I've been doing my current playthrough without using fast travel, as I usually do. But it's getting a touch old...Skyrim horses are kind of a pain in all sorts of ways (not least of which is they're slow), and running all the way around Mountain X does start to lose its appeal after the 20th time or so. But I don't want to go all out and just start fast-traveling everywhere willy nilly either...I think that really takes away from the strongest part of the game (the world). So I was thinking...what would be some good non-arbitrary ways to make it so that fast travel is *occasionally* allowed? Like, every once in a while when you really just don't want to trudge from the middle of nowhere back to a hold capital to take the carriage to another hold capital, it would be neat if there were some way to do so that had a cost associated with it.

The first thing that came to mind was spending a dragon soul to fast travel. I thought the mod that uses dragon souls for perk points was kind of genius, so this seemed like another way to make dragon souls count. Any other ideas?

I always thought it would be cool for a game to have a network of teleportation stations for you to use instead of fast travel, either through sci fi tech or magic. You could put one in each city and charge an arm and a leg (or a soul) for each trip. There could also be a high level spell that lets you fast travel to one of these hubs (but not from a hub to an arbitrary location.)

Yeah, I'd also really like to have a portal at the College of Winterhold for traveling to various locations (maybe on the helipad-looking roof that you can't access until you're Archmage that doesn't seem to actually be used for anything). But I also would like some mechanism for occasionally traveling from an arbitrary location to another arbitrary location...or at least from an arbitrary location to a city. I'm just trying to figure out how to limit it and make it sort of make sense in a physics or lore sense.

I was playing entirely without fast travel, but I seem to CTD a lot when traveling via horse, so now I use carriages to get from town to town, and a horse to get from town to wherever I'm trying to go. It seems like a good compromise, I think, so for me an inter-city teleportation network would probably be enough (especially if there were a couple of extra hubs in interesting locations scattered around. Maybe add in expensive, single use scrolls that would let you teleport from anywhere to any hub? That way non-mages could use it too.

I guess you could also just create scrolls that allowed a single normal fast travel (from anywhere to anywhere) if you're just trying to add in some sort of cost.

This would work with the lore if we only still had a mage's guild. *sigh* Oh how I miss them.

Two Worlds accomplished this pretty well with teleport stations. And previous games had Mage's Guild teleporters (from Daggerfall on, IIRC). So it wouldn't be a huge stretch.

Oblivion had them (might have been a DLC) and that was 200 years ago, you figure someone would eventually try to capitalize on the idea. Maybe not a nord, but an Altmer maybe. I could see the Thalmor trying to gain more control by monopolizing easy transportation.

Unfortunately the realms of TES have been steadily devolving through the years since morrowind. The mages seem to have forgotten how to use mark/recall, temple worshippers forgot how to use there teleports (can't remember the names 1 for the divines and the other for daedra), mages forgot how to unlock their doors, soldiers forgot how to use pointy sticks/polearms/spears, mages forgot how to levitate up trouble stairs.

Oblivion had portals with the mage tower dlc thing.

Honestly, the mortals of TES really ought to learn.... things, or at least write them down more often.

it's not that they forgot how to levitate or teleport; those magicks were outlawed by imperial edict.

soldiers got a little bloodthirsty, and spears don't exactly get them close enough to drink the stuff.

nords don't trust magick.

oblivion was ALL about portals. wondered if i was playing an ES game, or portal.

Or instead of using dragon souls to fast travel, fast travel could also be set up in a similar way to how it was done in Daggerfall, in which choosing to fast travel safely, you need to spend a fair amount of gold (for sleeping in inns and/or taverns along the way, etc.). You could also choose to fast travel recklessly (which was faster) in DF as well, but this also carried a chance that you would wind up dead before reaching your intended destination. The way SWTOR handles interplanetary travel (which is having the trip cost fuel) just made me remember that detail about DF's fast travel system.

Sounds a lot like Morrowind's Mages Guild.

Never understood why they got rid of the Guild Guides. Prices got lower (even free) as you progressed in the guild, and you could only travel to other Mages Guilds. Made perfect sense, and with the Silt Striders and Boats you had most of the fast travel options covered.

Currently in Skyrim I only use the Carriages on rare occasions where I just don't feel like walking. Almost feel like they're too inexpensive though.

More to the topic, I have been thinking for awhile on what would be the best way to use dragon souls after one has unlocked all the shouts that you want (or can obtain at the time). I know there's a mod that lets you get perk points, but that seems like overkill -- "levels" seem like too much of a reward for killing the relatively easy dragons. (And you already level up your skills by fighting them anyways)

Fast traveling could work... I just don't know if I'd ever use it. I like exploring too much.

Just winding up dead would be a poor way to implement it (keep reloading saves until your fast travel works?), but having to fight off a bandit ambush or two at random spots along the way would be interesting.

They also had teleport pads in Oblivion added by the Frostcrag DLC which linked the Mages Guild in each city to the tower.

I feel the same way. The more I use carriage travel the more I feel like I'm cheating these poor guys out of gold, their fees are so dirt cheap. I've been thinking that one of the changes I will make to my game when the CK comes out is to significantly increase the price of carriage transportation.

I like the idea of using Dragon souls to power fast travel very much. I think it's a clever idea. If it were a one-time use (the soul is 'used up' powering one transport) I think it would add a bit of strategy (use it for fast transport or shout?) to collecting and using souls.

Agreed about carriage costs.

Now that I've had time to sleep on it, how about this idea (would probably require the CK, I'd imagine): Spend a dragon soul to unlock a Shout called "Wings of the Dragon" or something similar. When used, this shout then pops up the map, you click on a location you'd like to go to, the map closes, you do a shout animation, and you are fast-traveled there. Then, once you are there, the shout becomes re-locked, and you need to spend a dragon soul to unlock it again for next time you want to fast travel.

That way it's actually part of the shout system and kinda makes sense lore-wise. It might also be neat if you had to find a Word Wall to learn Wings of the Dragon.

On topic of Mark/Recall/Teleporation

I noticed their is a Magic Ability called teleporation listed under spells in Skyedit.

Perhaps somebody should try and make a new spell using that and see what happens..

Why is it that whenever teleportation is discussed everyone touches on the Mage's Guild, almsivi spells and mark/recall spells but always forgets the Index. Did i dream it up? I know it wasn't a mod because I played the entirety of my 1000+hrs in Morrowind on the Xbox. Someone please tell me I'm not crazy and that we do indeed have a Lore based reason for stationary teleportation pads.

We remake the Index in Skyrim yes?

What is the point of having one "in each city", cities already have caravans.


Nope, it was vanilla Morrowind, however those were used in Dunmer stronholds, so I'd imagine they would be unique to dunmeri people.

I seem to recall them being in "occupied" mysterious ruins. If the Dwemer spread across into Skyrim at some point why couldn't whomever happened to have built the indexes?

Nope, I remember the Chambers. They were in vanilla Morrowind, in the Strongholds.

Morrowind had a great transportation system, probably the best in any TES game I've played. You had Stilt Striders, Boats, Gondolas in Vivic, Mages Guild transporters, the Proplyon Chambers, and more. And I still walked A LOT, so it wasn't as if the presence of these systems somehow diminished my game - in fact, it enhanced it. Having to use two different systems to get where you were going gave the game a feeling of depth. It's one of the reasons I loved The Ayleid Steps mod for Oblivion.

I'd love a similar system in Skyrim. Raise the "carriage" or wagon prices, add some ancient teleport systems, and so on. I don't know if I'd want to spend soul gems, though.

~ Dani ~

Tried it. Nothing happens.

It wouldn't be taken over from dwemers since those are dunmer structures, and afaik dunmers were barely existing if at all, in that form, when dwemers were wiped out.

Your not getting it. The "modern" Dunmer that were occupying those strongholds didn't make the Index. If Dunmer did infact build them(that is not known) then it was the ancient ancestors of the modern ones and who is to say they didn't spread farther west eons ago.

Likewise who is to say the method was not copied by another race, the Falmer for instance. When fabricating Lore it's not about what been proven to be true it's about what has been proven to be false.

Dunmer's ancestors were chimer. Chimer's are specific to Morrowind, they are ancient altmeri who migrated to Morrowind. However, afaik there are no dunmer strongholds outside of Vvanderfell either, so those are kinda unique to Vvanderfell alone, not even whole Morrowind. If dwemers would have built them they would be called dwemer strongholds I think.

Someone proficient in lore feel free to correct me.

One reason would be avoiding hostile random encounters. I'd like to see ambushes and dragon attacks happen to your character if you choose to travel by wagon. Also, a fair amount of time goes by when you fast travel long distances or use a wagon. If you're using a hunger/thirst/sleep mod, you can end up at your destination with some serious hunger. Ideally the mod would include a dynamic timescale, so that a lot of time goes by if you're traveling cross country. Teleportation would be instant, and would also avoid any sort of encounters. Plus, if done right it would look cool.