Since 2nd Edition AD&D there have been a few reasonably good ways to create a character whose primary distinction was “does skills well.” Those were to create a Thief (Rogue), a Bard, or a Ranger. From 3rd edition onward you could pull a few tricks to gain access to more skills, but would generally have to sacrifice effectiveness in some core skill competence to do so. In 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons the skill system is significantly different, as are the multi-classing and class feature rules, allowing for a formidably-effective skill specialist. Once you have proficiency in a skill, your bonuses on rolls keep improving regardless of class. Adding skills does not decrease your effectiveness in any of the ones you already have.

Let’s take a look at one approach, from character creation on:

Attributes: You’ll need at least Dexterity 13, Wisdom 13, and Charisma 13. With the standard Heroic Spread Str 8, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 14 can do the trick.
Race: Half-elf. Two skills, your choice. Nice. Charisma bumps up by two to 16, nudge Dexterity to 16 and Wisdom to 14.
Background: Any. you get two skills.

1st Level: Rogue 1. Four skills from a pretty heft list. Expertise lets you pick two of your eight skills to get a double proficiency bonus.
2nd Level: Cleric 1. Select the Knowledge domain. Gain two languages and two academically-themed skills from a short list. Gain double proficiency bonus on those two skills. Make sure your Cantrip list includes Guidance, which grants a +1d4 bonus to a single ability check. Skill checks are a subset of ability checks.
3rd Level: Bard 1. Gain one skill of your choice.
4th Level: Bard 2. Jack of All Trades gets you a bonus on the few skills you don’t have yet, tools, initiative, and ability checks your DM rules aren’t covered by a skill.
5th Level: Ranger 1. Gain one skill from a reasonably big list.
6th Level: Bard 3. Select College of Lore and gain three skills of your choice. Select two more of your skills for Expertise.
7th Level: Bard 4. Now that you have four levels in a single class, you can finally take the Skilled feat and pick up the whatever three skills are left. You are now proficient in every skill in the PHB and get double your proficiency bonus in six of them.

This quadruple-class approach has the virtue of gaining proper always-applicable proficiency as opposed to relying on limited-use or conditional effects to achieve basic competence. Availing yourself of two classes worth of Expertise has some appeal as well.

From here it’s tempting to level up as a Rogue, taking the Thief archetype. This gets you Cunning Action on your 8th character level, Fast Hands on your 9th, an attribute bump (or feat) at 10th 14th 16th and 20th, another two Expertise skills at 11th, Supreme Sneak at 15th and Reliable Talent at 17th. With an ever-growing list of proficient skills and a smattering of Bard and Cleric spells at your disposal you stand to become and remain the go-to guy for anything that doesn’t directly involve stabbing or blasting something. With Dexterity-based weapons and either the Archer or Duelist fighting style (from your level of Ranger) you aren’t a total liability in a scrap, dishing out Sneak Attacks worth about 3d6 less damage than a single-classed Rogue. There’s a price for anything.

Alternately you can just carry right on with the Bard progression, if stabbing fools isn’t your style. Bardic spells frequently solve problems indirectly, which suits the skillmonkey theme to a tee. Peerless Skill, gained at Bard level 14, isn’t as impressive as the Reliable Talent feature from Rogue, particularly considering how late you pick it up, but again there’s a price for anything.

You’re welcome to continue pursuing Cleric or Ranger, as well. The Knowledge Domain’s 2nd level Channel Divinity feature (Knowledge of the Ages) lets you act like you’re proficient in a skill or tool, which is only half-useful to the fully-fledged Skillmonkey. For campaigns that spend a lot of time in the wilds, Ranger is a strong traditional relied-upon-out-of-combat character class.

Relating almost entirely to the situation and typical attitudes of the people of Cach and its satellite city-states.

The people of the city states think themselves civilized, the masters of their surroundings and bringers of order and prosperity to an unruly world. And with good reason. Their walls are tall and strong, their fields and fishing fleets are bountiful, their mines are rich and deep. The markets and caravans make all available in plenty to those with the means to buy. Meanwhile the barbarians nomads and hill-people scrabble by desperately in squalor and ignorance, binding themselves to fickle sprites and pixies and what-have-you. It is no wonder that they envy the comfort and wealth of the cities. That they have not abandoned their foolish, crass ways and accepted proper culture and laws is truly a tragedy.

Cachic society is diverse, with several distinct races living side by side under common principles of mutual tolerance and support. Healthy rivalries between craftsmen, families, mercenary companies, and cities result in a noisy but functional meritocracy of sorts. Social mobility between classes is somewhat rare due to the various native gifts of the laboring poor, the artisan, the lesser gentry and high nobles, but within these rough strata competition is nearly constant and excellence finds itself rewarded. The incompetent and unlucky must sometimes serve as motivational examples, ground up and spat out by the process as cautionary tales. In the past sixty years or so a shift towards the creations of guilds with legal monopolies over specific fields has taken root in Cach itself, providing some protection and structure not previously seen. This dismays some of the more conservative citizenry who prefer motivations of personal ambition, family, and state to remain dominant forces.

The exertion of military power is handled at three scales: the mercenary company, the house armsmen, and the state militia. Mercenary companies are entities created through legal contract, with charters filed in the public records of the city they operate out of. Individual soldiers, officers, and other agents enter into contracts with the company just as the company enters into contracts with patrons. Companies range in size from banner of less than ten to entire battalions of three hundred or more. A mercenary company will typically operate until the retirement or death of its captain, sometimes re-incorporating under new leadership under a new charter. House armsmen are gentry and nobles loyal to a particular noble house that can be called upon to fight for the interests of that house. Some will participate personally, some hire mercenaries to accompany them, and others send mercenaries in their stead. An ambitious gentleman will almost always personally serve in conflicts as a matter of reputation. The state militia is almost always a hodgepodge of house armsmen and a few mercenary companies under long-term garrison contracts. The cities of Cach, Hamza, and Sergeli maintain standing military fleets crewed by such mercenaries with local gentry serving as officers.

Dwarves – Few in number, the Dwarves are perhaps the most insular of the civilized folk. Over the generations they have gravitated toward each other, their nobles feuding almost exclusively with each other until only a single noble line, House Binici, remains. The common Dwarves tend to live and work in the same neighborhoods as each other, and primarily stick to the cities of Bektemir and Cach. Dwarves can be found elsewhere during their professional lives, but nearly all of them raise their children in the Dwarven enclaves. House Binici holds a disproportionate number of seats in the Cachic Council of Elders, in part due to simple Dwarven longevity and in part due to centuries of skillful political maneuvering and alliances that last entire generations for the shorter-lived people.

Halflings – The Cachic city-states are positively overrun with Halflings. They work the fields, staff the shops and bureaucracies, fill the slums, work the manufactories, and generally the salt of the earth citizenry that keep everything working. Halfling politicians have somewhat less influence than the sheer number of their people would suggest. This is largely due to an inclusive attitude among the Halflings regarding the other civilized races; they don’t much care if their leaders are from some other race. They have five major noble houses scattered across the civilized lands, with sixteen seats on the Cachic Council of Elders. They are not known to vote as a bloc.

Humans – Less numerous than the Halflings but nearly as ubiquitous, Humans play a similar role in Cachic society. Individual Humans are somewhat more likely to indulge in ambition and great endeavors than their smaller counterparts. They currently have seven major noble houses with a massive twenty-four seats on the Cachic Council of Elders. The interests of their houses are diverse and often in conflict internally and against each other. Even individual noble families, particularly Houses Yilmaz and Uzun, don’t vote as a bloc, with split votes being the norm. Perhaps for this very reason is is common to see a Human as Lord High Executioner; it is typically expected that a Human will put his ideals and personal interests before that of nepotism.

Tieflings – More numerous than the Dwarves, but only just, the Tieflings have a particular rapport with the infernal forces that make magic broadly available to the settled peoples. Tiefling children are raised with expectations of becoming merchants, cult functionaries, or politically active in some way. The great House Kasabian of Cach, with its nine seats in the Council of Elders, is a Tiefling family renowned for its cunning use of alliances and favors. Many prominent Warlocks and Paladins have been Tieflings, with several of today’s most influential and popular cults being run by both common-born and noble horned men and women.

For use in a Dungeons & Dragons setting largely devoid of “monstrous humanoid” races. Due to a surplus of civilized noble races in the Player’s Handbook, half have been designated as less-civilized exotic people to fill the role of the menacing Other.

Before the first foundation stone was laid on Burkant Hill, before the sedentary folk of Cach or Abadan set sail to clear the forests and terrace the hills and harness the rivers, the lands were already long peopled. Four great tribes have lived here since the gods first set the sun and moon alight. They are people slow to change but quick to move on, abiding by ancient traditions. The sedentary folk of the cities erect their walls and think themselves civilized, building their society around stone and industry and coercion. The Great Peoples, though they vary greatly in their appearance and history and particular customs, build theirs upon family, honor, and hospitality, pillars far more durable.

Each of the Peoples organize themselves very loosely, largely by extended family, with no formal governments at all. Trade is largely done with neither currency nor barter, with most goods trading hands in the form of gifts between households and an informal credit and debt system. Between different Peoples and the sedentary folk barter and coin are common. Raiding between Peoples and families for livestock, goods, and women is common enough to form a continuous tradition of warrior culture stretching back thousands of years. Rarely these raids escalate to full-blown wars over territory. Casualties are typically minor, as the Peoples have nomadic tendencies and will generally withdraw when faced with overwhelming odds. In this way their lands have been gradually ceded in the face of the city-builders.

The names for each of the Peoples here are those used for diplomatic and legal purposes in Cach. Each has its own language, in which the word for themselves is translated roughly to “the true people” or “the great people.”

Dragonborn
The Dragonborn range primarily to the South, migrating North in the late spring to bring their herds out of the parched savanna, then returning just after the monsoons pass. They are perhaps the most exotic of the Peoples, dwelling briefly and rarely encamping in one place for more than a week. They tend to flocks of domesticated drakes, and often have access to goods hailing from distant lands. Their prolonged absences from territory they consider theirs can lead to misunderstandings and friction with homesteaders and expansionist city-builders. Dragonborn men and women dress very conservatively, veiling themselves when visiting or entertaining outsiders. They segregate between genders almost continuously.

Elves
The Elves hold a large portion of the Northern lands, dwelling in the forests and hills. Not as nomadic as the Dragonborn, not as settled as the Gnomes, Elven families move their homes to follow the growing cycle of plants they cultivate, sowing crops one season then leaving for months at a time before returning. A typical Elven family will rotate between five or six locations over a cycle of three years. They sometimes keep horses, but are most famous for their tame elk, which their warriors ride on raids but are never used for plowing.

Gnomes
Gnomes are the most settled of the Peoples. It is thought they were once city-builders themselves, or were wholly subjugated to some long-lost city-building race. Their oral tradition tells of a great immortal tyrant that was slain, his temple ruined and his followers put to the axe. The location of such a temple is unknown, for the Gnomes have lived in small mountain villages for as long as any other People can remember. Gnomish families are reckoned matrilineally and raiding for brides is rare. Gnomish settlements are strongly averse to interacting with other Peoples or city-building folk. Whenever the location of one of their villages is known to non-Gnomes, the people will almost immediately take up the debate to either silence the interlopers or move. Approaching a Gnomish settlement is extremely hazardous. Gnomes subsist on hunting, gathering, and small-scale gardening.

Orcs
These are the most physically imposing and least refined of the Peoples, in the eyes of city-builders. Raids between Orcish families are common, and trade with them is somewhat hazardous, as they have a long history of deciding (after the fact) that they have been cheated or disrespected in some way by a deal. This often leads to a surprising retaliatory attack, with dozens of fearsome Orcs on their Terror Birds pouring out of the hills, howling as if possessed. The Orcish diet relies heavily on hunting, supplemented by foraged vegetation. The needlework on Orcish textiles is world-reknown, with many brave merchants having made fortunes and lost their lives trading dyes and thread to secure samples for wealthy patrons.

Orcs as presented here use the rules for Half-Orcs found in the Player’s Handbook. Their Terror Birds are Axebeaks, as presented in the Monster Manual. Subraces are considered part of the same tribe, though of different family lineage.