Side with the aurorans in kotn.

[JasperBark]

I'll be honest, the imperial pantheon is boring, and Meridia is my favorite deity in tes, so having to side with the nine was kinda boring to me. I'd like a mod where we can side with Meridia and Umaril instead.

 

A good way to achieve this is to add an option to immediately go to the shrine of Merida after we talk to the prophet, and learn the locations of the gauntlets, greaves (have them be in the inventory of the wraith), boots, sword (whitch we purify at Meridia's shrine instead of Arkay), mace, and shield via a vision (just a textbox explaining it) and go after the relics in that order. During all this we get no interferance by the aurorans, since we're on their side

 

After we do that, we get another vision (textbox) prompting us to go to the location of the helm, which then leads us to the priory as in the original part of the dlc. This time howver, we have hostile knights of the nine fighting against the aurorans at the priory. Once the knights are all taken out, both on the outside and inside of the priory, we head down to the basement alone to fight against the ghosts of the former knights of the nine, and after that, the spirit of Pelinal Whitestrake, which will undo the barrier blocking the cuirass.

 

After we obtain the cuirass, we get transported to Meridia's shrine, where we are gifted Umaril's sword by activating the shrine, and now have access to friendly aurorans we can recruit as followers at the shrine and Malatar.

[Pellape]

I am not sure what the point would be honestly but it does sounds cool never the less. So you can do that your self very easy by following this guide.

 

Let the dark force be with you... ;)

[GeorgeCorbul]

I am not sure what the point would be honestly

I agree with the OP. I hated that KotN (just like the main quest and the SI main quest) forced you to be a good guy (provided you believe the Empire, Pelinal, and Sheogorath to be good guys). I mean, this is supposed to be a role-playing game, right? So where's the role-play? Same with all TES games, really. Also, if you play as an elf, how is Pelinal's spirit not trying to kill you?

 

There is a problem with OP's idea though. From what they wrote, it makes Umaril's\ Meridia's invasion pointless. What's the end-goal? Sure, Umaril wants to get revenge on the Divines, and potentially, to re-establish himself as ruler of Cyrodiil, hence why we're trying to stop him, but if we were to side with him, what would we, as the player, be achieving? Umaril fighting the Divines in impossible, because a) they are physically dead, and b) we won't be able to participate in it, so it would make for boring gameplay. Him becoming king of Cyrodiil is bound to break the game, as it would conflict with the way society in the game is programmed (same if the player sided with the Mythic Dawn\ Mehrunes Dagon or Jyggalag, though at least here, there's room for maneuver). A more viable way of implementing this would be to speak to the Prophet, then go to Meridia's shrine instead of where the Prophet sends you. She would give you Umaril's sword (because forget Umaril, he's had his chance!) and an item or spell that allows you to summon several Aurorans at once. She would then task you with going to the chapels, slaughtering the priests, desecrating the altars, and destroying the relics. And the summoned Aurorans are gonna be your aid in this. Once the relics are destroyed, you return to her shrine and she just tells you something like "Go now, Champion, and bring chaos into this world in my name!". A simple, yet elegant solution. A somewhat more complex one would be the player siding with Umaril, as the OP suggested, but Umaril betraying the player. You now have to fight and defeat him in the physical plane only (you're still doing Meridia's bidding, so no need to kill her champion to death). This way, we get to defeat Umaril without siding with those lame-o Knights, and the world stays intact.