The archivist and the onyx throne: One gives 1 lore +1 per shard connected to the city, and the other gives 1 skill +1 per shard connected to the city.

On a typical map, the most shards you can have attached to a city, just by city growth alone, is one or two. To get more shards attached to a city, you would have to build one or more pioneers to expand to a shard outside the city area. Given the lackluster benefit of these facilities, I think it would be a no-brainier to use the pioneers to claim resources, rather than just using them to extend the reach of the city to claim one additional shard. So, I suggest beefing up the benefit of these facilities.

Aspects of speed: It requires two horses and some iron to craft this item, but the item only provides +1 initiative. Again, using the horses to build two trained units instead of the aspects of speed is a no brainer. I suggest increasing the bonus to at least +3 initiative, or eliminating horses as an ingredient.