Peasant: morale and farming bonus.

Vegabond: better relations with heroes.

I really loved the Alchemist retort in MoM. I guess a Blacksmith would do for Elemental, where all your units start with +1 attack? Somehtign that makes all your untis better

Yo ... we should totally do a personality test mod!!!

+1 vote for personality test like the aforementioned jagged alliance or better still the Ultima IV test where questions were not split between good and evil.  Choices were often complex both good and bad but for different reasons.  That way you feel connected to your soveriegn from the start.  However, I would include an "advanced" option with check boxes.  Eventually everyone learns to game the system so check boxes are a logical shortcut for those who prefer it. 

Which personality hates which personality?

And yeah I really don't like small little bonuses. When you make a character in an RPG for example you usually get to chose lots of interesting things. (especially clerics in say NWN2 - if it takes over an hour to setup a character with medium knowladge of the mechanics thats cool - obiovusly we don't want that here but its a good example).

I get this vision of a soverign being talent 1 talent 2 weaknesses, profession ok GOOGOGOGOGO!!! BUIILD!!!

And you got +1 gold every 100 turns, 1 extra unit for every 100 units and +1% research bonus on a 20% chance every turn.

I really dislike 'minor' benifits. Not that its happening here but my 'instinct' is to see things more unique and more interesting.

"Prisoner" would be a nice origin, but I can't think of a good bonus for it.

There should be several options for low-status origins -- not just peasant, but also serf, laborer, slave, goatherd (some kind of pathfinding bonus!), etc.  More options for military involvement too, so that your character might have been an infantryman (bonus to defense), cavalryman (bonus to horse movement), NCO (bonus to morale), officer (reduced upkeep), and so on.

In fact, which I feel that the personality test would just be an annoying layer between the player and the system (where you wind up alt-tabbing out to a faq to see which questions are tied to which traits), I think a structure of traits and subtraits would be good -- specifically, as some have already suggested, a series of origin choices rather than just one (inspired in part by Mount and Blade).  Right now, I'm leaning toward a compromise between them that involves selecting three things: first a Birth which narrows your options (e.g., Slave, Noble, Peasant, Artisan, Merchant), then a Field which is an area of work (e.g., Agriculture, Law Enforcement, Learning, Military, Commerce), and then a Career in the Field which is what you actually wound up doing by the time the Cataclysm hit (butcher, watchman, historian, camp follower, peddler).

The idea is that Births have some general effect that's pretty modest, like a slight boost to the morale of your forces by being born a slave in the Kingdom (because you represent the Kingdom philosophy that the individual is the master of their own destiny), or a slight reduction to crafting time because you're an artisan, and your Birth also permits some Fields/Careers and denies others (for example, most nations don't have slaves in their armies -- but there could be an exception, like the Ottoman Turks... maybe the Krax).

Then Fields come along and provide another modest effect, like slightly shorter training times for Military professions or a small research bonus for Learning.  But the main thing is that Fields are also sets of Careers.

The Careers should have an enduring impact on your choices in the game.  Something like the goatherd's bonus to movement in mountains, which will have you favoring mountain settlement and movement and could see synergies with other aspects of the game, like a spell to raise mountains, a defense bonus in mountains, the presence of certain useful resources like iron in mountains, etc.  Similarly, an athlete's shorter fitness training times will see you fielding hardier armies that can march quickly in heavy armor or run all day in skirmisher gear, and you might decide that cavalry is unnecessary.  As a common smith you could stretch your resources to the limit, banging out incredible numbers of cheap swords to outfit a massive army, but as a master smith you'd have the tremendous technical knowledge required to forge a single enchanted sword meant for a mighty hero.

I hope that the Empire will handle some professions differently.  Maybe they have a whole thriving secret police branch of professions (investigator, observer, torturer, messenger, spymaster, jailer) but lack certain other things, like the Field of Law Enforcement as the Kingdoms would know it.  And maybe they have different agricultural things going on over there -- they raise different animals, have different staple crops, and the goatherd knows mountain paths but the henkeeper knows management.

Edit: I realize that the design here seems to focus on minor benefits, and I've tried to run with that in an interesting way.  This system would string together two minor benefits and one highly specific and useful minor benefit.  Players could then punch it up a little with the non-Profession traits.

Here's a weird idea, maybe one of the things you can select about your sovereign is Genre.  E.g., Tragic Hero, Anti-Hero, Brutish Villain, Scheming Villain.  Leaders in fantasy fiction tend to fall into archetypes, and those archetypes could have affinities for certain kinds of play.  Hey, maybe this could tie into how the AI plays as a particular sovereign.

Artist- bonus to prestige of all cities built by Sov.

Lots of ideas I had are already posted.

Smith - fire resistance, benefits to making weapons or armour

Engineer - understanding of siege equipment

Scribe/scholer - better spellbooks?

Mother/Father - already have several heirs

Undertaker - bonuses to death magic effects?

Doctor - Bonuses to healing effects

I'd really, really like it if either the profession and/or the ethnic group chosen gave a starting technology to for your civilization. This would get the early game going a lot faster.

That said, I'd like to see lots and lots of historic professions. There might also be some less noble professions:

Titan slave

Titan gladiator

Titan Prisoner

Outcast/Hermit

I'll second this, since you didn't actually say, "I'll second this"

More Professoins/Ect

Manslayer- increased morale for troops, increased HitPoints for Sov, Diplomatic Penalties for Peaceful NPCs, Diplomatic Bonuses for Warlike and Malicious NPCs.

Vengeful- Sovereign's stats increase as his Hitpoints decrease. Additionally, if the Sovereign is leading an Army, as his soldiers start dying half of the casualties' HP is redistributed among the rest of his army, weighted towards elite units and champions. (or weighted towards the cannon fodder, if the previous weighting proves OP). Diplo bonuses towards nations that have been kind, peaceful, and rewarding (both ways), Diplo penalties for those that have been a Negative Experience (both ways) -> going to war with a Vengeful Sov is not going to net you any friend points. In fact, he will mostly try to war with you the entire game ... at the intervals he has enough power to challenge you (never forgets, never forgives). Perhaps losing cities to player X will give your troops certain bonuses for invading player X (like free supply routes, faster movement, higher morale, ect)

Wrathful- If in a Tactical Battle with someone who you don't like (diplo Modifier-wise, generally an arch enemy you have fought many times) ... your attack and magical attack are increased, and your defense is decreased. Increase and Decrease are more extreme the more you "hate" this faction. Soft cap is doubling attack, increasing magic attack 50%, and decreasing defense 50%. If enemy Sov is also present, Damage and Hitpoints are affected. (Hitpoints reduced 20%, Damage increased 50% as hard or soft caps)

Envious- Diplo penalties (reverse) for factions with a stronger economy, Diplo bonuses (both ways) for factions weaker than you. (This goes for an envious AI only ... if your better than an envious AI, they won't like you). Even without being an AI, however, you still have an Envy meter. The affect of the envy meter is to try and alleviate an unfair economic advantage, by your nation cheating them out (similar in some ways to the swindler profession). Trade routes with a Nation you are envious of will always net you more income than it will for that nation. The higher your envy, the more youll make and the less they will make. The reverse effect takes place for nations less than you. They will make more on trade routes with you than you will of them, however in THIS aspect, your trade routes will never dip *below* basic profits ... they will simply get more *gifts and favors* since your envy works reverse on their poor economies, and it feeds your Envious Ego. Also, your armies in a Nation you are highly envious of will not have supply route penalties, will move faster, and will have lower maintanence costs. The reverse works for your armies in negative envy lands (lands much worse economically than you). An interesting thing to see would be Two nations with Envious Sovereigns of disproportionate wealth at war with each other (or even conducting normal trade). The lesser would get trade bonuses and invasion bonuses, while the stronger would get trade tarriffs and invasion penalties. It would be the stronger Envy's job to simply defend his lands as he goes after the throat of those stronger than himself, not feeling "low enough" to bother with destroying the annoying fly at his heels. He would feel that all nations should be annoying flys biting at his heels, so he might even take it as a compliment (if he doesn't lose any cities of course ... losing a city changes alot, if its an important one)... not to mention that it would re-align the economic disparity. When/If they are equals, there will have been enough conquest for the Envious one to be rightly mad and take his cities back without any remorse.

an Envious + Vengeful Sovereign would be *quite* the interesting character ... especially if he was an AI (but also fun for humans).

alas, these are traits and not professions!!!

Scout/Spotter .... more likely to notice hidden armies/units/monsters waiting for Ambush. Can alternately surround such an army, and slaughter those that would suprise/surround and slaughter him.

Trapper/Trapmaker .... much better at setting ambushes and hiding with your army

Baker -> bakeries give prestige and more food. Can open the Sub-trait "cannibal" through questing decisions/morality choices. Markets and trade routes give extra commerce.

Shoemaker -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with an Item-Crafting Skill of "Advanced" for magical Footwear items.

Clothier -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item-Crafting skill "Advanced" for leather armors.

Seamstress -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item-Crafting skill "Advanced" for magical robes

Master Seamstriss -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item-Crafting skill "Expert" for magical robes

Market Vendor -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item Crafting skill "Moderate" for magical trinkets,  jewelry, and potions

Alchemists -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item Crafting skill "Expert" for potions

Jeweler -> markets and trade routes give extra commerce, Sov starts with Item Crafting skill "Expert" for magical jewelry

Baker thru Jewler express, what I believe is a common idea, of choosing Career Path separate from specific "profession" .... or semantically different: choosing a Field of Work, and then choosing a specific career

So a Sovereign could choose "Artisan" as his class/field of work, which gives markets and trade routes extra commerce.

Next he needs to choose a specific job/career ... like Alchemist, or Jeweler for instance.

Sovergn should be an option for proffesion-- you were a sovergn and then got channeling abilities and continued to rule. A loyalty bonus perhaps?

Are we going to be able to make/mod our own professions?