Helgen would definitely have an ironic plot-twist feel to it. It also has a lot of area in order to create a large castle/town with which all of these ideas (except the last one with different forts for different cities) could be used. It has a fort inside, a town outside, walls, etc already put half-way in place. Buying the land would have to be expensive, as would the improvements, but that's how buying a city goes. (in response to whomever said the price should be 10K gold): I think 10,000 is wayyy too low. I mean, one of the houses in Oblivion cost 25,000 without any improvements. I don't know about many other people here, but after doing a few quests and leveling up to the point where I'd be influential enough to have a town/fort, I had well over 200,000 on top of every house available. I'd think something more along the lines of 25,000-50,000 would be more realistic, with the improvements costing another 25,000-50,000. This would make it much more difficult to own the town initially, and, if you didn't have the money, would give people something to work towards. why should you have to by it ,the original owners are dead and the nearest Jarl is miles away so why not give them 2 options offer them the land for 60,000 as it is completely trashed and then pay the expediences or give you the choice to talk to the guy in riften in the thieves guild who fixes up the dark brotherhood sanctuary to illegally repair and take over it then we could create a whole quest line of assassination plots against you and fighting of jarls men (who you could maybe convince to fight for you and sabotage the Jarls castle(there could be a chance of him getting caught and executed and you being there and watching))