You may be wondering why so many of these posts focus on character creation. That is because Zenimax created an amazing character creation set-up. While the choices are far from unlimited, still there are enough options that I doubt anyone will run into an identical twin in the game unless they were made that way on purpose.

One issue I’ve run into while creating a character is that you can’t put a name in as the first step and claim it. You have to complete the creation before the game saves it as yours, so if you have a name you really want, you’ll probably be rushing through Character Creation to make sure you get the name before anyone else wants it. As time goes on, this likely won’t be such a big issue, but right now, it’s definitely something to consider.

Because of this, if you already know or have an idea of how you want the settings, that makes it much easier to just run through the creation and make sure you get the name you want on a character that looks as much as possible the way you want it to look.

With that in mind, today we’re going to explore the racial and alliance options when creating a new character.

When you first click on “Create Character,” this is the first screen that opens up. The game has randomly chosen a female Orc from the Daggerfall Covenant for me, but today we’ll look at all the other options.

One thing to keep in mind, if you purchased the Imperial Edition before the official start date (today), then you have the option to play any race with any alliance. As of today though, the only character advertised to be able to play in any dominion is the Imperial – and that’s only if you purchase the Imperial edition.

So What Are The Different Alliances?

There are three alliances in ESO – Daggerfall Covenant, Aldmeri Dominion, and Ebonheart Pact. Each has its own unique storyline and location. DC has desserts and netches (they look like giant jellyfish), plus two starting areas to explore, combined into one storyline; AD has wild monkeys, southern climes, and my favorite starting island, Khenarthi’s Roost; EP has snow, Bleakrock Isle, Davon’s Watch, and more snow. LOL EP has a good storyline too, I just get enough snow living in upstate NY, I’m ready for spring instead of more snow. 🙂

What about Races?

Races in the Elder Scrolls Online are the same races you’ve known and loved in the other TES games: Breton, Orc, Redguard, High Elf, Wood Elf, Khajiit, Argonian, Dark Elf, Nord, and Imperial.

One thing that I think ESO does well, perhaps better than any other Elder Scrolls game, is to make choosing a race an important part of your character selection. Since there are only 4 classes to choose from (we’ll look at those in another post), the racial benefits are what makes your character truly unique.

Use the racial benefits to help create exactly the character you want. Do you want a sorcerer who can also be sneaky? Look at the skills that a Khajiit would add and see if that’s what you’re looking for (She Who Explores – my character named for my blog, is a Khajiit Sorceress, by the way). No race has to be a certain class, so create a character that you’ll enjoy playing. As a hint, any class can wear any armor or use any weapon, so don’t worry about an ability never being used, even if you create an orc healer.

Which Races go with which Alliances?

Daggerfall Covenant –

Home of the Bretons

Home of the Orcs

Home of the Redguard

Aldmeri Dominion –

Home of the High Elf

Home of the Wood Elf

Home of the Khajiit

Ebonheart Pact

Home of the Argonians

Home of the Dark Elf

Home of the Nords

And last, but not least, the Imperial