I second (third, fourth, fifth?) the statement of –Play what you want!- You’re a smart player, you can see what would work well with the group currently in play, but keep in mind that parties in PBP are very fluid. People may rewrite or retire their characters, or people can get burnt out and leave. Heck, some people might have a baby on the way and suddenly not have any spare time left for spending 30 minutes writing up long winded combat/rp actions… Yes we may have 2 Leaders now, but if Jarren and Talkrai get retired and Anti/Lady suddenly decide to play defenders, there goes party dynamics right out the window. The surviving members may just decide to return to the Tavern and give up on this questline, so I wouldn’t try to build anything to suit what may or may not be coming in the future of this adventure.
As far as the potential resurrection of Pis, that will be hashed out ICly, so I can’t really say how that is going to go. I’m kinda curious how the XP is distributed in the case of a PC death, since if Pis would get XP for everything, that may push him to lvl 5 and affect what Twils could make as a potential replacement. Also curious how (if at all) Pis’s stuff would be divided up given the parcel system.