I would live to, but the current content within is long as it is.Still if you wish to know, I spent the early 10 levels levelling up via the recommended questline. Let's not forget, the hemomancer is a mage is above everything else and equilibrium is only available during the last phase of the college of winterhold questline.

During this phase, endure you also do the side quests for arniel and due to interactions with Enthir, it would be good also to do the side quest for Ogmund.

I focused alot on Alteration, conjuration and restoration during my leveling process. Whilst summons like Familiar and Flame atronach serve the purpose early levels wise, for support attacks, get in front of your follower to get hit once (on legendary) with your flesh spell on and heal up a few. Back off and let lydia or which ever follower take over.

Once you get the bound bow spell, leveling conjuration is super fun and easy, even on legendary. A common side effect if you choose to utilize weapons is the unintended leveling of archery or one handed skills, something which can serve you by gaining perk points, in addition to leveling conjuration further.

Don't worry if your restoration is not high enough for then necromage or adept perks required once you complete the recommended questline. You can always use the equlibrium and heal trick. That levels up your restoration like crazy!

Hope the above information helps 

This should help you out for the reference: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Merrill

As for clothers, she's usually in green, so i would suggest going with something in skyrim that resembles a green tunic or dress maybe (I don't think skyrim has green tunics for women)

Tattoo's wise, well, i cannot advice on that. But if you choose breton, there are tattoo version that emulate very close to what merill has, in terms of side of the face and the forehead.

Might want to make the color a little dark red to instead of merill's light grey to symbolize the affiliation with blood magic. 

Just my view though 

That'll do nicely, cheers!

Random question: how well would this build do against miraak?

Cakewalk... Between my summons and the ongoing barrage of blood spells, I had a relatively easy time on legendary against miraak.

Well, what will I do about fire damage, as I can't bring anyone in the book? Or is the shock/frost combo enough? And is having serana with you still downgrade the drain life aoe, or is it fine?

Also, what shouts would you recommend? I'm thinking marked for death, soul tear, become etheral, and maybe durnehviir?

I've always been a fan of blood mages. I hope that you can still be one in Inquisition. Qunari blood mage xD. If not that, then elven. Cause elves are badass...and kinda cute(Merrill fan here)

Also(again), what should our main form of offence be before we get the drain life aoe?

for support damage, don't worry, the frost and shock combo should be more than enough ... Your main damage will still be the blooded damage from your vampiric drain. As for shouts, I would recommend drain vitality as it fits in with the whole theme... Been on my mind for some time... Will take your input into consideration to develop some new moves for the build

Question: does transforming into vamp-lord form reset the drain life aoe spell, or will it stay in your right hand when you're back to human?

Also, i saw in the dominance vid that mist form stayed. Should we just do the dominance ritual first(once mist form is unlocked), and then the chaos ritual? 

From my experience, Vampiric Drain stayed but Mist Form was lost. I'd do Chaos first and then Dominance. I actually performed both at once but I played around with it quite a bit.

Hey Warlock! Tag this as Mythic, it's definitely earned it!