As previously mentioned, Total War's ancillaries and traits were comprehensive, but I did lament the need to move generals out of towns into castles in Medieval 2 so they wouldn't all become corrupt sloths.

A few talents come to mind, some with a tied in weakness:

Scryer - Ability to remotely view areas of the world map or neutral / enemy cities once every x turns.  I'm playing a game of MoM at the moment, so think the 'earth lore' spell

Fallen Ancestry (as a Man) - less prestige / fame due to the mixed blood, but a better chance at recruiting fallen creatures or neutrals?  For Man ancestry as a Fallen, maybe more unrest and better diplomacy with Man factions

Extravagant - Buildings cost X% more in the capital (or all cities) increased prestige from said buildings

Foreman - Increased productivity or reduced building cost at the Sovereign's location.  I'm thinking of the bonuses the Emperor and Mon Mothma had in Star Wars: Empire at War.  Haven't played the beta yet so maybe the sovereign has this anyway.

Bookish - Increased research percentage

War Veteran - Increased health, more xp gained from combat

Surgeon - more troops recover from battle / quicker recovery.

Insidious - political enemies seem to 'disappear'.  Reduced unrest empire-wide, Y % less prestige generated.

• Mad : (-15) Each time the sov do something there's a slight chance (5%) he won't obey your orders and do something else. He has a slight chance to go berserk in battle or trying to flee (5% each turn). Moreover your citizens are more likely to rebel (+10%). You get a small chance (1%) to get a twisted spell : one of the already learned spells get a boost in effectiveness (damage, lower casting spell, speed casting, etc.). But you get a small chance each 20 turns to learn one of the Titans secret : special quest only available to mad people that would let them to get rid of their madness, but still getting the twisted spells.

• Titan's dreamer (15) : each 20 turns you make a dream about the old titans. And you learn more and more about them. For each time you dreamed of them you get a 1% chance to becoming a titan yourself : you get +1attack, +1HP, but you get 1% per dream to sleep the entire turn (and do nothing). When you get at least 20%, then you can decide to let your sov sleep forever. He will grant huge bonus to the city he will be dreaming, a new religion will be created, and spread forth. You'll get a chance to convert your opponenet (or allies) to your religion. A new victory condition opens up : religious one (75% of the map is of your religion).

• Hiding hand (20) : each 50 turns after you get in touch with two other nations, you'll be able to bet on the winning factions. If the last faction you bet on was the most powerful faction, then you earn one Fate point. You can spend your fate points to : (1 point)automatically spy on an other faction cities, (2 points)force a player to be at war with another one. Or force another player to be at peace with another one, (3 points) get one the of the following : 20 essence points, get as many breakthrough in one of the paths as the best player in that path, (4 points) take control of one unit (that isn't a sovereign) and a city (that isn't a capital) from another faction, etc.

All those ideas change the game rules, and open new ways to achieve victory.

I like this idea very much!

It is fun, original, promotes picking "bad" traits, and adds some rpg-value instead of a blunt bonus. It reminds me a little of the skill-wheel in Heroes of Might & Magic V, which was one of the best features of that game in my opinion. You could unlock somewhat rarer/more exotic/powerful abilities by picking two or three more generic prerequisites.

Important Question:

Can we pick up more traits and perks as we level up to certain levels, a la Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. perks? Or are all starting traits available only at soverign creation?

What I'd like to see are major game changing traits as well as basic ones.

For example, a basic one might be: Soveriegn does 5% more fire damage

A major one might be: Soveriegn can fly (This one probably won't happen, but gives an idea of the effect)

Also, I'd like to see traits that you gain in the game. For instance, if a Sovereign wins 10 battles on the offense he gains the 'Unstopable' trait which means that all his troops do 10% more damage in offensive battles until the sovereign loses (Is stopped)

I haven't thought about game balance at all, but it gives an idea

Well, the other problem with them is that only the Sovereign can found new settlements. So he's out of town a fair bit anyway.

I guess some people might like a bonus like that, but I don't see myself using it much.

Sorry... fairly long post on themes? yeah, mainly themes

Life mastery - cost 1 (requires life books)
Gains the ability to cast healing spells at 1/3 cost on the clothmap and at half cost in tactical battles. The first healing spell each turn or each battle is free. Unable to cast suffering spells (DoT)

Life link - cost 3 (requires life books)
Every troop produced increases the sovereigns current health and maximum by 1 (up to x2 or for a different take up to (essence/5) max). Every troop lost reduces the sovs health (down to 1 or your essence whichever is higher).
I.e. default sov producing troop can have double health... or sov with 15 essence, producing troops, gains a 300% health bonus... depending on which is higher.

Life force - cost 2 - requires link and mastery
Your sovereign is intimately linked with every troop on the battefield. In battle they share damage.
Sovreign's current health is proportional to the average current health of your troops.
Troops maximum health is proportional to the sovreigns maximum.

i.e. building troops increases the health of your sovreign and therefore every troop in battle, up to doubling the health of every unit or more for a high level sovreign. Healing the sovreign alone in battle heals all troops.

Conversely... losing troops weakens your sovreign, large gravity spells that do 1/x HP damage to unresistant troops will hurt your sov and DoT spells against your army can make you weaker. (DoT/area debuff spells on your troops are spread to you, so a darkness spell you'd normally resist you'll suffer from if half your troops have it). Also, loss of your sov in battle will reduce the current health of your troops down to 1.

Mainly just a way for a high population strategy to become stronger... and have weaknesses. Somethink like the warlord trait in MoM or the spell that made everyone have double health, and the... battle shrine thingy that made every new recruit stronger. Only this would require gimping your sovs attack ability, since you wouldn't want them to be toe-to-toe if doing so could almost destroy your army the moment they fall. Even in the rear, removing DoT (suffering) spells could lower your capacity for offensive support and switch you to a heal-heal-heal strategy.

Evil theme:

Blood magic reliance - cost 2
1. every *friendly* unit killed by your sov increases your health and mana regeneration by 0.1 up to 3x default. Reduced for every action taken by 0.1 (spell casting mainly, not movement) down to 1/3 of default minimum.
Or
2. Gains sacrifice spell for a short term buff (5 rounds of combat or 5 turns if done outside combat)

Necromancers apprentice
1. Every battle won increases the spell points generated, 1 for a single troop 2 for a squad, 3 for very large numbers...5 points max. Remove the ability to cast any type of 'free' healing spells (heal, regeneration, natures blessing, cauterize). Get blood transfer as a research option, sacrificing units to heal others. (costs 1 point)
or,
2. Large battles won (like the 4 stacks destroyed in MoM) give 5 spell points. (costs 2 points)

Dark magic mastery - requires the above two
1. You live on death in all it's forms. For every unit that dies within range of your sovreign you become stronger. +0.1 health, +0.01 attack, +0.02 defence, +0.015 magic defence...
Undeath itself has touched you and the only thing that keeps you living is blood magic, no inate health regeneration, requires sacrifices to restore lost health. In battles where 4 or more stacks die (MoM style) you gain skeletons and lose fame and prestige (global loss).
or, reduced
2. Each dead unit in combat increases your sov health by 1, every unit killed by the sov provides a 5 combat turn buff proportional to it's strength and has a chance to be raised after the battle. No health regeneration outside of battle.

(just thoughts... a way to make an evil overlord in charge of mass armies, unable to command entire empires (low prestige) who takes units into battle but has no reason at all to keep them alive unless he himself is injured as wants a sacrificial snack)

General theme thoughts:

I think it's important either to have:
1. multiple linked traits for themes (life mastery unlocks life traits, death unlocks evil traits), or
2. to have a high cost to the really useful traits to require adding weaknesses to get a high enough bonus, or
3. for weaknesses to unlock the higher strength bonuses (can't have the mage bonus without constitution penalty... unless it's a theme. or vice versa, being a mage unlocks "amazingly frail - hours of endless study have taken their toll on your physical form, perhaps you should have made more snacks",
4. discount point cost for having all of a theme

So... examples:
ugly unlocks determined...or maybe Determined unlocks harsh
(With the face of a boggart, best hidden in a wardrobe you're determined to...etc or your determination knows no bounds, nothing will stop you achieve your goals. Especially not something as insignificant as the will of others.
stupid or stubborn unlocks magic resistant
(-1 point, research penalty trait unlocks +2 point resistance boost for a total cost 1)
frail or clumsy unlocks artificer... or vice versa
(-1 point, health loss unlocks +2 point magic related profession, total cost 1)
insane + gifted
(gifted +3 points, insane -2 points, or 0 total cost when taken together due to discount)
Failed mage + failed warrior unlocks Dual class (just as a funny example)
-1 point -1 mana regen, -1 point -1 attack... unlocks +3point speed, health and defence boost.

I'd love to see a SPECIAL system, or Homm5 system... especially if you could see traits greyed out that require more points than you can gain in character creation. So you could have stubborn, magic resistant, insane and gifted and see they were requirements for a 15point "prophet" trait which increases your prestige/housing bonus and gives you blessed armour and weapons to you and your troops. (something for when you reach lv 10 and have some deeds under your belt)

Maybe each theme could have an ultimate trait... like shard mastery + fire mastery + insane unlock shard conversion at lv 5 or 10.

The problem is... for them to be interesting they have to be competetive... anything too strong will have a counter but encountering that counter would be random in the game. If it's small and insignificant it could add flavour but nothing else... Like how as a water mage do you counter all the shards in a territory being converted to fire? unless it's temporary while only under the fire mages control.

I would like either:
Themed unlocking of traits,
or a point bonus for taking linked traits. (insane + gifted gives you a point).

A way to allow you to be all positive: hardy(+1) dualclassing(+4) magic specialist (+3)... or have 6 points left over for being a frail (-1) specialist (+2), failed mage(-1), failed warrior (-1) dual class (+3).

I'm just rambling because unlocking is fun but annoyingly restrictive... discounts penalise having fewer traits/generalists... I suppose we could always have each trait have 3 levels... small bonus/cost (like +1 gold, -1 gold), long term bonus/cost (+1 gold per city, +1 upkeep per city) and a large bonus/cost (+4 gold and +1 per city, +2 upkeep per city) - this way any series of benefits linked could be small, medium and large...

Enchanter
small - gain % decrease in enchantment cost
medium - gain enchanting spells at the start
large - gain % return for deconstructed objects and the ability to add stronger enchantments

negative small- increased cost of enchanting items
negative large - lose the ability to enchant items

Something like that would be useful for themes... like the minimum spellbook, charismatic myrran warlord from master of magic... which for some reason is able to enchant artifacts very quickly... due to the reduced spell book options. Having a 'terrible enchanter' option would be nice for changing that strange quirk and making them really really pure army, questing for any magic items and things. (rather than being unable to summon a fly but able to enchant a sword+6...)

Dunno if this has been mentioned yet but what if there was an Achilles heel weakness? Meaning that units attacking your Sovereign have like an extra 5% chance to score a critical hit

I'll start off by listing strengths.  I will list several things that could be used for each trait, I'm not suggesting every single one bundles into the same trait.  Unless you want to.

1. Beautiful or Graceful, it could do several things, take your pick.  Increase your public order rating, improve diplomatic relations, more children, increased health in cities due to inspiration or you could say inspired health in cities.  Inspire troops and morale

2. Ambitious, could do several things, Increased initiative in battles and increased movement value on the cloth map for all units.  Increased chance to first strike in tactical battles.  Increase tax revenue.  Decrease build times.  Structures take less resources to build.

3. Bravery, Courage, or Fearless, reduction or elimination of fear effects or loss of morale in battles in the context of being outnumbered, ambushed or outclassed.  Increased physical, magical damage as well as bonus to armor and resistance to all units.  Longer siege timer for your cities.  Demoralize enemy troops with your lack of fear or your courage.

4. Cautious or Vigilant, increased chance to cancel first strike attacks against you in tactical battles.  Increased chance of spotting enemy spies or scouts.  Higher chance to detect enemy from farther away then normal.  Line of sight increased for all units and buildings.

5. Clean, cleanliness, or Purity, your hygenic habits inspires your people and results in a reduced chance to have disease or plague in your lands.  Increased population growth due to higher sanitation.

6. Creative, increased speed to all research and chance to discover a random bonus tech that is not on the tree.

7. Defiant, increase all resistances of all units and buildings in the context of a losing battle or situation.  Increased resistance to all units regardless of the situation.  Increased hitpoints for all units and buildings.  Increased morale for all units.

8. Dependable, increased city loyalty.  Increased reputation with allies.  Increased reputation gains for doing assignments or quests.

9. Diciplined, your great dicipline inspires your people and results in, a increased improvement to city management.  Reduced upkeep cost for military due to better dicipline and less waste, more efficiency.  Less cost for magic spells because of reduced waste.

10. Excellence, you strive to do the best in every thing you do, increasing every aspect of your character and increasing the speed of progress in anything you are currently training.  Increases your experience point gain.  Increases your critical strike chance.

11. Focused, spells take less time to cast, do more damage, less mana needed to cast, research takes less time, buildings build faster, armies are built faster.  Autoresolve chances of success increase because you are a better tactician by having more focus.  Take your pick.

12. Friendly, increased city happiness, increased reputation with other factions while dealing with them, increased chance to raise good children with positive traits, less anger or penalties when your borders are close to the enemy or different faction because you are friendly.  Increased chance to get a peace treaty during war.

13. Frugal, everything takes less time, takes less resources, and makes your entire kingdom or empire more efficient.

14. Knowledgeable, receive bonus tech free when you start the game and again after several turns.  Increased research speed, increased line of sight on the map, increased knowledge of enemy units and their attributes.

15. Loving, increased population growth, increased city happiness, increased light power, better foreign faction relations, increased morale to troops.

16. Majestic, increased loyalty and respect from your faction.  Increased bonus to diplomatic relation actions, and influential in trying to decide on a deal.

17. Patient, increased resistance, armor and hitpoints.  Able to withstand punishment longer then most people.

18. Tact, improved diplomatic relations, improved loyalty and respect from own faction.

19. Righteous, improve effects of performing good acts, improved rewards and consequences.  Reduced chance of corruption, spies, infiltration in your faction.

20. Swift, increased chances of retreating from the enemy safely.  Increased movement points. Increased initiative in tactical battles.  Increased first strike capability.

21. Charming, you have a incredibly seductive charm with other people and can usually persuade people to see your way as the right one.  Improved diplomatic dealings, improved faction loyalty, happiness and respect.  Improved chances that you will find your soul mate, get married and have children.

Weaknesses

1. Wrathful, reduced loyalty and increased fear in your subjects.  Reduced happiness in your faction.  Reduced diplomatic relations and reduced effects of actions while engaging in diplomacy.  Natural backlash of wrath when turned down in diplomacy causes further reduced relations.

2. Arrogant, increased chance of your units getting ambushed, increased chance of the enemy getting the first strike.  Increased chances of enemy landing a critical strike against you.  Reduced diplomatic relations.  Reduced respect and loyalty from your own faction.  Increases damage done to your units due to lack of proper preparation, out of your own arrogance.

3. Doubtful or indecisive, lowered morale, respect and loyalty in your faction and a decrease in initiative in tactical battles because you have a difficult time making decision.

4. Envious or Jealous, you are envious of others that have more then you and so you receive a reduced diplomatic relation with other factions that are stronger then you.

5. Greedy, you sacrifice happiness in your faction to increase more money from taxation on all levels.  Bah humbug!

6. Unjust, crime goes way up in your faction due to you turning a blind eye to crime and doing it yourself as well.

7. Impatient, research takes longer, building time takes longer, armies take longer to build because you make many mistakes by being so impatient.  Tactical battles don't always go well for you, you get ambushed alot, afflicted by first strike more often, hit with critical strike more.

8. Recklessness, in tactical battles you get hit with critical strikes more often, get ambushed more, hit with first strike more often, your line of vision is decreased.  Upkeep for all units and buildings cost more due to stupid mistakes through being reckless.

9. Sloth, everything takes longer because of your laziness.  Reduced movement speed on the map, reduced movement speed in tactical battles.  Longer casting time.  Longer research time.  And so on.

10. Untrustworthy, you have broken your word many times, backstabed and cheated to get your way.  Other factions and your own people hold you in great distrust.  Reduced loyalty and happiness.  Reduced diplomatic relations.  Any bad act against another faction or your own people have their effect intensified while having this trait.

11. Vanity, you can't help by demand attention all the time and show off to others.  You sow resentment in your people with your vanity and reduce their happiness and loyalty.  Also reduces diplomatic relations.

12. Sickly, you are afflicted with a incurable disease/illness/condition/curse and suffer penalties to hitpoints, armor and resistances.

13. Cursed, your luck is greatly reduced, you have higher chances of getting hit with a critical strike, being ambushed, bearing bad offspring, getting attacked with a first strike, get invaded by demons, ghosts and the undead.  Have your spells fizzle once in a while.  You have higher chances of your troops betraying you.

14. Morbid, having a very unhealthy mental state, you have a reduced magic effectiveness and/or take interest in evil magic and perversity.  You have terrible family relations and/or impart perversity into their character and create many bad traits in them. Reducing happiness and healthiness in your faction.

15. Haunted, you are being trailed by a demon and/or a ghost that torments you day and night, reducing your effectiveness in all that you do.

16. Hated, gives you many points to spend on strengths, your people loathe you, your family loathes you and other factions loathe you.  You are alone in this world.

17. Maimed, you have been gravely wounded in a great battle of long past and have your attack power greatly reduced as well as magical attack power.

18. Butterfingers, your accuracy is greatly diminised whether it be physical or magical.

19. Gluttonous, you devour your food supply so greatly and wine and dine with your fellow aristocrats, that you impoverish your own people.  Reduced population growth and happiness, loyalty and respect.  Reduced personal health, hitpoints.  Reduced diplomatic relations.

20. Cultist, you are a fanatic of a evil religion, and sacrifice your own people over the altar.  Reduced population growth, happiness, loyalty and respect.  Increased chances for rebellion.  Greatly reduced diplomatic relations with factions without this trait.

21. Half-Blind, you were wounded in a battle and now you have great difficulty seeing.  Your accuracy is greatly diminished on both magic and physical attacks.

I know it sounds like im repeating some of the stuff over and over again, but I'm not expecting all of these to be put in, so i'm mixing it up with a different word to try different variations and give you new ideas.  Not all of the suggestions are expected to be put into ONE trait, they are just alternative suggestions within the trait. 

There's some ideas, I'll keep editing this, so check back if you want.

Fertile = More kids.

Runs around = more kids but they are illegitimate plus - household peace. ( -% health regen or spell points or spells cost more due to nagging/angry wife etc etc while in home town)

Inbreed random + or - plus a small % of both.

Bully + at start of combat but - to moral if takes more than 50% damage.

Snob equipment costs more but has a +%

I am in the beta, but I didn't spend a lot of time looking through these yet, so if I repeat some Im sorry  

• Masochist - Damage taken up to a certain % increases attack by the same %. Lower max HP. (Talent or Weakness)
• Inspiring - Morale boost to troops in battle.[Talent]
• Barbarian - Boosts to skills like Strength and Speed, but Magical ability suffers a little.[Talent or Weakness]
• Optimistic - Troops rout later than normal when in a losing battle, and get a boost to attack during that time. [Talent]
• Fair-Minded - No diplomacy penalties with "The Fallen" [Talent; Kingdom Only]
• Racist - Hates "The Fallen", severe penalties to interactions with them [Weakness; Kingdom Only]
• Abhors Weakness - All injured troops at the end of a battle are slain [Weakness]
• Unfocused - Magic and technology takes longer to research [Weakness]

Famous  + Prestige

Infamous  - Prestige

Eagle Eyes  + vision range

Blind as a bat - vision range

Defensive  + Defense

Fool-Hardy - Defense

can't think of a good name    +1 extra item per mine/farm/orchard, etc.

as above                              -1 extra item per mine/farm/orgard, etc.

After thinking about it, I would like the way your old "profession" gives you bonuses change.

I think primarily you should get a starting tech with one, and if it is a cheaper tech some other kind of bonus to go with it.

Someone who was a thief might get starting tech "Bribery", where as someone who was a farmer would get "farming". The main reason I want this is because I feel the first several turns of civ development are too slow and boring because their is so little you an do and you're just waiting to get some advancements to begin to strategize anything. Having a different starting tech from everyone else would get you started strategizing from the beginning.

Warning: spellchecker isn't working.

Positive traits:

• Warlord - increases maximum experience level of units and heroes.
• Alchemist - can create small amount of special resources by sacreficing large amounts of other resources.
• Archmage - increases spellpower by X%
• Druidic - animals are not aggressive towards you.
• Illusionist - can create an illusion of every creature the channeler has faced in battle before.
  
• Master Illusionist - these illusions *hurt*
• Prophet - the channeler recieves a warning before any major event. The 'heads up' time is proportional to the severity of the event.
• Astrologer - may consult the stars before a world-map action. Thus knowing if the action would be made under a positive or negative conditions (say, 10% difference from the 'normal'). This perk is not about the buff/debuff, but rather about having the option to (ab)use said buff.
• Cartographer - units will gain a 15% increase to their world-map speed when they are marching towards a far destination (turns away or more).
• Geologist - sees additional mineral desposits to those everyone else see.
• Researcher - increase the availablity of uncommon and rare technologies.

Negative traits:

• Pacifist - reduces the experience and prestige awarded from battles.
• Trouble Magnet - roaming monsters tend to roam in your direction.
• Girly - enemy factions view your armies (statistically) as weaker than they really are.
• Hedonistic - doubles the benefit of luxurius resources, but gives a penalty for each such a resource controlled by an enemy faction and not by the player.
• Unimaginative - doesn't recieve rare technologies.

General note: make a trait for each caster type you can think of. Being a summoner/necrommancer/transmuter/etc. might not be orignial, but might still be an interesting play choice. These traits shoul work regardless of spellbooks chosen, in my opinion.

I like having certain "Talents" not neccassarily pure positives but maybe built-in weaknesses and strengths

(Eager Fighter - first X turns of tactical combat you are +25% strength and movement. But after that point you suffer -25% for the rest of the battle).

These "Talents" would probably be best put into a seperate category but you could always include them as very cheap talents. The point is, though, that they would be purely (or at least, mostly) beneficial to a certain playstyle so that their drawback wouldn't be too noticeable. So, they shouldn't be 0 cost, obviously

You could always limit the number of choices they have (eg, you have 15 of these and they are limited to three) or something like that, I don't know. I do want to have as many different traits as possible. I know it makes it harder to balance and multiplayer would probably end up only allowing a few different ones to be competitive. But it should be fun to do lots of different things in Single Player.

I like talents and weaknesses too.

But I think the Dungeons&Dragons attributes are too microish for a game of this scope. Since the talents and attributes use the same points I'd like to see the attributes integrated into talents somehow.

Like picking a talent called Strong instead of putting points in Strength. And that alone would make the Sovereign a more potent combatant.

Or picking a talent / feat called Charismatic instead of dumping points into Charisma.

If the attributes remain so painfully detailed I wish they would at least be renamed so they wouldn't give these nasty DnD flashbacks.

Mystic - faster mana recovery

Charming - better chance to persuade enemy / others to join in

Alchemist - Better gold / mana exchange rate

Immortal - can revive once after being killed

submerge - ability to move underground unnoticed

Swordmaster / axemaster / Blunt weapon master - Attack bonus if heroes use respective items

Vampiric - suck blood from opponent in melee attack

Great smith - able to forge better  weapon

Laborer - faster weapon forging rates

Eagle eyes - ability to randomly learn a new spell enemy used after battle

resilient - faster HP recovery

Keen eyes - allow teammate for +1 range attack

commander - allow +1 melee attack / defence of nearby team

Path finder - +1 movement in jugle

swimmer - +1 movement in sea / river / lake

Assasinate - random chance to deliver critical blow

snipe - random chance for 100% shot

noble - +1 gold income per turn

brave - attack / defence bonus when HP is less than half

Evil - better chance to attract fallen

Kind - better chance to attract human

Holy - ability to heal teammate 1 HP per turn

Fire / water / air / earth master - attack bonus in respective magic usage

Defensive - Bonus defensive in castle

As I believe we will have a bunch of talents after we brainstorm, I would think that talent classification and choices are critical aspect in game to ensure all of them are unique / useful or having is own role in the game and not too messy

further suggest as below

1) Talent font Color - Gold (Rare) - 2 point to pickup , no color (good / normal) - 1 point to pickup

2) All good / normal talent is learnable true "1 VS 1 duel request" if the accepted oppenent have that.

3) To better appreciate every single talent and encourage diversity and player to choose carefully, Max talent per a normal Hero is 2 and increase of 1 every 10 levels advancement

Talents:

Energy drainer: special attack in combat sucking out one experience level from hero (hp from monsters).

Gaze of the Gorgon (this one was natural to include! ): special attack once per combat with a chance of petrifying enemy.

Charming kiss: once you have kissed your husband/wife (directly after mariage) he/she falls completely under your spell (and appears as a CHARMED champion that you can order about ...) 

Succubus/Incubus: can appear in erotic dreams of chosen victim: you get to chose freely who you want to marry (they can't say no).

Hater of nature: gets bonus from wasting any living land tile. 

Peacemaker: can intervene once during game and cancel a declaration of war (against own country or allies).

Scream of the banshee: special attack killing everyone (including own troops within hearing radius).

Iron mind: strong defense against mind affecting spells.

Investigator: gets automatic access to some spy-based / intelligence gathering techniques.

Evil eye: can throw an evil eye curse once against an opponent (civ or unit) with horrible effects.

Honest: bonus on allies' reactions in diplomacy, but penalties when relationship is bad (since cannot lie).

Altruist: bonus on morale in kingdom, but automatically distributes a few gold every turn to population.

Prophetic dreams: every new turn a small chance of revealing a far-off part of the map through a dream.

Beast rider: can ride a certain animal in addition to horses, like bears, wolves or something even cooler.

Berserker: chance of entering deadly frenzy but loses control and fights same enemy to the death.

Taunter: can use ability to make other civ declare war or break treaties.

Weaknesses:

Phobia for a certain terrain type, which gives severe penalties e.g. in combat/morale as long as staying in such terrain, e.g. forests, desert, arctic, ocean etc.

Phobia against special creature: penalties against this one.

Lord of flies: spreads disease in own city and country (as event, several times during game)

Poisonous touch: your husband/wife risks dying before you have any offspring, but you get a poison attack with your bare hands.

Call of the wild: freaks ou by city life (gets penalties in any city after e.g. 5 turns and must return to wilderness).

Cursed bloodline: sovereign's children get shit all their lives (be creative)

Some ideas (if any Stardockian needs flavor for any, just ask and I'll weave some lines explaining why of them):

Crystaline Synchrony (Talent)

Spells that require Crystal Shards are more powerful.

Crystaline Desynchrony (Weakness)

Spells that require Crystal Shards are less powerful.

Blood of the Titans (Talent)

Double the initial amount of Essence of the Sovereign and he earns an additional Essence point each level up.

Quest potential.

Ancient Soul (Hybrid Talent)

You earn less experience than usual but earn the double of bonuses at level up.

Quest potential.

Blood Lust (Hybrid Weakness)

Penalty to diplomacy and less probability of retreating from combat. Bonus to combat speed.

Grace (Talent)

Bonus to diplomacy and recruitment. Bonus to the Prestige of the city where the Sovereign is.

Half Dragon (Talent)

Penalty to experience. Increased stats. Each few level ups he can choose a new dragon-like ability.

Quest potential.

Soul Eater (Talent)

Whenever any living being dies close to the Sovereign, he regains some health and mana.

Infertile (Weakness)

The Sovereign cannot have children. Cannot choose other weaknesses or talents that affect the probability of children.

Curse of the Thin Blood (Weakness)

Pentaly to the initial stats. All the descendants of the Sovereign have a similar penalty.

Quest potential.

Construct (Hybrid Weakness)

Not a natural living being, resistant to life and death magics. The Sovereign cannot have children. Cannot choose other weaknesses or talents that affect the probability of children. Bonus to the physical stats.

Quest potential.

Experimental Bioweapon (Hybrid Talent)

Slightly better stats. Each level up, choose a new ability and/or extra stats. Diplomacy penalty with Kingdom factions.

Quest potential.

What about talents that have a plus AND minus?

For example, thrifty increased your earnings, but means you can only commence building 1 structure (kingdom-wide) per turn.  Or a warrior-king talent that improved you and your armies on the field, but meant you neglected your home duties, imposing some penalty back in the city.

I def. liked the idea of some talents only being opened up by combinations of others.

Also, could talents devlop or atrophe as the game went along?  For example, say you select the scholarly talent, but then don't build any libraries ever, have the bonus taper off as your gameplay shows a distinct disinterest in books.  If you have a library on every other city tile, the bonus gets larger.

You could also have talents develop in-game.  Say assign your channeller to the forge, and if he stays there 20 turns, he gets the forger talent - the downside being that you've kept him off the map and from casting spells for the duration of his apprenticeship.  You could then have a weakness for "dabbler" that you're given if you start apprenticeships a few times, but repeatedly pull your channeller off that to deal with a crisis.  The weakness would mean that you have an increased chance of not seeing things through - like you cast a "raise land" spell, and instead of getting mountains, you get hills.  You ask to build a palace, but end up with a mansion.

Or perhaps talents that are only triggered if you achieve certain in-game conditions - especially if the conditions are not completely within your control.  Extending my previous scholar example, your scholar only gets the bonus if you have a bunch of libraries, AND you're allied to another faction that also has a lot of libraries.  Or you have an affinity for potions of defence - they affect you more, but your talent is useless if you don't happen to find any of that particular potion.

Which raises the question - how do I know it's a potion of defence?  Maybe I need a talent to identify potions, which only helps me in the early game because at some point I'm able to research pharmacy which would allow people without the talent to identify the potion, but until that point, they either have to stockpile or quaff and hope it's not posion.

Also, there's the possibility that some talents are genetic - so they're potentially passed onto your offspring.  I've got the "strong-man" gene, so my kids are also going to be built.  Or I pass my impatience on to them.  That would also open up the possibility of recessive talents - I don't exhibit the talent myself, but there's a chance that it'll show up in my kids (possibly also depending on spouse?).  For example, I'm no hero, but I carry the recessive hero gene which then manifests itself in one of my 4 children.  These talents/weaknesses would cost way less because there's no guarantee they'd go off.

Micro-manager - reduces the effectiveness of all of your governors.

Not sure if these all go in this section but how about stuff like this.  All the names are crap, never been good with names.

School (Air/Earth/...) Affinity - requires one less shard to cast high level spells from that school/book and spells from that school cost less.

School Specialist - Learns spells faster from that school and they are more powerful, learns others more slowly.  Sovereign gets a permanant bonus effect based on school (air = moves faster, fire = more damage, earth = better defense, etc as some possibilities).

Hot Headed - reduced leadership?

Artificier/Enchanter - Can create items faster/better/maybe opens some new options

Summoner - learns summoning spells faster, costs less to cast them.  If spells are randomly given to you then summoning spells are more likely to show up and all will eventually become available to you from your chosen books.  Start game with one weak summoning spell

Ranger? - Can recruit/charm wild animals

Infantry/Cavalry/Archer/Siege/Naval Expert - Training of that unit type faster (reduced training requirements by 10% or something)

Showoff - armies can be seen from farther away than normal

Necromancer - 1% of populace is converted to undead each turn

Stealthy - Units harder to see on the map

Terrain Affinity (forest/mountain/etc) - Get movement and combat bonuses in chosen terrain

Tactician - Leadership bonus/army fights better

Monster Slayer - you and army get bonuses against non-basic units

Disciplinarian (sorry, can't spell) - Units being commanded get extra movement points

Scout - better vision

Clairovoyant - can detect invisible/ambushing units

Famous - heroes/adventurers/quests more likely

Logistics Expert - armies need less food (do they need food?)

Fallen/Human Simpothizer - diplomacy bonus with the other side.  Diplomacy reduction with own faction.

Rightous - bonus fighting opposite faction

Life/Death Affinity - fight better in your own type of lands, worse in opposite lands

Insubstantial (like a wraith) - damage from natural(physical) sources (non-magic greatly reduced, only take 25% damage).  Damage from magic is increased (+25%)

Magic Immunity - spells cast at your soveriegn or the city he is in only work 50% of the time

Fertile - better chance of producing offspring

Infertile - can't produce offspring (or reduced chance if that is too harsh)

Some other potential ones that I can't think of names for:

global spells have reduced maintance costs.

If spells cost more to cast over a distance or have a distance limit than an ability to reduce this cost and cast at greater ranges

one to make your spells harder to dispel

one to make you better at dispelling others spells

one for reducing maintance costs

Beastmaster (lvl X) - Can recruit X free unit(s) drawn from surrounding wildlife.

Green thumb - Nearby farms produce more crops per turn. Nearby cut forests re-grow faster.

"Jumper" – Is born with natural ability to teleport. Channeler can mark a spot on the map and teleport to it, if within short-med range. This requires no mana. Only the channeler can teleport and no other units.

Pseudo-Immortality - When the channeler dies, and if the channeler still has X% amount of mana left at death, the channeler spawns close to the nearest friendly controlled crystal (within a certain range...if none around, channeler dies).

Noble Birth - Increased Prestige of your kingdom faction. Increases diplomacy with other kingdom factions. No effect on empire factions.

Distant Fallen Heritage - There are rumors that your great, great...nx...great grandmother had children with a [fallen race]. Slight increased diplomacy with fallen factions, and slight decreased diplomacy with men factions.

Monstrously ugly - Decreased birth rate with "human" wives, but normal birth rate with Fallen wives. Decreased Diplomacy with Men Factions.

I like the attributes but I think the game changing talents will make these not worth investing in much.  What about just separating them out all together.  You get 10 points to spend on attributes alone and can still reduce them like you can now for bonus points.  If this route is chosen than you can add skilled/unskilled talents that give/subtract points from your pool to spend on abilities.  I think this might work out better and give more balanced sovereigns.

One thing that could work here, is to use MP popularity as a method of balancing.  If something is overused, raise its cost, underused lower it.   Eventually an equilibreum should be reached.

If you do this, you should add a 0 to everything in creation, so it would be easier to increment as needed.