So this one stems from a theory of mine. If you’re especially familiar with Blackreach, then you’ll have discovered the geode veins that can be mined. Striking them with a pickaxe will result in mining soul gems. The origin of soul gems have never previously been described, but we all know that they can house the soul of a creature. If you have performed the quest that the Illusionist at the College of Winterhold offers you, then you’ll know that the magicka wells in the college can get clogged up by soul gems. So supposedly, these geode veins that reside deep underground in the very blue Blackreach and the blue magicka wells in Winterhold both provide soul gems. Traveling down below the college, you will find the Augur of Dunlain, a sentient blue mass in a sort of well that seems to have once been a student. Supposedly, something went terribly wrong some time ago, and he’s stuck there. If you’ve seen the College of Winterhold from afar, you can see that it’s more or less supported by a pillar of rock, as the rest of it was torn away by the Sea of Ghosts. It could be that the Augur of Dunlain’s location is directly above that pillar, and that the magicka well that composes the Augur could potentially stretch through that pillar down sea level and below.

With all that in mind, I’ve decided to interpret the magicka wells and the geode veins to be echoes of Atherius, the realm from which all magicka originates, the realm that can be found beyond the stars, and the realm in which Magnus rests. An artifact of great magical power like the Eye of Magnus should most likely reside back in Atherius, where its creator exists. I don’t remember the time that the Augur of Dunlain was last seen, but I think it was something like 10-15 years, and I believe Winterhold fell into the sea about 100 years ago. So here’s my big great theory. Atherius wants the Eye of Magnus back. One hundred years ago, it used the sun to manipulate the tides, causing the Sea of Ghosts to bombard Winterhold, in an attempt to reach the ruins of Saarthal. By eroding the ruins of Saarthal, the will of Atherius hoped to either absorb the eye into the sun, or to submerge the eye through Nirn itself where they might be able to get it. Dunlain probably studied the initial storm, came to the conclusion that it would be happening again, and that the college would be destroyed. So, to stop the storm from happening again, he performed a ritual that fused him with the deepest magicka well, connecting him to Atherius. Whether or not he could stop the storm is questionable, and so he could likely use the help of the archmage.

The quest itself would start after you’ve become archmage. The Psiijics will return to you, saying that they need your help in returning the Eye of Magnus back to Atherius. They’d do it on their own, but they don’t know how. You’d need to find out that the Augur of Dunlain would be a good portal through which to transfer the eye back to Atherius, so now you just need to get the eye into the Midden and prepare the ritual. Of course, this would make a lot of noise no matter how much you try to keep it a secret, and so the Thalmor and the Synod (and perhaps more) will try to steal the eye from you. You’ll have to devise a plan, then trick and/or fend off your enemies in order to return the eye back to Winterhold. You might be saying, oh Star Debris, but the Psiijics were able to take it away so easily. Well, they were probably trying to understand the eye and a bunch of them got killed so that they can no longer do that. Something like that.

This is something that I’m considering creating, as Nocturnal will be of great significance in my Stranded Light mod, and joining the Thieves Guild is currently the only way to gain access to Nocturnal-related gameplay in Vanilla Skyrim. This may be as simple as an alternate start for the Thieves Guild, the mod itself could end when you rendezvous with Karliah in the Vanilla questline. I’m imagining it as a detective-type questline where you’re hired to investigate the Thieves Guild, and anything that they may be involved in. You would end up trying to gather information by gaining access to a former ally to the Thieves Guild, leading you to Gulum-Ei. You’ll use him to get to Karliah, and from there you’ll become privvy to her plan to take down Mercer and restore the guild’s connection to Nocturnal.

This would essentially allow you to play the good guy, and still become a Nightingale. At the end, you can decide to reform the Thieves Guild and make them into a slightly more honest guild (like in Oblivion), or you can go through an extra set of steps to shut them down while retaining your status as a Nightingale. This decision will likely be achieved via dialogue with Karliah. If you choose to shut them down, that would suggest that you Brynjolf would go down with them, and would no longer be able to a Nightingale. The big problem is that I can’t remember if reviving the Nightingales would be necessary if you got the Thieves Guild shut down...so you see, the idea itself is still a bit half-baked. If I can figure out a way to require the player to start the Stranded Light questline before attempting to complete this alternate Thieves Guild questline, then I can replace Brynjolf with a character that would still fully deserve to be named Nightingale (in fact, she’d be 100% perfect for it).

I'm considering doing this one myself, as well, though making it larger than the Thieves Guild. The reason for this being that I currently lack the resources to create a large amount of the Stranded Light's quests (mostly races), so I can get some Skyrim scripting practice by making the Vigilants playable.

My first thought is that there could be a whole lot of radiant quests for these guys. You can kill vampires, daedra, undead, werewolves, or simply go cure a person in some town. My basic thoughts for this one, though, are that you can begin the quest by getting a mission from one of the temples that already has its own quest (Kyne, Dibella, Mara, and I'm thinking the Wolf Queen questline will count). In order to prove yourself as righteous, I imagine you doing all of the temple quests, much like Oblivion's Reccommendation quests for the Mages Guild, but with a twist. You do each of the quests in order to increase your rank, rather than doing them all at one time. Whenever you come up for promotion within the guild, then you'll be told to go and do one of the quests. I'd create quests to help out each divine. For Arkay's, you'd probably go to Markarth's Hall of the Dead and investigate, allowing you to thwart Namira's quest. The other quests, that don't grant you a rank, would be much the same as that, where you simply go out and thwart a daedric quest (when I say simply, I don't really mean simply). This can be anything from sealing Azura's Star, to assembling Mehrune's Razor before giving each piece to a temple of the Divines to protect, as well as finding a cure to lycanthropy for Sinding.

When I think of Vampires, I think of three things: College of Winterhold's quest Hitting the Books where you went to Fellglow Keep to find books, and you also found caged and mutiliated vampires, Molag Bal, and Morthal. Molag Bal cured your vampirism in Morrowind if you did him a favor, so I figure that serving him might include becoming a vampire. I also think that the Winterhold splinter group that you meet in Fellglow Keep was likely searching for the root of vampirism. They probably realized that vampirism seemed to be getting weaker and weaker, and so they were searching for its original power within the Master Vampires. That power would probably come from Molag Bal, and it would bestow a much greater form of vampirism upon you than what is present in Vanilla Skyrim.

The Thalmor want to keep the Civil War going in Skyrim. As their agent, you could make sure that neither side gains an advantage, potentially by joining each side. One way to make sure that the war would go on forever, is to make sure that there were always plenty of soldiers to go into battle. So, you could potentially resort to convincing random civilians to enter the war effort, or even drafting bandits with the promise of amnesty and good pay. As for the Summerset Shadows, I imagine that they're under the Thalmor's control, and they're meant to destabilize. At some point, the Thalmor will sever all ties, and that's when the Thieves Guild would shut them down. If you're not a member of the Thieves Guild, then you can kill them.

The Forsworn practice Hedge-Magic, ally with Hags and Hagravens, and hate Ulfric and his Stormcloaks. Ideally, they would help a Civil War faction take the Reach from the Stormcloaks, mostly so that they could kill Thongvor Silver-Blood when he's the Jarl. This chain would start by siding with Madanach during the Escape from Cidhna Mine. You can then get quests from him to help out other Forsworn camps in battling local troops, creatures, and perhaps Spriggans as well. As you help out each camp, your overall Forsworn influence and trust grows so that you can be elected to a second-in-command position under Madanach. From there, you unite all the tribes and wage war against the protectors of Markarth, perhaps with some help from some other factions that might like to see the area come under new leadership.