Valpurus gifts really suck unless you get them at the beginning of the game. If i had a choice i would prefer the shield to the sword that way you could build up weapon experience with a valpurium shield and wouldn;t have to lose experience when you socm you arcanite/octriron shield to valpurium. I wish Valpurus would at least give you a flaming valpurium sword so that it did some special damage. I did play one game where i got both gifts form Valpurus - I found a 2 yres of charm and charmed all the dwarves in the Cathedral. 6 dwarves at once, 6 books at once, it was easy to become a champ. I think i ended up switching to Vermis though - can't recall if this game was a win.
Do you want to try a joint game, we could play it like best ball in golf, we start out with the same character, do a level and then decide which "ball" to play, do another level etc until Elpuri's head gets delivered. We could decide on tactics before hand, regarding alignment, wepon choice, style etc.