magic resistance...
If you get Death/Air mage, Vision's Foe is wonderful. A crossbow with armor-negating damage, that also causes lost eye afflictions?

[Forrest]

Thanks for the heads up.

I had heard they don't hit the way they should and that explains it.

I was planning to use shamen for bowmen as the National Nature priests cost like $70 more per man. They also give me +10 food each. With a nice 2 lvl air mage site I found they should boost to at least 18 precision.