[crawl] mummy necro

I've continued my experimentation with Mummy necros who worship Sif Muna. 
The one I posted about a while back got lots of spellbooks, but many of 
the spells in them were too hard to learn anyhow (he got the 3 necro
books first, then some conjurations). While there were many potential 
spells to learn, there weren't very many spell levels available (mummies 
seem to get Spellcasting skill very slowly). I tried learning various 
conjuration spells, but could hardly hurt anything with them and this 
character eventually got killed by a Giant Frog he couldn't escape.

So I got another Mummy necro to the Temple and am trying a somewhat 
different approach, which seems to be working better:

1. Only do the (tedious) spellcasting loop until I've got enough 
spellbooks with low enough level utility (and higher level necro) spells 
in them to last me the foreseeable future. If there is later a spell I 
want badly that is missing, go back and repeat (so far there hasn't 
been). Stay at least at High Priest, however.

2. Do not bother with Conjuration Spells. I've decided to concentrate on 
utility spells (mostly Divination) as well as a few basic necro spells. 
Someone posted that learning Identify would be particularly useful with 
this sort of character (and it is). I know how many charges are on all my 
wands, what all my scrolls do without reading immolation, what all my 
potential weapons, armor and jewelry do. It's nice to know where all the 
traps and monsters are (to get some more experience from and/or produce a 
new zombie).

3. Use my ability to forget spells to rotate spells in and out as needed 
(I knew Dispel Undead for a while, killed all the undead on the levels I 
wanted to clean out and then forgot it in favor of Identify).

4. Pain and Animate Undead are more effective spells than I thought. 
Don't travel alone (except to the very shallow levels and the Temple).
Ogre and centaur zombies (for instance) are quite useful. A little melee 
or throwing poisoned darts has also helped me get out of a few sticky 
situations.

I've gone down to DL 10. The Orcish Mines and Lair entrances are both on 
this level (in fact in the same room), but I haven't entered yet. There 
have been *no* stores yet (of course some stores would be pretty 
useless). This is definitely a character for the patient player. I 
concede I've played this character so far in a very unorthodox way, but 
I'm having fun.

Now a few questions (character dump at the end):

1. I have a scroll of acquirement. What should I ask for? Jewelry? A 
staff? Something with fire resistance or a staff of death would be nice.
A wand of healing would be quite useful. Even something with a good plus 
to intelligence.

2. Do the zombies I get from Animate Dead get more powerful as my necro 
level increases? Are zombies from tougher monsters' corpses "better" than 
ones from weaker monsters (i.e. is an ogre zombie tougher than a rat 
zombie)?

3. Besides Dispel Undead which I will relearn eventually, what other 
necro spell (I'm looking for one with more killing power than Pain) is 
worth learning? Vampiric Draining? Bolt of Draining?

4. I can't learn Regeneration, but would a ring of regeneration benefit 
me?

 Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.


Khuth the Reanimator (Mummy)

(Level 10 Necromancer)


Play time: 04:06:15       Number of turns: 86270


Experience : 10/6000

Strength 12     Dexterity 7     Intelligence 15

Hit Points : 63          Magic Points : 22
Far better hit points than the Deep Elves I've been playing
(Xot had 100 HP at player level 27)

AC : 3          Evasion : 10          Shield : 0
Poor as usual ;-)

GP : 576


You are on level 6.

You worship Sif Muna.

Sif Muna is exalted by your worship.

You are not hungry.


  Inventory:

Hand weapons

 u - a -1,+3 orcish dagger of draining

 v - a +1,+2 whip of reaching

 I - a +0 halberd of freezing (weapon)

 V - a +0,+1 dagger of venom
Any thoughts on which weapon is best? Freezing is good against imps, I 
haven't tried the reaching one.

Missiles

 h - 24 +0 elven darts

 j - 13 +0 orcish darts of flame

 C - 16 poisoned +0 orcish darts

 U - 27 poisoned +2 orcish needles

Armour

 b - a +0 robe (worn)

 e - a +0 pair of gloves (worn)

 k - a +1 orcish scale mail

 n - a +0 scale mail of cold resistance
Would this hurt my spellcasting ability? If this were *fire* resistance 
it might even be worth it for now.

 M - a +0 elven cloak (worn)

Magical devices

 a - a wand of hasting (10)

 R - a wand of frost (1)

 X - a wand of slowing (6)

Scrolls

 i - a scroll of fear

 l - 7 scrolls of remove curse

 m - 5 scrolls of detect curse

 q - 2 scrolls of teleportation

 t - a scroll of blinking

 B - 3 scrolls of recharging

 E - a scroll of acquirement

 G - a scroll of enchant weapon I

 L - a scroll of enchant weapon II

 P - 4 scrolls of magic mapping
Just ID'd all these scrolls, some will be discarded or stashed no doubt.

Jewellery

 d - a ring of levitation

 f - a ring of protection from magic (left hand)

 g - a ring of life protection
This is useless for a mummy, right? If so I'll sacrifice it.

 s - a ring of wizardry (right hand)

 y - an amulet of conservation (around neck)

 T - a ring of sustain abilities

Books

 c - a book of Necromancy

 z - a book of Minor Magic

 N - a book of Death

 O - a book of Unlife

 Q - a book of Wizardry

 W - a book of Surveyances

 Y - a book of Stalking

 Z - a book of Divinations



 You have 5 experience left.


   Skills:

 + Level 1 Dodging

 + Level 3 Stealth

 + Level 6 Spellcasting

 + Level 11 Necromancy

 + Level 9 Divinations
Yes, this was intentional. Identify was essentially unlearnable until 
Divinations got up this high (and Spellcasting 6 and level 10 probably 
helped too) even with the ring of wizardry.


You have 2 spell levels left.

You know the following spells:


  Your Spells                       Type                  Success   
Level

 a - Pain                         Necromancy              Excellent   1

 b - Animate Dead                 Necromancy              Great       4

 c - Detect Traps                 Divination              Excellent   2

 d - Repel Missiles               Air/Enchantment         Good        2

 e - Blink                        Translocation           Good        2

 f - Identify                     Divination              Fair        6

 g - Detect Creatures             Divination              Excellent   2

Larry