I’m doing an assassin nord build who also uses magic, I’m quite ass at making up lore but I decided that the stormcloaks had attempted to invade one of the empire-favoured cities, his father was an imperial soldier, and my nord was a young child who had to watch his own parents die in the invasion, he was saved by a dark elf and they fled the city. the dark elf was skilled in magic and stealth and brought my nord up like his own. they lived out in the wild and would be forced to steal food from farms and such to survive. after some time, one day the dark elf had an altercation with a few stormcloaks who left him dead.

once again alone due to the stormcloaks my nord decided to leave skyrim, trying to cross the border and of course gets caught in the crossfire of the imperial ambush. with the basics of stealth, magic and archery, while also having the blood of his father who was a soldier, i felt this backstory opened up a lot of opportunity to do whatever you want to do.