Shaman Karrakh quest chain..?! (Spoilers)

[Helios]

@ Vulture: I finished my Impossible Paladin last night and was looking in awe at that high score thread and figured people must have heavily edited things. I guess I should feel pretty good about my final score and stats. I could have saved 2 days if I hadn't wanted my Fandor's Map for Violetta and forgot one of the Obelisks back in Ellinia, and I charged through the game to get to Karador ASAP because his castle sold the Pain Skull and the promotion from King Mark made the Gladiator Sword for sale. I beat Karador on level 19, which was my greatest achievement in this game yet, and wouldn't have had a chance without 3 levels of Sacred Anger. I'll miss that when I'm not a Paladin! My biggest shock in looking at my final stats is that my Paladin had almost 100 more total runes than any Mage or Warrior I've played. My stats:

Score: 1537, 20 Days
Stats: 27,659 Leadership (I took it at every level and was lucky enough with some of the Knight Set items, Banner of True Belief, and a Baton; 31 Atk 28 Def 23 Int 76 Rage 92 Mana.

On topic: since we've been talking about the benefits of the Poison Dagger and Isshara's Whip, what is your opinion of the Battle Axe (+20% damage to users of cold steel weapons)? I was going through the fan manual and saw it, which has never been in one of my games, and I hadn't heard of it on the forums before.

It works on: Barbarian, Berserker, Black Knight, Demon, Dwarf, Swordsman, Guardsman, Knight, Orc, Veteran Orc, Pirate, Seadog, Skeleton, Vampire, Ancient Vampire, Werewolf Elf, Robber, Marauder, Peasant, Miner, Furious Goblin.

Suddenly, I think my all Dwarf run will make those relatively low leadership and damage Miners and Dwarves into better units!

And on other percentage based equipment: what is your opinion on the Steam Armor, Drill, and Silver Rapier? I haven't been impressed by any of them in when I've equipped them. The speed and initiative penalties seem too high for use of the first two.

Though I found a list of units that benefit for the first two:

Steam Armor: all humans; elves besides werewolf-elf and ents; Undead besides Vampire-bat and Bone Dragon; Orcs besides Ogre; Dwarves besides Giant; Demons besides Demon; and Barbarian, Berserk, Pirate, Sea Dog.

Drill: Archdemon, Barbarian, Berserk, Black Knight, Knight, Demoness, Dwarf, Ent, Ancient Ent, Swordsman, Guardsman, Peasant, Robber, Marauder, Horseman, Werewolf Elf, Miner, Giant, Goblin, Furious Goblin, Orc, Veteran Orc, Skeleton, Zombie, Decaying Zombie, Ghost, Cursed Ghost, Vampire, Ancient Vampire, Ogre, Shaman, Pirate, Sea Dog

PS: I found a tidbit on the forum that I didn't know of (maybe you guys already do): using the Tree of Life Sprout before delivering it to the Tree of Death gives a permanent +1 Int boost. I wonder how many other quest items have hidden bonuses like that? I know using Velisar's staff gives 1 Mind rune, but I haven't tried using all the quest items. The only other "hidden" boost I can think of is the +1 Int for using the right magic words on the Zombie Miller if you are a Warrior or Paladin.