Grousemetal Character Creation

Monkey Style Unarmed Combat sounds perfect!

I like the idea of this character who abhors violence unless absolutely necessary, but applies all their experience and cleverness to being the most capable master of the martial arts, meaning that if anyone steps out of line, this person will not hesitate to put them right back in their place.

Onto skills! You receive 13 points to put into skill ranks. You can have as many as 3 ranks in any one skill, though this will improve as you level up. What kinds of things would you like to be able to do? Note that this does not involve combat or magic directly (with the exception of two knowledge skills I'll explain to you later).

My concept for this character is an extremely good talker, someone very good at persuasion, reading people, knowing what is going to make a person do what they want.

Alright, I'd say we should put 1 rank in Diplomacy and 3 ranks in Guile, for starters. By good talker, does that include being able to deliver a speech to a crowd?

Current ranks remaining: 9

Absolutely.

I'll put another 2 ranks in Oratory, then. Keep going! What else can you do?

Current ranks remaining: 7

Obviously she'd need to be very knowledgeable about history and magic and such given her work, but if knowledge skills are out... She'd need to be able to secure artifacts by alternative means if people weren't willing to give them up by persuasion and violent means would be too much of a hassle. I'd think she'd be able to pick a lock here and there, maybe scale a wall up to a window if absolutely necessary.

I'll put a rank each in Locksmithing and Athletics.

Current ranks remaining: 5

The best skill for history would be Knowledge (archives), since it is the academic, catch-all knowledge skill. As for magic, that is a special situation. Some people in the setting are conscious of the fact that their magic comes from practice and study, and their way to interact with it is through the Knowledge (occult) skill. However, there are others who acquired their magic from religious practices and texts, and believe that their power comes from their deity. Such people use Knowledge (religion) instead.

Definitely Knowledge (archives). I'll take Knowledge (occult) as well. I'd like two ranks in each of those.

Done and done! You have one remaining rank. Do you want to add it to a new skill, or add it to one of the "less than three" ones you already have?

What other skills are available? If you would rather not reveal them all, throwing the last one in Diplomacy sounds good.

They're not a secret, but I wanted to make sure you put as much creativity into this as possible, before you had to resort to checking the full list.

General
Acting, Appraise, Athletics, Ceramics, Comedy, Dance, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Guile, Gymnastics, Hide, Keyboard, Language, Oratory, Painting, Percussion, Posture, Riding, Soft Steps, Song, Strings, Swim, Training, and Wind Music.
Knowledge
Archives, Bestiary, Engineering, Navigation, Occult, Religion, Seafaring, and Wilderness
Make
Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Bowyery, Carpentry, Cobbling, Glassmaking, Jewelry, Leathercraft, Locksmithing, Pottery, Scribing, Sculpting, Shipwright, Trapping, and Weaving.

Thanks for the list! I'll stick with one more rank in Diplomacy.

Alright! That's Athletics 1, Diplomacy 2, Guile 3, Knowledge (archives) 2, Knowledge (occult) 2, Locksmithing 1, Oratory 2.

Next up is Focus. Do you want your character focused on Magic, or do they just have some magic in addition to their true focus?

Could you explain Focus a bit? Does that mean what is most important to the character?

Almost. Focus is more of a past endeavor, something your character has spent their life doing thus far. The question I'm currently asking is whether your character has dedicated most of their life to studying magic, or if they are more focused on something else.

Ah, I see. I'd say it is magic from several angles, practicing it, history of it, how others practice it.

Definitely makes sense. Now, would those angles include practicing several related subschools of magic, or focusing intently on one particular kind?

Optimally, I'd think knowledge of several related subschools (like knowing that they exist and other pretty basic facts), but focusing intently on the practice of one kind.

Makes sense! That means we get to go into the magic system in depth. Three terms to get straight are Type, School, and Subschool.

Type
A type of magic is the most general category, connecting one of your mental Virtues (or Grand) with a magical doctrine. Two of them are Nemesis based, two of them are Enlight based, and then Body magic is Grand based.
The five Magic Types are Nature, Cosmic, Body, Mind, and Soul.
Nature Magic is Nemesis based, and operates off of the Genius Loci of the Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere, or the sum of all energies that pass in and around the world (known as the Great Radiance). A Genius Loci is like a Jinn of phenomenal scale and power, basically the most powerful entity of its kind. It is entirely viable to get your magic from one or more lesser entities, like a huge tiger spirit or the spirit of a particular mountain, but most mages quickly learn to appease the Genius Loci early on. Basically, the way this works is that the mage dedicates themselves to physically, mentally, and spiritually mimicking the spirits of an element. If you're an Earth mage, you mimic soil and stone, in a symbolic sense. By making your behaviors like the element, you appease the spirits and gain the element's power.
Cosmic Magic is Enlight based, and relies solely on the practice of arcane rituals, chants, symbols, and so on. Instead of appeasing the spirits, it aims to manipulate concepts called the Great Instruments of the Cosmos -- envisioned as titanic machinery behind the veil of the world, which turns all motions like clockwork. Cosmic mages can get into a lot of other nonsense, like ancient spellbooks, demon summoning, and the like, but none of that is necessary. In particular, Cosmic magic differs from the wizardry of other games in that it does not require verbal, somatic, or material components. In creating your character, you might specify certain rites or rituals they "need" to do their work, but that is nothing more than a quirk, a tendency you've developed without any real need.
Body Magic is Grand based, and is all about identifying something deep in the mage's body that can be evolved to transcend the limits of their people. They do not cast spells out into the world (normally), but within the confines of their physical form, or its esoteric side: the Soma.
Mind Magic is Enlight based, but unlike Cosmic Magic, it is solely involved in spells cast within the mage's mind, drawing out things to transcend the mental state of the ordinary, the mundane. They do not cast spells out into the world (normally), but deal with the esoteric Psyche.
Soul Magic is Nemesis based, but unlike Nature Magic, it operates on a smaller, more local level. The spirits you commune with are valued only by their relationship to your own soul, little helpers and friends you meet along the way. The most important aspect of this type is how you change your own Spirit.

School
Each Type is divided into 3 or more Schools conventionally taught by mentors and schools throughout the setting. Each type has exclusive access to its own Schools, and you cannot easily cross over.

Sub-School
Each School is then further divided into a larger number of Sub-Schools, which are the variety of magic you're actually casting. A mage of the Lithosphere School does not actively control the sum of all Lithospheric elements at once, but activates and uses a particular subschool. When you take Magic Levels (a separate concept from your character levels), it is into these that you place those levels of growth.