Atypical Build

[LoLotov]

I would like to make a skinny little Driik with an animal friend who will be incapable of feeding themself regularly without trading. Gotta be garbage at fighting so I can't just pick fights, but what would be a good set of skills to raise for maximizing my trading capabilities and minimizing personal food production?

I know people do this all the time and the answer will be straightforward, but I don't branch out from my normal routine often enough to be sure how to run this character.

[PALU]

I haven't made such a character. (and I suspect I'd find it boring and repetitive, given the limited number of crafts you can make)..
I assume you mean your character should be poor at hunting, farming, and fishing, and thus should be a craftsman (as you can't make a living from trading for profit, as far as I understand: bringing "civilized" goods from the coast to the remote inland and hides back would otherwise be an interesting career choice).
If so, I'd assume carpentry is the required skill, unless you use mods although you could probably use woodcrafting to make boards. As far as I understand you can't make a profit from making clothes.

A small character has a need for at least one animal of burden, and if the character can't fight there's probably a need for a sacrificial dog for Njerp encounters.

Another thing to consider is that you may very well have to travel, as I've had villagers refuse to trade for more of something I've already sold a lot of.

[spamgoose]

As PALU says, there aren't really any avenues for trading for profit. Somewhere, you have to be creating primary goods. In that regard I can think of three options:

1. Food: You hunt/trap loads of animals, turning most hides into cords, and produce quality food for the people.
Skills: Cooking, and a cluster in either hunting or trapping

2. Hides: You trap for the quality fur-bearing animals and turn out hides in exchange for food and tools.
Skills: Hideworking, trapping, something to escape Njerps -- speed/stealthiness, timbercraft also useful if you're not strong

3. Woodworking: You create traps, boards, bowls, etc.
Skills: Timbercraft, carpentry... probably want good dexterity, endurance, will in the base skills

I think 1 is out for you, because you want to trade for food to survive.

3, as PALU mentions, can be repetitive. Also, if your character isn't big and strong it can be difficult to do well.

2 seems like the best option for me. If you just never trade for a shovel then trap fences are out (and the only consistent trapping method where you get lots of food), plus being small when digging holes is annoying anyway. Having a good supply of furs means moving around a bit and having traplines in various regions. Plus, the "trapper/fur trader" character is very satisfying from a role-playing perspective. In a recent game I had a "fort" by the Driik and another by the Seal Tribe, and would make seasonal trips trading fur for tools in the south and tools for fur in the north. Doesn't make you rich, but feels very satisfying.

Edit: Added skill listings to more answer direct question.

[koteko]

If you are up to a challenge, I have an option that I've tried to do (unsuccessfully, yet - I'm not a patient man) and should fit.

You'd be a blood-phobic farmer: you can eat meat/fish but you cannot kill animals, nor process the hides. Strict rule.

You can buy cows/sheep for milk, and you can burn down a big field and plant all kinds of things. At the end of the harvest season, you should have plenty of hemp, nettle, grains and various vegetables.

Now, to make use of this you should get some mods: Rainscloth mainly, but possibly also budz brewery and njerpez cooking (this has an alcoholic drink made with rye bread, very good for finally using rye). With hemp and nettle you make linen/nettle clothes (it takes a while!), with berries and some vegetables you make alcoholic beverages. You put them in barrels and when you are done, it's almost winter. You rush off to the villages and trade your stuff for warmer clothes and dried food. You can also buy bear/elk fur and make the clothes yourself of course.

A cheese-making mod would couple with this very well but there's none out yet. I've done some research for it but I'm too lazy to do it yet

EDIT: if you intend "cannot kill" in the strictest sense, you cannot use traps either. This requires some ingenuity to protect your crops from birds and herbivores. They can be a real nuisance!

EDIT2: a Sartolai is probably a better option than a Driik, since it's more agricultural-related. And also it doesn't have the nice shield/sword bonuses of Driiks.. my now-defunct Sartolai only knew knife and unarmed. A nice little pacifist monk.. that I threw stupidly against a Njerpez. RIP.

[LoLotov]

Rather than like all of these answers, let it suffice to say I find extreme merit in all three and will use the advice of all three. I agree with PALU that this will most likely be boring, but I'm planning on coming back to this character over time while running my regular guys and trying for extreme longevity. I was thinking spamgoose's option 2 the whole time, but it'd be a rough/slow start without spamming fox traps and bowls to keep from starving. Koteko, I love that role play, but an unfortunate thing about me is that I Don't Mod, as a matter of principle (/utter laziness). If it were doable without them I'd be all over it...

As it is, my role play shall be the bastard son of a Driik woman and a foreign trader, ostracized by his clansmen and unskilled in their ways. However, he always enjoyed the idea of luring foolish wild beasts to a doom of his making, and is exceptionally skilled with traps and the gruesome task of processing hides. He will seek furs and primarily trade with foreigners, ostensibly for goods valuable enough to buy out whole towns' food supplies, but mostly to find and murder his father (first trader I accidentally trap dies and ends the character haha).

Edit: I mostly want to trade with foreigners because I seem to recall that they give you higher trade value per fur, confirmation of this would be appreciated.

[koteko]

Rather than like all of these answers, let it suffice to say I find extreme merit in all three and will use the advice of all three. I agree with PALU that this will most likely be boring, but I'm planning on coming back to this character over time while running my regular guys and trying for extreme longevity. I was thinking spamgoose's option 2 the whole time, but it'd be a rough/slow start without spamming fox traps and bowls to keep from starving. Koteko, I love that role play, but an unfortunate thing about me is that I Don't Mod, as a matter of principle (/utter laziness). If it were doable without them I'd be all over it...

Without mods, you are pretty much stuck with either being a craftsman (board/fox-traps/arrows, all of value 8, a good unit) which is very boring but makes you rich pretty quickly (trading boards/fox-traps is almost cheating, in a way), or you'd be a very typical build (contrarily to the title): you hunt and sell hides and extra meat this is the single most common type of character.

As it is, my role play shall be the bastard son of a Driik woman and a foreign trader, ostracized by his clansmen and unskilled in their ways. However, he always enjoyed the idea of luring foolish wild beasts to a doom of his making, and is exceptionally skilled with traps and the gruesome task of processing hides. He will seek furs and primarily trade with foreigners, ostensibly for goods valuable enough to buy out whole towns' food supplies, but mostly to find and murder his father (first trader I accidentally trap dies and ends the character haha).

Nice RP, and you are probably going to enjoy it. But as I said above it's a very typical build, if you get a decent roll

Edit: I mostly want to trade with foreigners because I seem to recall that they give you higher trade value per fur, confirmation of this would be appreciated.

Yep, you get higher values for some furs but I don't know which furs in particular (fox probably, seal maybe?). Since they ONLY take furs, I find it quite annoying to trade with them (it's hard to "fine-tune", so unless you carry a load of minor furs, eg squirrels, you are going to have to give more goods than strictly necessary).