The Top 100 Things I'd Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

...Is the next entry on the list "I will attain eternal youth," or "I will have a daughter, who in Earth fiction for mysterious reasons will never attempt to usurp power," or "I will anoint a successor and be the last of my line," in reverse order of how bittersweet the best victory you can get through denying Earth's tropes is?

It's not your second-pick, alas.

19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

Ileosa is assuming that she'd betray her own mother equally readily? 

Ap-parent-ly she dodged a bullet that Eodred died without managing to knock her up first.

...If eventually having children is non-negotiable, what are the safest ways to do it? It doesn't have to be immediately, Ileosa's current plan was already to get her eternal youth and character levels and unchallenged despotism all sorted before taking on that kind of distraction. 

Ileosa's first thought is that she could leave a hundred unacknowledged bastards to be raised by their mothers far away from Korvosa, and never tell them about their heritage. It's not what she really wants - she'd like to be a better parent than her own father, to apply what she learned from watching him and make him proud/show the old man up - but it'd be better than nothing.

I notice a handful of flaws with this plan.

Yeah. 

If life follows storybook tropes, it'd make her usurpation at the hands of a claimant even more certain than if she bore and raised them herself. 

That's one of the problems, sure.

And for the others, there's alter self or a girdle of opposite gender.

What's number twenty?

20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

Huh. Weird.

In Chellish literature, it's the good guys who laugh like maniacs when it looks like they're winning, before the inevitable turnabout.

Twenty-one?

21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

Gods below, "Legions of Terror," that's brilliant!

Later when I'm more established and can get away with that sort of thing, I'm going to roll all of Korvosa's military organizations together under one one umbrella and call them the Legions of Terror. 

What's twenty-two?

22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.

Shouldn't it depend more on how much energy is in the energy field? There are first-circle spells with areas of effect measured in ten-foot cubes, and there are ninths with areas of effect smaller than a walnut. 

It might be a visual language thing? Since your scenes aren't typically illustrated, I think the thing that really matters is to always keep rule twenty-two in the back of your head when you're tempted by the prospect of unlimited power and thinking about consuming energy fields.

What is it that tends to go wrong when you break rule twenty-two?

You can't handle the power and explode, a kind of ironic punishment for greed or hubris. But now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think you're in much danger of this - in your genre, the convention is that some hero will have to roll initiative and resolve attacks against your AC, and you're unlikely to explode before that happens. 

Oh, that's a relief to hear. I didn't like my odds of successfully resisting the temptation of unlimited power. 

Twenty-three?

Another sci-fi trope.

23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

Twenty-four is:

24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

What if your realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses is that you're invincible?

Someone will get past your invincibility and you'll be so surprised by it that your last words are "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!"

You can use your inside voice, if you want to.

Sorry.

...What if keeping a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses is scary or depressing...?