Melee Bard/BG/something for you then, a death singer! Awesome concept. A harbinger of bad luck bestowed from Beshaba. Holy vengeance and dark farewell songs from Hoar! Soothing songs from Shar for the grief stricken. Poems of madness by Cyric. Praises for the Tyrant Bane! Tales of Velsharoon's crypts! Endless options.

BG needs a fiendish supporter, so much possibilities for character background and motivation.

Curse song in its most literate form. Ask the experts in the build forum.

Bard 20 cleric 9 fighter 1.. not much will hold it back.

Righto, death singer is the drow version, isn't it? Think I have that term from some Drizzt novel.

Spellsword: 17 sorcerer 12 cleric 1 rogue. No epic spells, +4 divine favor and divine power awesomesauce, no decent summon. Divine might/shield. IMHO the only proper 'spellsword' build, but its an absolute bitch to level.

Ah, but on topic. When I hear "dark mage", Warlock comes to mind for me. Not really the PnP representation of one, as that's not doable in NWN perfectly, but a caster that has strong ties to Demons or Devils, makes pacts with them, learns from them, and is obsessed with power.

Naturally, I think Sorc/BG, with more BG coming into play the more melee prowess you want and more Sorc the more spell power you want. You get some decent BG levels in, you would probably be able to pull off something fair in both, which is what Warlock is supposed to be anyway from my experience. Mainly a disabler with a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

In other words, for sorc take a good number of debilitating, enchanting and draining spells, field control things like Web and Grease too and on the BG side might and shield for some added melee standing.

I'd be really interested to see what a near-even split between those two classes would look like. Maybe throw in a little bard or rogue, but the end result would seem like a fun thing to play, IMO.