Hi guys, i'd like to do a rusty metal sphere with some text carved in it. I need it to be real geometry, not bump.
Seems to be a relatively simple task but is still beyond my skills.

The first approach i could come up with is displacement but in this case the texture is stretched in the carvings radially. Since the displacement is not part of the sphere i don't know how to do the UV mapping to prevent it from stretching. Besides i'd like to add a touch of bevel to the edges, i don't want them razor sharp. Also, displacement requires an insane subdivision, which makes UV editing almost impossible and rendering way too slow.

I suspect there's some way to do it with NURBS and boolean but the thing is, i'm not a NURBS yoda and didn't find any tutorial that covers this topic. It's not just the boolean but the text should follow the curvature of the sphere surface.

Any idea? Many thanx in advance.