[atul]

Whoops, my bad, I confused Readers with Crafters. I've mostly meant to say Crafters (the EEWFH variety).

Hm, anyway, I think I disagree with you regarding the relative strengths between Readers and Crafters. And I believe much of that stems from your pretender design giving Agartha poor scales. I'm thinking, what good does the Ghost King do during the first year, bar researching? You can't actually field him that early, especially with the astral and death magic only. With dormant you'd get 150 points or nearly 4 positive scale steps up. With neutral growth the Crafters aren't dying that soon, and they're superior battlefield support. Especially since they don't require anything forged.

Hm, regarding pretender design for Agartha I'm still undecided. The one Alex gave earlier, awakened immortal Oracle is about the only one I'd dare to field really early if any points are put to magic paths. The Oracle is a find, since not many immortals have all the slots and near hundred base HP. On the other hand, you could benefit to have a sitesearcher/booster forget in paths that are weak, namely fire/water/death. With single picks it's hard to get good gem income in fire or water, the death sitesearching spell requires luckily only one pick of death.

On the forging front, dont forget Fire and Frost Brands which are great given your commander thugs' low attack scores. Also Crafters forge Charcoal Shields easily.

And, two similar items with bonuses don't stack. So you can't wield two Dwarven Hammers to any extra effect.

Hm. lots of things I agree with, only sticking to some I don't because of the lack of time and the impressive amount of stuff you've put down.