Greetings all,
I have recently procured myself a group of gamers to play with, and am starting anew. As we have no one to GM, I will be GMing for the first time ever. I thought that I should do my best to experience the game first, so I have organised a pick up game on the internets for later on this month.
I need a character, and found character creation the most confusing part of the rules, so I wanted to enlist your help good people in my quest to make a decent character for myself 
I have this idea of a travelling scholar from Araby (as I have elaborated elsewhere) his name will be Tarek Bey and he will be from Copher, and has travelled to the Empire to observe the coming (rumoured) Chaos Invasion, along with the customs and norms of the distant land. His inspiration will be scholars like Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Arabi, who travelled widely, and more... eccentric characters like Ibn Batutta.
In order to make him a bit more grim, I thought I would have him as quite unflinching, almost stubborn. While unfailingly polite, he may come off as superior or obtuse, depending on his mood. I can imagine that he would certainly attract a lot of negative intention (I'd appreciate your thoughts on this) in the Empire, and so I'll possibly have him attempting to pass as a Reiklander, and undoubtedly doing a poor job of it.
I wondered what kind of career and talents would be appropriate for such a person? Like Ibn Khaldun, I would have him almost compelled to involve himself in the politics of wherever he went, often to his own detriment. This could be an appropriate reason for him deciding to leave Copher in the first place.
I was thinking Dilettante maybe? Possibly student? I know there are navigator, scribe and scholar careers in the expansions, but I don't know their details yet. What kind of talents would I pick to give him a bit of combat ability? Ibn Khaldun fought at points against Tamer and anyone who survived travel through the Old World would certainly have some measure of combat skills.
Sorry for the long rant, basically I am asking for help representing an explorer scholar, who has some ability with a sword 
My thanks for any help.
Student might work also, but he may be wandering because that is exactly what he does not want to be. With charm, education, and guile as skills, plus his exotic background, he can ingratiate himself to scholars, nobles, and upper class merchants. He might never have to pay for a meal. And I bet the bored merchant wives loooove him......