I'm currently trying this too. Start in Seyda Neen, like you do, and walked north. I guess in my head I have a backstory about being somehow picked up by the empire as a curiosity for the Arena? But escaped before he made it to the IC, then was recaptured and sent east. A naive barbarian type trying to make his way off this crazy Dark Elf island (Vvardenfell). The trip north was difficult; died a few times since I didn't want to buy gear, so relied on what I found for the most part.

I went with a Nord and the Barbarian default class, which seems pretty reasonable. There's some armor redundancy, but I like the look of crazy mismatched armor sets and love the fact that MW allows you to do that.

Axe is nice, and I'm sure will pay off once I kill a berserker - but it's a really effective skill anyway. Block is a lifesaver (wish you could block without a shield).

The most difficult thing I'm finding is ... well, the economy of it all. I went up to Thirsk okay, and then realized I had nowhere near enough gold, and there's only a couple merchants there, who will *not* buy the only stuff I'm in a position to get - namely, horker tusks and wolf pelts. So I can't make gold, which means I can't buy those silver Nordic weapons or make those wolf/bear armor sets (if I could take on a snow bear/wolf, which I'm assuming I can't at lvl 3).

Also, you run out of horkers to kill near Lake Fjalding pretty quickly, and then it's time to play 'dodge the Riekling' if you want to find more.

I haven't even gotten into the trouble you're talking about, i.e. repair hammers (which would be nice to find, really, since Armorer is a skill I'd like to work up).

I guess I'll try to keep hunting animals until I have a decent supply, then make the trek back to Fort Frostmoth and see if anyone there will buy them. Kinda too bad, I was hoping I could stay around Thirsk for awhile.

When I started mine I played as a Bosner thief. I ended up in the cave trying to get the Robe of Woe but I kept dying in the final fight with the Necromancer. The last time I fought him I won but fell off the edge and died from the fall LoL

Well, many of the Skaal are default Barbarians and Warriors. Their favored attributes are Strength and Willpower. Do with that information what you will. (Might be some small spoilers inside: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Bloodmoon:Skaal.)

I have tried to get a character like that going, but somehow, Morrowind is such a rich game lore-wise, and has so much available magic going on, that I've never really gotten a mead-swilling barbarian melee brute going myself.

I love playing barbarian Nord types in Morrowind! There's this great 'stranger in a strange land' feeling that perfectly reflects my own real-life responses to all the weirdness of Vvardenfell. I honestly have a much harder time playing as a Dunmer for that reason.

I guess by that logic, I should play as a Dunmer barbarian who visits Solstheim... hmmm...