Dominions 3: The Awakening/God Design/Example Pretenders

The following are some practical examples of some useful generic Pretenders. These can be used as they are or modified to better fit your play-style, or just used as ideas to create your own.

Awake

 * Mother of Life and Death / SC, Caster, Minor Bless, Special (healer): Mother of Serpents, S2 D5 N5, Dom 5, Cost 340; This pretender starts off as a fairly decent researcher, which should help nicely on the way to getting the spells she needs to survive as an SC. She can heal Afflictions on any unit/commander in the same province throughout the game (must choose the Heal action, doesn't work on old-age or undead), which keeps expensive troops and mages in tip-top fighting condition. She really shouldn't be used alone an as SC until you have researched to minimum Ench 3 and Alt 3. At that point when fighting in friendly or neutral dominion, enemy troops will need magic to kill her. At Con 0 you can forge Birch Boots to give her some re-invigoration and fire/cold resistance or add Black Steel Plate to increase her protection if you have an Earth mage available. Later on at Con 2 she can forge an Eye Shield and a Horror Helmet once she starts going up against tougher enemies. At Con 4 add an Amulet of Resilience and think about exchanging her hand-held serpent for a Snake Bladder Stick.  In combat, her Horned Serpent bodyguard is mostly useful for absorbing attacks while she buffs up. Death 5 gives her a Fear (0) aura (ie. radiates fear to 6 squares against a base roll of 10). Nature 5 allows her to cast Personal Regeneration and Barkskin while boosting her regeneration to ~13% hp/round when active. Astral 2 allows her to buff Astral Shield, Body Ethereal and Personal Luck. When fighting solo finish off by scripting attack closest or with an accompanying army script cast spells.  For the end-game, she can summon Tartarans or cast any of the global nastiness that Death is known for.


 * Pathless Wyrm / SC: Wyrm, no magic paths, Dom 9, Cost 197; This pretender is meant to start capturing indy provinces on turn 1, and is intended for nations that benefit from good scales and want to establish a strong dominion early on. The Wyrm has high hitpoints and a natural regeneration of ~5% hp/turn. Each candle of friendly dominion grants ~+20% extra hp, and with Dom 9 we should be pushing our dominion into neutral territory with ease. So fighting in positive dominion will make our regenerating Wyrm very hard to kill. Dom 9 gives it Awe in addition to its Fear aura, which will help in causing enemies to break. At Con 2 have a mage forge 2 Horror Helmets and a Girdle of Might.  If the Wyrm ever dies, it takes 40 points worth of Holy magic cumulatively to call it back using Call God. Once recalled, the Wyrm is good to go and fight new battles, no worse for wear.