Soul Gate Ermor tips?

[LintMan]

I've yet to play as Ermor of any type, so I thought I'd try out the Soul Gate flavor. (Single player).

Since I'm completely unfamiliar with SG Ermor, I'm hoping for some tips to help me get started off right. (My plan is to play the Cradle map, with 7-8 impossible AIs, rich world, 75% sites, indeps 8)

- What's a good choice for a good SC pretender? I'm thinking about taking the Ghost King but am open to other suggestions

- What scales to take? Can I max out all the scales to -3 except Magic? Or would it be wise to take some order or luck or something? Is 6 a reasonable starting dominion for SG Ermor?

- What magic paths are useful/necessary? Is taking more than 5 Death useful, presuming I can eventually get to 7+ with items?

- I know that you can't recruit units with SG Ermor, and they just show up. Does a higher dominion provide more units and/or better units?
Do commanders also appear, or do they all have to be summoned?

- Any good tips on how to start out the game? (Ie: what to do, what to summon the first few turns)

Thanks!