Chronicles of Catra
Chronicles of Catra
The Chronicles of Catra is a sequential story that takes place in Skyrim over a series of chapters, centering around a young Khajiit and her struggles in reconciling the traumas of her past with her destiny as the Dragonborn, as well as the impact of her actions on the far-reaching future for all of Tamriel.
Each chapter will take place within its own themed build with a fully developed questline. The quest and the core environmental changes will be published as Verified Creations on Bethesda.net, with the immersion elements available for PC players as a Nexus Collection for Vortex and possibly a Wabbajack List for MO2, and for Xbox players as merged bundles. Although they will be built for each other, the paid creations and the immersion bundles will be fully independent and not require the other.
Chapter 1: Elsewhen
Our story begins 30,000 years in the future, centering around a Timelost Dwemer in a Skyrim like we’ve never seen before. Khajiit now populate all of Skyrim, having used altered Dwemer technology to take over and rule Tamriel.
Visual Environment: A heavily altered climate much warmer than today’s Skyrim, where the ice and snow have all melted in the north and the flora is drastically altered to suit the warmth. The Rift is tropical, with palms and ferns. The Reach has become a sandy desert. Many structures have been rebuilt using dwemer materials and technology.
Immersive Elements: Dwemer tech is everywhere, with firearms and energy weapons of various kinds replacing old projectile weapons. Mechanical dragons and horses can be seen all over Skyrim. Dwemer vehicles are seen along the roads and can be constructed. Nearly all the residents of Skyrim are Khajiit, except for travelling merchants from other parts of Tamriel who come to what is now the trading capital of the realm. Tropical and other strange creatures roam all over Skyrim.
Quest & Faction Interactions: Avoid all vanilla. Dungeon and arena mods will be added.
Backstory: Our player character is a Dwemer scientist pushing the edge of their [his/her] people’s technology, several thousand years in the past. They have had a major breakthrough in understanding the underlying fabric of the spacetime continuum and have developed a device that will allow them to travel through space and time. This device integrates into their body, and while installing it for the first trial run it is accidentally activated. They are propelled into the far future in which our story takes place.
Questline: Under the strain of monumental forces, their time travel device breaks into several pieces as it shifts into the future. These pieces are scattered throughout Skyrim, in both vanilla dungeons and in [mod-added] dwemer excavation sites.
Luckily, enough of the device remains intact that they are able to roughly track the location of the remaining pieces after some initial repairs. The pieces of their device arrived in Skyrim in the months prior to their own arrival, and thus most of them have already been found by various nefarious characters—bandits, necromancers and the like. The Timelost Dwemer must seek them out in dungeons and hideouts, often having to take them back by force.
More Lore: Along their journey, this bright-eyed Dwemer scientist is heavily impacted by the state of the Skyrim that they see around them. As someone who strongly believed in the power of science and technology to improve people’s lives, they are heavily disillusioned seeing the tech that their people created used for such violent aims. They seek to uncover how this world came about, and uncover various texts and stories along their journey that unravel the tale. They learn about a powerful Khajiit named Catra many years in the past, inflicted with a curse that spread across all of Skyrim. This young Khajiit eventually turned away from her power, and when she found out that she was the one destined to be the Dragonborn, she went into hiding and was never seen again. As a result, when the dragon Alduin and the dragonlord Miraak rose up, there was no one powerful enough to stop them. They razed Skyrim to the ground, burning and burning until there was nothing left alive. They spread over Tamriel, terrorizing all of its peoples for hundreds of years. Eventually they left Tamriel to conquer Aetherius, and in doing so they widened Magnus.
The increase of energy from Aetherius caused a global warming effect that left much of Tamriel uninhabitable. The Khajiit, much accustomed to warm climates and always ready to be on the move, hastily left Elsweyr to head north. They found an empty Skyrim with many structures still partially intact. They quickly spread, enjoying the mild climate and fertile ash-filled soil. As they ventured into the depths, they uncovered ancient Dwemer ruins and extracted unique artifacts from their new excavation sites. Over several thousand years they furthered the development of this ancient technology. While the rest of Tamriel suffered in blazing heat, scrabbling an existence out of nearly nothing, the Khajiit of Skyrim thrived. They eventually sent trading and raiding parties all across Tamriel, subjecting any population centers that remained under their rule using the weapons and tools that they created.
Transition: Eventually the Dwemer finds all the pieces and fully reconstructs their time travel device. Instead of returning to their own time, however, they are now fully committed to changing the past in order to prevent this terrible future, in which their people’s technology is used to subdue the entire continent.
Chapter 2: Dark & Arcane
We now start at the beginning, with the story of Catra as she arrives in Skyrim for the first time. In seeking vengeance for her family and her people, she accidentally puts a curse on all of Skyrim—it’s people, it’s environment, it’s fate.
Visual Environment: Dark Fantasy retextures. High contrast, gothic structures. Altered water, weather, flora, creatures—everything terrifying and terrible. Mods using assets from/inspired by The Witcher, Elden Ring, etc.
Immersive Elements: Stormcloaks are Werewolves, Imperials are Vampires. Additional Thalmor patrols, Necromancers, Undead, Draugr etc. Scary shit. For PC, Elden Ring-style combat.
Quest & Faction Interactions: Civil War, Dawnguard, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild. Quests added to wage war against the Thalmor.
Backstory: In Elsweyr, the Thalmor go into Catra’s village and have an altercation with her mother while Catra is away trading. In the process they slaughter her entire family as well as several other prominent members of the village and raze every building to the ground. The survivors scatter. Catra is offered a job with merchants travelling to Skyrim.
Questline: In the Velothi Mountains on the way to Skyrim, Catra’s band of merchants is attacked by bandits near the border. Her band of merchants are fighters in their own right. They manage to kill two of the bandits and the rest flee, grabbing the merchants’ goods as they do. But the merchant’s losses are severe, with only one surviving and him with fatal wounds. This merchant is Catra’s friend, from her neighboring village. He finds a bounty note in one of the bandits’ pockets, 400 gold for any Khajiit from her village. These bandits were here for her, hired by the Thalmor. As her friend dies, he looks her in the eye, “Do not forget us.”
She scavenges what few supplies remain and continues on the road to Skyrim. After crossing the border, she sees a small hut and an old strange Khajiit beckons to her. She invites Catra in for the night for a hot meal and a warm bed. Catra shares her story, and the old witch curses the Thalmor under her breath. “If I was younger, I’d show them.” This old Khajiit witch has a powerful artifact that she says will give Catra the power to exact her revenge, but only if she agrees to accept a transformation willingly. After agreeing and activating the artifact, the old witch transforms into a werewolf and bites Catra. Then she activates the artifact, imbuing Catra and Skyrim with its power. When Catra wakes up, the world around her is transformed, cursed as she is [so, initially the QL starts in a newly created cell that uses vanilla assets, but then after Catra sleeps she is in the D&A-altered Skyrim]. Catra gets angry upon waking, but the old witch is nowhere to be seen. There’s only a note, suggesting that she get her start down the road in Riften, putting her questionable morals to use by talking to Brynjolf in the marketplace.
Catra makes her way up the Thieves Guild, eventually joins the Dark Brotherhod, and then when she finds out that the Thalmor are supporting the Imperials in the Civil War, she joins the Stormcloaks. She is shocked by the terrifying world around her, as are the people of Skyrim, but as the power within her rises she starts to care little. She happily assassinates the king of Tamriel, and she happily rises to power as the Queen of Skyrim. She continues hunting vampires after the Civil War ends, but when Harkon offers her the chance to become one as well as a werewolf, she greedily accepts the power, thinking of how she can use it to travel to Cyrodil and wipe out the Thalmor once and for all. She is too consumed by the story of her own trauma and by the quest for the power to rise above it that she cannot move past it.
Transition: Finally, [something] shifts and she starts to see the destruction that she has wrought, that in seeking to destroy her enemies she has become them. [Someone] provides her a way out. They tell her that the curse that has fallen upon Skyrim is connected to the curse that has befallen her. If she is willing to let go of her power, then Skyrim will be free.
Chapter 3: Survive and Thrive
Catra and Skyrim are healing from the effects of the curse, returning to a natural state of growth and repair.
Visual Environment: Extraordinarily lush with plant growth; thick forests. Farming has expanded throughout Skyrim with fertile soil. The seasons [on PC] each bring unique foliage in every part of the country.
Immersive Elements: Heavily geared towards survival mode. Crafting from hunting, farming, alchemy, etc is buffed and traditional crafting is nerfed. Many mods added to allow the player to dive deeper into interacting with the external environment of Skyrim and in Chanterelle.
Quest & Faction Interactions: Religious quests/factions, Orcs, and possibly the Companions.
Questline: Catra is wrought with guilt and turmoil from turning her own trauma into the suffering of countless others. She wants nothing more than to remove herself and live a life free of society, to thrive away from the pain that she has experienced and the pain that she has caused. She finds peace in making a living off of hunting, collecting plants, farming, and helping with odd chores. She is told that she is the Dragonborn, and that she has a destiny to fulfill, but she wants nothing to do with that. She hunts dragons for their bones, their scales and their meat.
One day, a visitor suddenly appears. It is the Timelost Dwemer, who comes to Catra and tells her about the terrible future that awaits if she ignores her destiny as the Dragonborn, how Alduin and Miraak will destroy all of Skyrim, all of Tamriel. Catra says she just wants to be left alone, that nothing good could come of her stepping into great power and responsibility. The Timelost Dwemer’s time travel device is still glitching, and they disappear [then continues to reappear and disappear every few levels, continuing to harass Catra].
Transition: Eventually, the time travel device is repaired and the Timelost Dwemer says “Fine, if you won’t believe me, I’ll have to show you.” They take Catra several hundred years into the future, to a Skyrim devoid of people, where dragons rule under blackened skies.
Chapter 4: Dragon Apocalypse
Alduin and Miraak have taken over Skyrim, leaving a wake of destruction across every corner.
Visual Environment: No people, hardly any creatures. Dark skies, dark water, dark thick clouds, heavy red sun. Burned trees and foliage.
Immersive Elements: Dragons around every corner, undead roaming the surface, etc. It is a dangerous hellscape anywhere you go.
Quest & Faction Interactions: None.
Questline: The Timelost Dwemer, in their frustration, abandons Catra on her own. “Kill 20 dragons and I will return to offer you a way out”. Catra roams Skyrim as she had before but instead of thriving she is only surviving, and just barely.
Transition: The Timelost Dwemer reappears as promised, and Catra is only too glad to see them. Catra promises to return to her own time and fulfill her legacy as the Dragonborn.
Chapter 5: High Fantasy
Catra has returned to Skyrim and it brims with the magical power of her destiny as Dragonborn.
Visual Environment: Fantastical and bright colors throughout the external environment, clothing, creatures, etc.
Immersive Elements: Heavy increase in magic spells and magic users. Solstheim creatures and goods found in Skyrim. Expanded vanilla quests.
Quest & Faction Interactions: Main QL, College of Winterhold, Dragonborn DLC. Possibly Bards College.
Questline: This chapter is primarily dedicated to significant vanilla quests. The addon mod will be dedicated to weaving these together into Catra’s story and providing elements built up in the previous chapters.
Transition: After defeating Alduin and then Miraak, Catra retires into playing games and enjoying the wonders of the world around her, truly thriving at last.