Chaos magic is still the best choice for damage dealing spells. Rune magic has a few high damage spells but they consume the runes of your army to get the most out of them, so if you don't use the viking units its not very effective.
The rest of your questions kind of depend on you hero class and army composition, persuasion for example is useless unless they really don't like other.
Artifactor is an interesting skill, useful for the destuction ability alone to gain crystals for learning spells(and the crystal collector medal).
I have'nt had much luck with crafting scrolls yet, the only one I've found is for a students belt that gives +1 def +1 int and a 5% chance of a free class rune after each battle. Lastly, to craft items you need gold, mana and a few crystals.
Hope that helps.
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