[Valerius]

Yeah, I was looking at LotF. The old age thing is a pita. This is why the only old age nation I play is Aby and I just put boots of youth on every warlock I recruit.

How about a sleeping Arch Druid (another excellent pretender, though sadly you won't have meese manning the walls of your forts) with A2E9S2D1N4 dom 6 and completely neutral scales. Pay for growth with temp scales. Would really like to get magic 1, though. And it bugs me a bit that you can't boost your way to rings of sorcery but it does open up some nice stuff like hidden in sand.

One other factor here: forest of the ever young will knock 40 years off the caster's age, which will cover most of your mages with one casting. Costs 2 gems and gives you 10% insanity. That give you a bit of a safety net since you could have the mages that get bad afflictions cast it and then have daughters heal them up.