See if there's a pathfinder society game near you. Thats a good way to get your feet wet and possibly meet some gamers for a home game.
If you're a chaotic neutral druid artist you could be doing anything for the art: Fires, lightning, wildly overgrown gardens with man eating topiary, interweaving red hot flows of lava.... All of nature is your canvas, and you blend its potential into a marvel of function and form.
I think this axiom might sum up your character nicely:
The laws of man pale in comparison to the laws of nature.
You could also turn your disgust/revulsion towards arcane spellcasters, as it is a clear disruption of nature's balance.
A "Johnny Appleseed" of Pathfinder is an excellent and creative idea though.
As druids get Create Water as a cantrip, may I suggest you go around watering plants compulsively?
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First of all, welcome to Pathfinder. I am glad you are taking the time to build a history for your character and not looking for the way to "win" the game. This means you are interested in the Roleplaying part of RPG. Most of the people I game with are just interested in the G.
Anyway, I agree with most of the suggestions the others are making about your character background. I especially like the going around watering plants bit. Adds some flavor to the character.
As far as your gaming situation. If you are looking for a game, The Pathfinder Society is the organised play part of Pathfinder. It allows you to join any game anywhere in the world as long as your character is of the right level for the module. In my area, our PFS group is on Meetup.com. You might try looking there in your area, but if not there is another forum on this website where you can post interest in a game in your area. If you are more interested in joining a group of the same people weekly/monthly/whatever, a homebrew might be more to your liking.
It is fantastic that your are creating your character in hope of finding a game. Just bare in mind that every DM is different in regards to how powerful they allow their PCs to be. So Focus on that backstory, and develop it up real good. Just be prepared when you find a game to alter your characters stats to meet the DM's criteria for character generation.
Me personally, I find generating characters to be my favorite part of RPGs. I like rolling up their stats, buying weapons and equipment, and figuring out cool combos. Try generating some simple characters of different classes so you can get the basics down. That will give you practice for when you have to Actually make your druid for play.
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Perhaps thinking about character's flaws in personality might help you flesh him out.
Several thoughts:
Is he a racist? Or does he have prejudices against specific kind of people? This is not uncommon in world of Golarion.
How does he act if pushed to his limits? Is he a pacifist or something much more violent?
What sort of magic does he prefer to use? Burning foes down, confounding them by the force of nature or simply both of it? This part actually might really improve your roleplay but it might limit your spellcasting ability a bit. It's entirely up to you.
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He might observe that some of the best artists spend years attempting to recapture in paint or sculpture the splendor of a sunset or the beauty of a flower or the elegance of a woman's face or the physicality of a man's musculature in sculpture, when all they are doing is simply creating pale imitations of the infinite works of beauty and majesty that the natural world is creating every single day. For every sculpture of a lovely maiden or posing athlete, there are millions of *real* lovely maidens or athletic folk. For every painting of a sunset, which may have taken a dozen or more *actual* sunsets to craft, there will be a thousand more sunsets.
He might focus less on artwork (although still willing to admire artwork, particularly those with natural themes) and more on the subject of the artwork, the person or scene that is inspiring the artist to try and capture that moment forever. He'd be all about seeing the beauty in the now, and not spending as much time and effort trying to 'capture' or preserve beauty, as there will be another dazzling sunset (or beautiful girl...) tomorrow.
He'd be inclined towards the sorts of architecture that blends in with and does little to disrupt the beauty of the environment, such as houses build into hillsides, or huts that have sod roofs on which grass is encouraged to grow, making them look like bumpy little hillocks, more than man-made structures. viking turf house
Both elven architecture, blending into the forest, and some dwarven architecture, blending into the rocky mountainside, might equally appeal to him, but traditional architecture that has been 'enhanced' by the presence of clinging ivy or shrub hedges or areas of parkland or garden, might also fit his tastes.
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Nobody could be called a noob who creates a character with such a solid and appealing concept. A caster Druid is mechanically interesting and powerful too.
You'd be welcome in my game, but go check PFS locations and google 'role playing groups finder', there are a few. There are some on Yahoo groups too, places like that.
To really expand the whole forest artist idea without sacrificing too much power for flavour, put 1 skill point into Profession (artist) and that plus your Wisdom synergy could be helpful in the eyes of a sympathetic GM. You'd be looking at +8 or something, and if I was GM I would allow that to boost Knowledge Local in certain situations, Diplomacy when discussing culture, Perception when looking at designs and images...
I've often found that the best way to find a game is just to saunter into your FLGS and see who's playing. Ask the employees what nights people play, look for pinups on the cork-board, poke your head into rooms where people are playing and you'll find a group in no time.
As always you should make the character and backstory that makes you happy, but if you're new there are a couple of good suggestions I can give you.
For a new character and a new player you should focus on making a character that will get along with the party, mechanically and socially. Remember that the point is to play a fun game with your good friends, not to compete or win or even roleplay. That's all secondary to the core of Pathfinder and RPGs in general, having fun playing a game. If you aren't having fun, or if you're having fun at somebody else's expense (Including the GM. I'm looking at you rampant mini-maxers.) you're doing something wrong.
Me and my group have been playing together for ages and for us it's fun to play out a caustic friendship/rivalry Gimli and Legolas style. But that really only works for us because we all know each other really well and we know what not to take personally. If you're new to a group you'll have more fun if you make a character that gets along with everyone in the party, even if you have to give up a little bit of your concept to do that.
If you're looking at a Green Faith Acolyte druid (Poison Ivy style eco-terrorists who get all tighwad-paladin on peoples asses if they harm plants) you might wanna dial things back a bit in the interest of keeping things light.
I'm completely new to not only Pathfinder, but RPGs in general and I'm currently on the lookout for groups/clubs nearby that would be accepting of a newbie and I've been trying to read up as much as I could for the last couple of weeks on which RPG to choose, whether to wait for D&D Next or go with Pathfinder, in the end I chose Pathfinder (This could change if there are no groups anywhere nearby).
Welcome to an absolutely wonderful hobby, Grimmig. I would definitely look into finding yourself a group. Perhaps some of your friends would be interested? If not, check out your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store), and see if anyone plays there. Sometimes they host games at them, or have bulletin boards of people looking for players.
You can also check out online. Paizo has a Gamer Connection messageboard[/url, where you can connect with people in your area. [url=http://www.enworld.org/]Enworld has an area for Players looking. Pen and Paper Games does as well.
And then there is the option of playing online. Either as a pplay by post, or finding a game that plays through Skype or MapTools or something.
I've picked up the core rulebook and have been browsing through that as I don't want to rock up to a group and be completely dumbfounded. Not wanting to be an over-played class/build I've pretty much settled on a Caster Druid.
I don't want to half-ass this so I'm going for a full backstory/description/goal/personality type deal and wanted to know if my thoughts are too far off track or just blatantly stupid, or if my choices clash with rules/lore.
tl;dr I'm a noob, and want advice on character background/personality.
The basic idea I want to base this character on is a Chaotic Neutral Male Human Druid. I want him to worship a deity, and I'm leaning towards Sheyln. Since he worships the goddess of beauty/love/music/art (I think?), I've been thinking he sees manufactured/industrial areas with disgust, preferring rural/farming/fishing towns much more.
Now comes where I get stuck, this is far too generic for my liking so I want to flesh it out more, but haven't been able to come up with anything interesting. One thought was to give him a habit of encouraging plant growth wherever he goes, regardless of the impact it has on it's surroundings. So in his spare time, repeatedly casting plant growth on/around local eyesores, unwilling to destroy plant life (unless in mortal danger), and hatred towards poachers/over-exhausting natural resources.
OK, so ask yourself some simple questions. I know there are Character Background questionairres out there that you can answer a bunch of questions about your character, but distilling it down...
1) Who is your family? Where were you born? Is your family still alive? Are you close to them?
2) Where did you grow up? What did you do as a kid? What happened when you came of age? Are there defining moments of your childhood that may have led you to the path you are currently on?
3) Where do you live now? Are you a wanderer? Do you have a husband/wife/life partner? Kids? What are your goals? Why do you do the things you do? What are you passionate about? Are there things you wouldn't do? Will you kill? In what situations will you kill? How do you feel about local politics? How do you feel about the Lord who lives in the nearby castle, and the way he treats his subjects?
There are a whole host of questions you can ask yourself. Once you figure out why you have chosen the druidic path, you will be closer to figuring out what you do on a daily basis, how you practice druidism, what your daily rituals are, etc.