don’t think i’ve ever explained it before so here are my skyrim universes:
The original universe comes from about 2021, when I didn’t have a great understanding of the lore and wanted to stay mostly vanilla with my characters. The “main three” (or at least original 3 characters) were Zazita (Khajiit Dragonborn and Thieves Guild character), Leana (Altmer vampire and College of Winterhold + Dark Brotherhood + Dawngaurd character), and Natnela (Dunmer Companion character). Then I added Ghost Meira (Bosmer), who was the spirit of the second-ever Dragonborn after Miraak who helped clean up the dragons after Alduin’s initial defeat before heading home to Valenwood and founding a clan where all her female descendants would be named after her, which was how I got to Meira, a descendant of Ghost Meira and also a Dragonborn, at the same time as Zazita. She was supposed to be a side story, just adventuring around with Marcurio, but they quickly became my preferred duo and wrapped themselves up in the main story. It was all pretty standard: a bunch of adventurers’ paths all lead them to meeting each other and forming a party, then they discover that Zazita and Meira can save the world, so they save the world. Following that, Meira was my Dragonborn DLC character who would eventually pick up Miraak and Marcurio and hers’ final companion. There was a bunch of flimsy explanations for how there were so many Dragonborns in one place, but I honestly forgot about Zazita because she was the most boring character and began to focus on everyone’s original plot lines more. There weren’t any main human characters because at that point I considered them to be too boring, but I created a bunch of minor antagonists (including Saoirse, Basil, Lynhild and Thyren) and minor College mages for fun (Risia and Perelaine) who were all human. All this did in the long run was make the world feel extremely cluttered and lead to me forgetting about my major characters.
There was also a sequel to the original universe, where I decided to completely disregard the fact that the Skyrim Dragonborn is canonically the Last Dragonborn and have some fun inventing a new one. it took place like 200? years after Skyrim. The cast of the sequel included Cassio (Imperial Dragonborn), Tolyth (Dunmer thief), and Marelie (Breton, also a thief) as the new protagonists (also Inigo for some reason????) and Leana, Serana, Meira, and Miraak as returning characters. The plot focused on Leana trying to help Cassio unlock his power as Dragonborn and try to make things like the good old days before all the people she cared about died while some power-hungry pirates (who had originally kidnapped Cassio and Tolyth) tried to hunt them down??? i wrote a LOT about the sequel and none of it makes any sense
both of those are technically still the Original Universe, though
The Doomed Universe started around 2024, when I had gotten very bored of my Origina Universe characters. The reason it’s called the Doomed Universe is because I was never able to come up with an actual Dragonborn character who I liked. All the ocs in the universe are explicitly NOT the LDB, and since it’s been years and the inspiration still hasn’t come to me, I don’t think there ever will be a Dragonborn to save that universe. The main feature of the Doomed Universe is Eilonwy Many-Names, a 216-year-old Nord/Half-Dremora spellsword. she’s changed a lot from the original picrew concept I made of her:
the original was a chaos gremlin and the current eilonwy is a tortured hero, but her quest has always been the same: figure out a way to save the world, or at least make it a better place, in an effort to receive adoration in place of love that she never received due to her half-daedric nature. she’s one of my favorite ocs to whack with metal bats because the angst she provides is just sooooooo good. her modern lore is more or less that she’s been generically adventuring around for a loooong time, joined the thieves guild at multiple points, and enlisted in the Great War to fight for the Empire when that happened. afterward, she took to wandering Tamriel and helping rebuild where it was needed and came back to Skyrim after hearing about the civil war where she’s doing some more generic adventuring. the main reason i refuse to make her the LDB is because it’s exactly what she would dream of: being this great hero who can save the world and be loved(?). i haven’t written anything about the Doomed Universe, but if I did it would closely follow Eilonwy’s adventures.
There are two other major characters for the Doomed Universe that are less fleshed out. The first is Lleviah Dayhari, a Dunmer noble of House Sadras (but it’s not like a big deal or anything) and Dwemer Engineer, trying to unravel the secrets of Dwemer technology so that she can reintroduce it across Tamriel. Lleviah came to Skyrim to study its Dwemer ruins where she met Eilonwy, where Eilonwy fell fast and hard in love with her but it was unrequited as Lleviah fell in love with Ondolemar (Eilonwy hates Ondolemar, because he’s Thalmor). However, when Eilonwy gets kidnapped and tortured by Thalmor, Lleviah is the one to convince Ondolemar to save her and begin to sway him away from the Thalmor. Beyond that, Lleviah doesn’t have much plot involvement, because I never exactly thought through what happens after the Thalmor escape.
the final major(?) character of the Doomed Universe is mostly just there for fun. Solveig Star-Finder is a Nord wayfinder and sole survivor of a shipwreck that left her stranded in Skyrim. she has the skills as a spellsword to survive, but she’s sort of lost and doesn’t really know what to do anymore, so is just following the stars and helping what people she can in the meantime. she eventually meets and teams up with Eilonwy and that’s about as far as I got with her. i just really like the concept of Solveig and I hope she reveals more plotline to me in the future.
while the Doomed Universe would follow Eilonwy, I think the main story would focus on them trying to find meaning and fighting for whatever good is left in a world that’s ending. where the original universe was mostly transcriptions of in-game quest, this one would probably be loosely-connected adventures as Eilonwy and co. rove skyrim trying to help people along the way.
