I still remember some of the delightfully creepy spells in the old 2nd ed. 'Necromancer's Handbook'. Spells that let you turn your heart to stone, or live with your heart outside your body as a sort of poor-wizard's phylactery, just makes sense that as a 'Death Wizard' one of the things you should be good at is cheating same.

And I to am more fond of abstract over miniatures in tabletop RPGs.