[Squirrelloid]

I like the GK idea. I really haven't played enough with the GK. In part, I've been a little uncomfortable with early game SCs (in general) because I don't have a good feel for just how much opposition they can take (and getting your pretender killed in the first couple months is never a good sign).

I dislike the kraken because new paths are so expensive, iirc. I think you really want to rainbow because you will find a use for just about every gem type, so you want to be able to find some of every gem type.

I also actively like Death 3 as R'lyeh because I want to make my lands as undesirable for prospective invaders as possible. Having population just means people want your lands more. (Edit: And that's why we took Luck 3 in the first place - so we had an income source that wasn't population dependent).

How important are air gems to R'lyeh? Quite important for the move to land in the long term. You'll want access to some protection from archer fire, which means Perpetual Storm is decent, or crafting some staves of storms. (You can't reliably expect to have an A capable mage for Arrow Fend or similar in combat, so finding ways to make your A work for you more remotely is the best you can probably do). With A3 you can Staff of elemental mastery or RoW into A4 and you're in business. And while you can rely on stoneskin/ironskin/army of gold to make your troops resistant to arrowfire, these measures will stack with that and affect the entire battlefield from the start.

A4 also unlocks the Bag of Winds, which is an item with a start of combat summons. Throw one of those, a bottle of living water, and a wraith crown on a starspawn mage and you can feel free to teleport into PD or even weak armies with no other gear. (W1S3D2 and W1E2S3 preferred). Air also allows you to craft the eyes of aiming, which will help your evocation mages hit their targets. (Not that you care if you hit your chaffe - but you'd rather have killed more stuff).