There is so much going on in this story. First you find out you are
Dragonborn, so you have your calling. As important, is the
Imperial-Stormcloak conflict. Equally important is the
College of Winterhold if you have magic aspirations. There is
Merida a Daedric Princess, equivalent to a God speaks to you wanting you to cleanse the land of necromancer walking undead abominations, and then there is the
Dawnguard, vampire hunters, which I believe originally was a DLC, tons of side quests, and the biggest beautiful dungeons I’ve had the pleasure to play.
I guess you could just run with one of the stories, Dragonborn’s is the main quest line, but I like moving most of them along. And for this, fast travel imo is a must, and survival mode is out, unless you want to be “more realistic” and constantly be hoofing it from one end of the region to the other, which is quite large. I might just give this a try, avoiding fast travel or doing less of it. There are times, I find something I want to store for me or a follower, and that’s back in
Whiterun for right now, that I’m calling home base, and I don’t want to hoof it back there just for that reason, hence fast travel. What the Mages Guild really needs is a teleportation spell.
For immersion purposes, you can ride the roads. I picked up a horse, put some Elvin armor on it and ride in style, while my poor follower, Lydia has to sprint behind me to keep up. There is no doubling up on the horse, but there is a mod called “Simple Mounted Followers“ that will allow her to mount a spare horse that I own. I’ll be installing that tonight.
When you look at the map you might swear it is 100 miles across, but a size quoted online is 37 square km, 18 square mile-ish, not counting the dungeons. I have always been impressed with how they seem to magically compress the landscape but make it look much larger than it really is. Anyway I enjoy exploring, there is a fort, a ruin, or a dungeon, seemingly around every corner.
I have zero interest in the
thieves guild, but i might do part of the
Dark Brotherhood, to get a horse, and will definitely complete the
College of Winterhold quest line.
I’m liking the magic tank build. I’ve got a devoted follower who keeps me company but short on conversation. 😑 (This is becoming more of a characteristic in the newer games, talkative companions.) For battle, I can conjure a variety of atronachs, soon I’ll be able to conjure duel atronachs, and personally I have my bound weapon, soon to be weapons, for melee slashing and running through,
and I’m wearing heavy armor. It does not protect against magic, so I’m looking into ways to beef up my gear’s magic resistance. It’s an eye opener when you run into an opponent who can off you in a couple of magic strikes. 😳