I find myself in need of some NPC-related assistance. I have (accidentally) come into control of an Earldom, and I need to flesh out some of the characters who reside there. Since I am rather rubbish at putting together character builds that successfully combine fluff and... Well, not sucking, I come seeking the greater collective wisdom of The Playground .
Essentially, I need:

Wilhelmina, the stern stewardess by day and sadistical necromancer by night.
Secretly a priest (note, not necessarily a cleric or even a divine class) of the God of Tyranny. I see Wilhelmina as an efficient if rather ruthless administrator. She's a firm utilitarianist in the "vicious satisfaction"-vein, taking liberal benefit from BOVD's rules on extracting liquid pain and religious sacrifices to benefit her holdings. The crafting materials she gains she gives to Lahriman (who I'll detail later), who benefits greatly from them.
Due to the way the DM has shaped his campaign (magic is rare, but when its encountered its moderate/strong) I think the traditional undead horde should work decently, so I'd love to see a build that focuses on creating and handling large amounts of fairly low level (2HD ish) undead, and especially tips and tricks that would make them effective in a large battlefield-type situation.


Lahriman, the charming gnome with absolutely no moral inhibitions.
Lahriman is a vertically challenged artificer who was expelled from his cushy university gig after they discovered his (highly promising) experiments combining clay golem body grafts and household cats, his test group. Wandering the world for a bit he eventually encountered Wilhelmina, who saw the value in the aberrations he was constantly trying to create. Lahriman, on the other hand, was delighted to find that Wilhelmina was able to provide him with both a constant supply of fresh body parts as well as Dark Craft XP & gold.
This character should come across as a "useful contact, if a little loopy". I'd like to see some traditional crafting feats on him, but his passion is specifically experimenting with combining undead and constructs, preferably that he can interface with and/or ride on. He's very touchy about his height, and enjoys any chance he can get to look down at others (literally). Think Doctor Jekyll / Mr Hyde, except it'd be more Q from James Bond / Chaz from Gnorman's hillarious LP of TOEE.

Neither myself nor the DM really know all that much about the Artificer class (I've skimmed it and I'll read up on it more), so if possible try to (briefly) explain why you've taken the choices you have .


Finally, these characters are currently level 7 - but they'll definitely go higher. It'd be great if you could make a build at least up to 12, and of course you're more than welcome to go higher .