I began my attempt at a “start in Chanterelle” game this morning, having added a few more mods and gotten there via the “travel agency” near helgen before doing anything else. Now the grass is taller and there are dinosaurs, but I have some new “hunterborn” skills. Also I have zero equipment or food. I’m slightly worried that all the other mods I have to make things somewhat challenging to survive in Skyrim will make it nigh impossible here. My first attempt, I was instantly killed by a sabre cat. Second attempt is going better so far though, I’ve managed to kill and field dress a wolf.

Update: Day 3 of living in Chanterelle. Well, it turns out I needed another mod to make the foods prepared in “primitive cooking” actually provide nutrition so my character doesn’t so quickly starve to death. On the 5th attempt I got lucky enough to survive long enough to find a good place to camp, and now I’m making progress. I’ve got a little armor now, but still can’t survive one hit from a sabre cat. They’re common enough that I try to stay close to rivers and rocks so as to be able to run away instantly. A kentrosaurus helpfully killed an angry bristleback for me, and I used its tusks to make a bow. I found some iron and made a crude katana as well. The mods that make it slower to level up in normal Skyrim make it take approximately forever here where so much time is spent hunting and running away from things. But that’s okay. It’s just a totally different game now, a pretty good one. It’s going to be really weird some day for my character to emerge from the wilderness and go back to Skyrim.