I started a little after launch on console and one Tamriel was not a thing. Playing with friends was a little difficult if they chose a different alliance.

A true Orc is in the red faction with a Dragon Herald!

Queen Ayrenn and Razum-dar > High King Emeric, so most of my characters are AD. Plus my Breton main has relatives in Summerset and my second (Argonian) character doesn’t trust those mer not to re-enslave him so of course he went to the Covenant.

I got AR/AA with my boxed "Tamriel Unlimited" edition of the game, before One Tamriel.

Races, I pick by aesthetics. (I've got 2 bosmer, 2 dunmer, 2 nord, 1 breton, 1 redguard; never unlocked Imperial)

Then Alliance, I picked by various things - the first three characters were one per Alliance, so I could play all three storylines (as I'd done in previous MMOs, gotta try everything; and I didn't understand how Cadwell's Silver/Gold worked at that point. Plus I wanted the ability to jump between at will, rather than having to wait until I finished each in order)
Others were picked by how convenient the starting zone of that Alliance was for various things (like thievery in Daggerfall, or writs)

Post-One Tamriel, it doesn't matter at all, because I don't PvP. Since I can go anywhere and do whichever storyline, I don't really pay attention to the Alliance when I create a character. It doesn't mean anything. /shrug

The Daggerfall Covenant is my default alliance, to which every character I make belongs except the ones I made before I got ARAA. Emeric is my favourite ruler, Bill Nighy gave the best performance of the three IMO, and going through the DC questline I feel like you form the closest bond with him of all the leaders. I don't PvP much, but when I do I'm proud to bleed (read: die) for the Covenant.

Plus my keyboard has Chroma, which makes my backlighting the colour of my character's alliance, and my favourite colour is blue.

I originally chose the Daggerfall Covenant because of the architecture and then made all my characters part of DC

I just chose daggerfall covenant originally because I like blue and their shield is blue. I knew zero eso lore obviously when I started so I just picked based off what I prefered(in this case color).

Though I bought ArAA because I wanted access to all races which is better for PVP, I also just started playing every faction because it's easier to PVP that way, you never have to worry about not having people to fight if you play each faction and just jump factions to whichever faction is losing at the time

It's all about the story.


My character was orphaned as a baby when his stronghold fell to infighting and adopted by a Nord couple. They raised him as their own son in their little Nord village. His adoptive father died in the first Akaviri war, and he joined the Pact to keep supporting the people his father died for. He's been a Nord his whole life — he doesn't know anything else. Tbh the first time he met another Orc, it was when he fought the Covenant at Bleakrock.

I don't really care much about the PvP aspect, but there is an in-joke with my guild about them being AD-centric and a lot of my friends being EP, but PvP is always a sideshow for me in the first place. It's not really something that's part of my story.

Roleplaying AND PvP

Who says you can't enjoy both?

I knew I wanted to make a Necro-vampire and Altmer have a passive that benefits vampires by making them take 5% reduced damage during drain and Soul Assault, which is one of the few times that passive is even useful and Soul Assault gets buffed by Necro passives. And since I mainly PvP on EP and the Aundae vampire clan on Vvardenfell consists exclusively of Altmer it was an easy choice to make.
The build didn't work out and my character is actually not related to the Aundae clan at all (although they have interacted in the past) but the character is still there on EP now.

I have also made a DC Nord who comes from a made-up island around the halfway point between Tamriel and Atmora that's so far removed that nobody remembers it nowadays, especially since the ships from Atmora stopped coming in. Their last interaction with the Tamriel mainland was during the war with the Snow Elves and the Dragon War made it so nobody could visit anymore, leaving them completely out of the loop of what was happening and them assuming the Elves had won and killed all the Nords on the mainland. They are essentially still practising dragon worship without any dragons around and hate the elves more than any other.
So now they made contact again for the first time and hear that the Nords won but didn't write and instead have become buddies with Elves, leaving them completely alienated and sympathetic to Western Skyrim (before Greymoor), hence the affiliation with an Alliance other than the Pact. Since you can't pick no alliance and I have friends in DC who I occassionally do battlegrounds with but couldn't go to IC with I made the character on DC. The Dominion really wouldn't have made sense.
The character in question is now broadening her horizons, unlearning prejudice and exploring Tamriel while helping scholars answer questions about the dragoncult when possible.

I started in beta. Wanted my main to be a wood elf female stamsorc so AD was it.