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Well, if we're going with strictly gameplay, there's nothing stopping you from joining both Telvanni and the Mage's guild, or the Tribunal Temple and the Imperial Cult. Picking between the two of them is purely a lore decision.
Imperial Cult vs. Tribunal Temple
Imperial Cult
Unlike the tribunal temple, the imperial cult is convenient. Every last quest is given out of a room in Ebonheart, and two of the questgivers can have their quests done entirely in a single trip, albeit at the cost of paying out of pocket and losing out on a unique item in one case. You'll start out working as a Lay Healer for Synnolian Tunifus, an Almoner for Iulus Truptor, and as a Shrine Sergent for Kaye. None of these have a rank requirement, so feel free to do them in the order of your choosing. When you're finished, the oracle will give you the final quests.
Working as a lay healer for the temple gives mediocre rewards, but is also the easiest and likely the first branch finished. You get a belt with a minor healing spell, and a minor restore stat spell that is quite cheap as far as unique rewards go, and you also get a number of potions, some skill books, and some alchemy equipment. In general, this path seems suited for an up and coming alchemist, giving you potions, equipment, and the knowhow to find your own ingredients.
Working as an Almoner is also easy, and could also be completed in a single trip (although you'd be paying out of pocket the whole way in that case). The rewards are a bit nicer for going above and beyond the call of duty: Fortify personality shoes (which can help with the rest of the quests), fortify mercantile shirt (of dubious usefulness without the code patch installed), a fortify mercantile book, constant effect personality pants, and an amulet that casts charm. This branch is suited for smoothtalkers and merchants, and both the quests and the rewards are focused around getting people to give you what you want, or at least more than they'd usually give.
Working as a Shrine Sergent is a bit more difficult, requiring you to go out and seek justice. The first few quests only have minor rewards, including a unique ring that does fire damage. The next quest gives you a shirt that restores fatigue as a unique reward, and also gives a ring to detect enchantments and optionally a staff that damages intelligence and willpower on your foes. In general, these quests don't offer any real gameplay advantage by completing them, other than progress in the guild. Both the quests and the rewards are focused for someone more oriented around combat, requiring a fair bit of it and rewarding you with helpful scrolls for the most part.
The final quests for the Imperial Cult are the only ones that have any requirements (Must be at least an Acolyte to begin), and have all the good stuff. Each quest gives you an artifact, and there are optional objectives that can give you useful magical items as well. Unlike the tribunal temple, you get to keep each artifact when you uncover it, instead of needing to turn it over to the guild temporarily.
Tribunal Temple
The first quest you'll undertake is a pilgrimage. This offers no reward by itself, but each shrine gives a long lasting blessing (and you can use the shrine again at a later date to re-acquire the blessing, with a repeat donation), and for the shrine of Ruddy Man, you will get an enchanted dreugh cuirass if you defeat the warlord in the cave first (one time if the unofficial patch is installed, unlimited times otherwise).
For the next quests, I'll try to be as accurate as I can, as I do not have a copy of the game on this laptop, and there are a few discrepancies. They mention no rank requirement as needed for most quests, though I'm pretty sure the reason the pilgrimage is needed first is to rank up to at least Novice. Also, Uvoo Llaren's quests say most of them need Curate rank to start... but the final one needs Adept, which is a lower rank. I will nonetheless act under the assumption that the rank requirements are accurate.
Unlike the Imperial Cult, which has all of it's quests coming out of a single room in Ebonheart, the tribunal temple will require you to begin working out of the 3 main temples in Ald'ruhn, Vivec, and Molag Mar, before going to work in Ghostgate, and finally returning to Vivec for the finale. You may also be required to move between the three temples before doing the final quest for each one, as each one has a final quest with a fairly higher rank requirement. This means a fair bit more travelling. Also, the questgivers do not focus on a specific theme, so you'll need to both be convincing, and capable of holding your own in a fight.
We'll begin with Tuls Valen in Ald'ruhn. His first three quests are fairly simple, and reward skill books and some potions, nothing you can't find elsewhere. Later, when you have the rank of Disciple, you may return to clean out a Sixth House Base. The rewards themselves are nothing special, but cleaning out the base means you can awaken sleepers in a few towns.
Next up is Endryn Llethan in Vivec. His first two quests only give minor rewards, the second in particular being quite annoying. His third quest does give you an artifact, but you need to turn it in and can't get them back until you're a patriarch. Later, when you have the rank of Curate, you can return to get a quest to clean out a cult beneath the Delyn canton. It's not a 6th house base, however, but you will get a unique staff that can summon a ghost helper.
Finally, there's Tharer Rotheloth in Molag Mar. His first two quests are of little note, but his third quest does allow you to loot a unique ebony shortsword off your target. Later when you have the rank of Curate, you can return to slay Raxle Berne. This quest "rewards" you with a daedric hammer that is technically an artifact as you can sell it to the museum later.
Once you have the rank of Curate, you can work for Uvoo Llaren. Unlike the previous quest givers, he has five quests. The first two are of little note, but the last three will require you to find and turn in various artifacts. As with the shoes from earlier, once you finish the quest you'll be unable to use the artifacts until you become Patriarch and can demand them back.
Finally, you'll be doing quests for Archcanon Tholer Saryoni. His first four quests require visiting shrines and making donations, for which you will get a blessing. Unfortunately, these blessings will eventually fade. The third does give you a unique spell, however. This all leads up to the final quest of the tribunal temple, which awards the Ebony Mail, and allows you to ask for the previous artifacts back from the other questgivers.
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In general, MOST of the Imperial Cult quests give better rewards than the Tribunal Temple rewards, giving far more unique items, plenty of which can be useful. The Tribunal Temple, on the other hand, offers the single best piece of torso armor in the game (Two other artifacts have the same armor rating, but the enchantment is better on this). So, from a gameplay perspective the imperial cult is better if you're fine with using another artifact bodypiece (It should be noted the Lord's Mail from the imperial legion is one of the bodypieces with the same armor), but the tribunal temple is better if you must have the ebony mail.
Lore and RP-wise, it depends on how you feel about the tribunal and the Imperial Gods. On the plus side for each, the Tribunal is more than willing to help people without requiring payment (probably why they don't pay YOU much), and is the native religion, while the Imperial Cult worships real gods who will still be around after the events of the main quest. On the downside, a lot of the doctrine of the tribunal is hokey garbage and the tribunal will be powerless soon anyway, while the imperial cult is pragmatic and some of the almoner and lay healer quests encourage you to do blackmail and outright theft for the greater good. A more idealistic and naive character would likely go with the Tribunal, while a more pragmatic character who realizes what'll happen after his quest will likely go with the imperial cult.
I'll go over the other pairings later.
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Quote: “Fine day” said the young man.
“Gods!” hollered Zaki, sending the young man flying with a well-placed punch, and dashing away.
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