>Where to start? At the beginning I guess. I rolled Dulmisa to
>be another one of my many mindless killah's, but when I
>reached the golden 35, I soon realised Empire was lacking a
>Shadow Lord. So I start asking for the Oath, no shadows about,
>Panthiero some times, but he never had time or didn't have the
>Codex. I asked Nabburak, he tells me to find a Shadow, there
>was none, atleast not during my playing times, after like a
>week or two of frustration I catch Panthiero with both Codex
>and time. I take the Oath and start to donate like crazy,
>promotions isn't coming my way, Dulmisa gets angered with
>Nabburak.

You are slightly biased here.
First of all, taking bloodoath from the emperor himself is a great gift. It is not like any random assassin is going to get it just because he asked. ( and at that time you were just a random assassin ). Empire had several middle ranked shadows so it wasn't a big problem to find any of them.
Also, donations are helpful, but are not the only thing that is required for promotion.
The Shadow Sect pissed me off during my rule because all its membes were just levelsitting losers
Basically first one who would enter the hero range and show some persistance would be promoted to the shadow lord position.
The first real candidate was Rishudo, but he deleted as soon as he entered the hero range. Sniff.
You also were ok, I kept an eye on you and the situation with your promotions was't any bad. You were going to become my next Shadow Lord.

Let us just look at your timelines:
Tue Apr 5 15:17:22 2005 at level 36 (70 hrs): Took the bloodoath from Panthiero.
Sat Apr 9 11:12:04 2005 - Lvl:36 Promoted by Nabburak to Echelon 2
Mon Apr 11 13:33:37 2005 - Lvl:37 Promoted by Panthiero to Echelon 3
Sun Apr 17 16:19:05 2005 at level 40 (97 hrs): Dulmisa advanced to level 40
Thu Apr 21 15:14:46 2005 - Lvl:44 Promoted by Nabburak to Echelon 4
Fri Apr 22 06:24:11 2005 - Lvl:44 Promoted by Grurk to Echelon 5


>Emperors:
>
>Nabburak - The überbeast had you thrown some love my way
>earlier, I would have not been part in the plot to dethrone
>you.

Not that really matters. When you are not a council member you have little impact on voting.
And in truth, would you be the shadow lord that time, I beleive you would vote against me.


Now some words about you being the worst voter.
This is nowhere your fault. Trust me.
The imperial voting system is boken.
If council members are not complete idiots, they will not vote for the most promising candidate. They want that position for themselves.
So, basically, after any voting, the most "deserving" ( at the moment of voting ) candidate gets nothing and the throne goes to other random member of the council.
So being the eldest and well known member of council greatly reduces your chances.
I believe the whole system should be redesigned but as a temporary solution I would propose to add one or two votes from immortals to the council members votes, at least in this case council members should make a decision whether they gonna vote against the most promising candidate and possibly be thrown away if that candidate will get two immortal votes and the throne or support that candidate.
This is not an ideal solution, many wouldn't like the immortal intervention.
But the current voting system is just worse.