Bandar Log advice

[K]

Sure. Regular commanders can get blood slaves, just at a very very bad rate (1-20, in my calculation). Scouts are the favored unit since 20 of them is only 400 gold.

There are also some summonable commanders that get Blood on randoms (one of the three Treelords and Lamia Queens).

Btw, you can go E9/N9 with: Order0/Sloth3/Heat3/Growth3/Misfortune2/Magic1 and dom 8 on an Earth Mother. If the scales scare you, then drop the Earth. Nature 9 is the keystone of most good bless strategies for the regen and most importantly the Beserk. It's a little hard to break out of your province with the low production, but once you have the provinces around your capital cleared you are good to go.