Alright, I've been racking my brain-box over this, and I can't quite seem to get the dark of it. I've read that you only you need to fight four times in the entire game, and only put two people in the Dead-book (by way of combat) - but I can't for my life figure out who these poor berks are if I must include the Curst guard with the Finger Bone Key. It seems the necessary fights are:

-Zombie #782 (poor berk)
-Ravel (whom you leave for dead)
-Trias (whom you can redeem)
-Ignus/Vhailor (no choice but to fight them to the death, it seems)

Can anyone shed some light on whether you have to kill the Curst guard or whether you can pickpocket it from him?

EDIT: To clarify, I read somewhere that the only people you have to kill are Z#782 and a Curst guard. Haven't tried it myself.

You should be able to pickpocket him and get through there as a thief, which is the best class for avoiding combat. Plus, killing the zombie shouldn't count as a kill. You don't really kill Ravel or Trias. I don't know what to do about Ignus/Vhailor. Ordinarily Vhailor can be destroyed via talking, but I've never encountered him at the end before.

Hmm. What if you never pick up Ignus or Vahilor as party members? You could also probably pick them up, let them die in a fight and continue on. Either is probably cheating though, I guess.

Neither of those would be cheating. Why would they? I'm guessing that'd they'd still be brought to life at the end, though, but who knows.

From what I've been able to gather either will be brought back to life for the Fortress of Solitude battle. Killing 'em off would be cheating, too.

oh, did you mean cheating in the context of a pacifist run, or cheating in general?

The former.