I've been thinking over the past couple days of taking a single character through Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Dunmer seems like a natural choice for this, given the presence of one Morrowind-era Dunmer on Solstheim centuries later.

My problem was determining a class. A pure mage seems the most logical for a long-lived character, but the problem is that such a character would essentially 'lose' a lot of his skills in the transition from MW to OB, and then again to Skyrim. So a hybrid seems the way to go. I think over the course of the 3 games, as the character ages, he will eventually settle into more of a pure mage role (by the events of Skyrim, he'll be getting old, and less likely to wield a blade or axe in self defense.)

At any rate, for the Morrowind stage of this guy's career, I want him to be sort of an adventurer - just a traveling mage-type who is handy with some weapons should the need arise. A 'westernized' Dunmer who will explore Vvardenfell as a truly alien landscape, not as his homeland. It's a place for him to make a living by plundering old tombs and going blade-to-spell with smugglers and bandits.

I think I've settled on the premade 'Battlemage' class for this character. The issue I have now is, how can I explain his background training? It's a quite diverse set of skills. Battlemages in the lore always seem to be attached to an army of some sort, and I definitely don't want that sort of background for this guy. For one thing, he's fairly young and inexperienced - just off the boat in Seyda Neen, so he can't have a super badass backstory.

I guess I'm wondering, what sort of history could a 'westernized' Dunmer have that would lead him to Vvardenfell with a mixture of magical and martial training?