I ask your opinion: say you want to travel from Orsinium to one of Cyrodiil's major cities. The closest two are Chorrol and Anvil. But how would you get there? By taking the most direct path on the roads to Chorrol, or by hopping aboard a ship and getting to Anvil through the Abacean Sea?

That looks like a pretty [censored] land route. Some sketchy borders and probably two mountain ranges.

My guess is a that you could make it over land to Chorrol with a string of fast horses, but if you wanted to send any heavy cargo or a group, you'd hoof it to Wayrest and sail there.

The mountains might be avoided mostly by heading south of them once clear of High Rock, but then you're passing through the heart of Hammerfell's wilderness, just missing the Alik'r Desert. Of course, all of that could be circumvented by sea, though that would add a month or so to the journey.

Not necessarily. Ships are a heck of a lot faster, generally speaking. You might need to kill a few horses to keep up with a fast ship with a run of good weather. ...or the wind could come out of the south and trap the barky in the Illiac for weeks at a time.

Edit: I just actually looked at the map. Hammerfell is big. You'd definately want to go by sea, even though it's a bit chancy. By the time you have stopped moving every night to sleep on winding, twisting roads up those Colovian mountains, the ocean passage would actually have less distance to travel.

True, but it is still going around an entire province instead of through it. Then again, with all the wilderness and mountainous terrain on that course, the time would probably even out, more or less. And being as the time the journey would take is not a great concern for what I have in mind, I think I'm leaning toward the 'by boat' option.

First by boat, and then by carriage.

Where have I heard that before...

Does using magic count?

I doubt many Orcs actually living in Orsinium are schooled in that type of Teleportation magicka, unless I'm badly mistaken and there's actually a Mages Guild there now or something.

Because all Orcs are barbarians, of course.

But in any case, Cyrodiil is apparently lacking in teleportation networks, save maybe a few small internal ones. And if I am mistaken there, let us assume that the given traveler was not on good terms with the Mages Guild.

That's not what I'm getting at at all.

What I'm saying is that certain techniques probably have to be taught and are very unlikely to be developed independently. Some forms of wizardry the Orcs and all peoples with a Shaman/Barbarian history probably use are very common like alchemy, some forms of restoration, destruction and mysticism. But the powerful teleportation network maintained by the Mages Guild probably requires multiple resources and fully trained teleportionists.

However I did read that there IS a Mages Guild in Orsinium. In "The Black Arts On Trial" it is revealed that Orsinium has an Arch Mage, who had to be replaced because the old one was a Necromancer. With the presence of a Guild it's possible there has been some cross training with Cyrodill, Morrowind and other provinces and therefore there are probably more than a couple of Orc Mystics who can teleport.

Well even before the inhabitants of Orsinium became Imperial Citizens they had some pretty nifty powers. Like http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:An_Unexpected_Journey_Part_II.

I stand corrected.

I'd have played Daggerfall by now but I hear it's almost notoriously buggy (more so than other Bethesda products even.)