Hi,

Im starting my pure mage Dunmer character and as I did with my previous characters I want him to focus on mage-ish related stuff , mage related quests but I don't want to immediatly join the College of Winterhold.

I will NOT join Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, the Companions because Im a MAGE.

I will NOT complete even a single quest of the main questline because my Dunmer pure mage is NOT a dragonborn.

I will NOT join either Dawnguard or the Vampires as I have other chars that occupy these positions.

I will NOT do bounty quests.

I WILL do the Imperial civil war quests on this char.

I WILL focus on Dwemer ruin exploration as my Dumner mage is obsessed with studying the Dwemer and unearth whatever items they hold.

This is how I organized my mage's activities in Skyrim by level :

1-10 - ????

10 -20 - ????

20 - 30 - ????

30 -40 start College of Winterhold

40 -50 Kill Dragon Priests for their staves and masks & doing Daedric quests that reward mage related items only

50 - 60 - Solstheim

So basicly I need some ideas on what to do to get to at least 25 without joining The college of Winterhold.

Thanks

How will you get to solstheim? The Northern Maiden has no reason to go there since you haven't started the Dragonborn questline, and to start it, you'd need to progress a bit in Skyrim's quest line...

Yeah, you have to be Dragonborn to go to Solstheim, and I don't know if you want all the dragon priests masks but to get them, you'll need to pretty much complete the main quest...

This wasn't what I asked. I asked for some ideas on what do fill my time and get to level 25 at least from a mage perspective without joining the college as a low level.

This is not about going to Solstheim .

No you don't have to be Dragonborn to go to Solthseim. At least I don't think. Can't you just ask the guy outside of Windhelm to take you there?

edit: Sorry, almost forgot to answer your question. To get to lvl 25 without CoW I would just use a few power leveling tricks so that you have the magicka to sustain a pure magic combat system, and go clearing out dungeons with your fav school.. Muffle, Waterbreathing, and Soul Trap are good PL tricks.

You dont have to be the Dragonborn to go to Solstheim. You can go there any time you wish.

If it were my character and I was looking to fill those gaps, i think outside of doing the CW questline, I would dungeon dive, daedric quests, start sh** with every Thalmor I see, talk to every NPC in every city and town amd see what comes up as far as misc quests.

easy way to do it, wander around finding the various cites and hamlets. Talk to folks, do the side quests and misc quests... try to avoid dungeons that will break quests (quest awareness mods are nice to have) that you want to do.

A wandering mage focused on dwarven ruins will definitely work his way to markoth to access the dwarven museum there. (you want some levels under your belt first before doing the deeper exploration there)

But just because your focus is dwarven ruins, does not mean you shouldn't also hit the caves/burial mounds for knowledge/treasures. Having focus is good, but ignoring other potential areas to learn more about magic/etc isn't what a mage would do. Else you wind up like ol calemono stuck in one spot gaining very little total knowledge (especially about the opposite gender)