Introduction
In today’s topic, we will discuss one of the grandest mysteries in the Elder Scrolls lore, the ultimate fate of the Dwemer and why all but one of them disappeared from the face of Nirn.
Let us first discuss the Dwemer themselves and who they are. The Dwemer, or Deep-Folk, are one of the many offshoots of the Aldmer, the Proto-Elves which populated Tamriel during the Merethic Era, the oldest period of sequential time of the mortal world of Nirn. Although some sources claim that the Dwemer originate from even before, during the primordial un-times of the Dawn era, when the nascent mortal world was still being shaped.
Dwemer Theology
Regardless of when they originated, the Dwemer were undoubtedly Elven and they shared Elven beliefs and cosmology. Namely, the Dwemer knew that the creation of the Mundus and the mortal plane of Nirn was a result of the Aedra having sacrificed themselves in the act of creation. The Aedra gave up themselves in creation, with those that fully exhausted their very essence becoming the fabric of creation, the Earthbones. As such, the air, the land, the trees and plants, the animals and even the very people are all made from the Aedra who sacrificed their being to bring forth something new.
And this is why the Aedra are referred to as thus, with Aedra directly being translated as Is/Our Ancestors.
However, this where the similarities between the Dwemer and their Aldmeri cousins ends in terms of cosmology and theology. Whereas the other Elves venerate and worship the Aedra, the Dwemer do not do so.
In TESIII Morrowind, the scholar Beledas Demnevanni says: “It was unfashionable among the Dwemer to view their spirits as synthetic constructs three, four, or forty creational gradients below the divine. During the Dawn Era they researched the death of the Earth Bones, what we call now the laws of nature, dissecting the process of the sacred willing itself into the profane. I believe their mechanists and tonal architects discovered systematic regression techniques to perform the reverse -- that is, to create the sacred from the deaths of the profane.”
The Dwemer did not agree with the notion that they should worship the Aedra; they saw themselves as divinity that were unfairly diminished by the act of creation. So they sought to reverse the act of creation. To reverse the creation of gradients and become systemic divinity again.
This notion of being unbound from creation, of undoing their ties to the Earthbones, is once again reiterated in TESV: Skyrim, in the translation of Calcelmo’s Stone provided by Lead Developer Kurt Kuhlmann: “We only request you partake of the symbol of our bond, the fruit of the stones around us. And as your vision clouds, as the darkness sets in, fear not. Know only our mercy and the radiance of our affection, which unbinds your bones to the earth before, and sets your final path to the music of your new eternity.”
It would seem that before attempting to unbind their race from the Earthbones, the Dwemer attempted to do the same thing to the fleeing Falmer, the Snow Elves, and the blinding of their whole race was part of the process. Though how one is related to the other is not touched upon.
The Dwemer’s grand culmination of their desires soon found a method of fruition when they came to Vvardenfell and found deep in the depths of Red Mountain the legendary Heart of Lorkhan. With the divine spark of an immortal at hand, the Dwemer soon had a whole series of new avenues to explore.
Kagrenac
Enter Kagrenac.
In TESIII: Morrowind, the Last Dwemer, Yagrum Bagarn says: "Lord Kagrenac, the foremost arcane philosopher and magecrafter of my era, devised tools to shape mythopoeic forces, intending to transcend the limits of Dwemer mortality. However, in reviewing his formulae, some logicians argued that side effects were unpredictable, and errors might be catastrophic.”
Prior to the release of TESIII: Morrowind, Bethesda put out an in-game interview as a promotional piece on a now defunct forum, luckily the good people at the Imperial Library saved the interview but Bethesda let them know that the interview is copyrighted and official property of the Game Studio. In the promotional piece, a character known as the Skeleton Man goes around interviewing denizens of Tamriel.
Xal, a Human Maruhkati in Port Telvanis says: “The Brass God is Anumidum, the Prime Gestalt. He is also called the divine skin. He was meant to be used many times by our kind to transcend the Gray Maybe.
“The first to see him was the Shop Foremer, Kagrenac of Vvardenfell, the wisest of the tonal architects [Mechanists - MN] Do not think as others do that Kagrenac created the Anumidum for petty motivations, such as a refutation of the gods. Kagrenac was devoted to his people, and the Dwarves, despite what you may have read, were a pious lot-he would not have sacrificed so many of their golden souls to create Anumidum's metal body if it were all in the name of grand theater. Kagrenac had even built the tools needed to construct a Mantella, the Crux of Transcendence. But, by then, and for a long time coming, the Doom of the Dwarves marched upon the Mountain and they were removed from this world.”
There are several things we need to ask ourselves now. Starting from the phrase “a Mantella, the Crux of Transcendence”. The Mantella prominently features in TES2: Daggerfall as the power source of the Numidium. However, it was created by the Archmage Zurin Arctus during the rise of Tiber Septim, several thousands of years after Kagrenac and the disappearance of the Dwemer. So what is the Mantella that Kagrenac created according to the Skeleton Man Interview? And what is the Crux of Transcendence?
The Crux of Transcendence is an idea that is borrowed from Aliester Crowley’s Tarot, specifically from the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man represents overcoming and bettering one’s self through strife and struggle; enlightenment and transcendence through self-sacrifice or great suffering. This is a theme that is very common in various Human mythologies. In Norse mythology, Odin tears his eye out to drink from Mimir’s Well to gain great wisdom. In Christianity, the Crucifixion of Christ and his ascension to heaven. In the ancient Egyption religion, Osiris is torn asunder by his brother Set which leads him to becoming Lord of the Underworld. The last myth is mirrored in the Elder Scrolls in Auri-El killing Shor, leading to the latter to become the god of Sovengard, the Nordic Underworld. Even their respective wives, Isis and Kyne, both share Hawk imagery.
Let us go back to Yagram Bagarn’s words: "Lord Kagrenac, the foremost arcane philosopher and magecrafter of my era, devised tools to shape mythopoeic forces, intending to transcend the limits of Dwemer mortality.”
Mythopoeia and the Towers
What are Mythopoeic forces? Mythopoeia is an ancient Greek term that means the making of myths. So Kagrenac created Tools to shape or remake a myth. Which myth was Kagrenac trying to shape? Well, luckily we already know.
Kagrenac’s Three Tools to be used on the Heart of Lorkhan were Sunder, Keening and Wraithguard. Sunder means to tear apart, as in Lorkhan having his Heart torn out. Keening means to wail or cry in grief, as in Lorkhan’s scream as his Heart was torn out. Wraithguard: a wraith is a ghost in the likeness of someone just after their death. So Wraithguard protects the wearer from the echo of Lorkhan’s death.
Kagrenac had created Tools to reenact and imprint Lorkhan’s demise without the need to actually die in the process. Kagrenac managed to reenact the myth of Lorkhan’s death, the moment where Lorkhan’s Heart was sacrificed and given to the mortal world. The moment itself was Kagrenac’s Mantella, his Crux of Transcendence. And through it, he would power Anumidium.
So what is Anumidium? Is it more than just a giant robot meant to stomp on enemies? Various sources refer to Anumidium as the Brass Tower, and Towers have very powerful functions within the Elder Scroll universe.
What are Towers, you ask?
Berdalmo the Signifier says: “The spike of Ada-Mantia, and its Zero Stone, dictated the structure of reality in its Aurbic vicinity, defining for the Earth Bones their story or nature within the unfolding of the Dragon's (timebound) Tale. The Aldmeri or Merethic Elves were singular of purpose only so long as it took them to realize that other Towers, with their own Stones, could tell different stories, each following rules inscribed by Variorum Architects.” https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Aurbic_Enigma_4:_The_Elden_Tree
Towers tell stories, narratives of reality, and the biggest story of them all is the story of the mortal world of creation. Akatosh tells it and of the roles the Earthbones play within. And it is that same narrative that the Dwemer wish to break from; the narrative that defines them as mortal gradients of the divine.
So that’s the function Anumidium, of the Brass Tower, it tells a new story that directly refutes the story of Ada-Mantia narrated by Akatosh. Hence why it always causes Dragon Breaks when it activates, because it’s the opposite of Akatosh’s story.
Let us return to Skeleton Man’s Interview: “he would not have sacrificed so many of their golden souls to create Anumidum's metal body if it were all in the name of grand theater.”
What Happened?
Kagrenac literally used the Souls of his fellow Dwemer to construct the body of Anumidium. Why? As Beladas Demnevanni says, to create systematic regression techniques to reverse the process of the Earthbones divesting of divinity until it became gradient mortality. The Interview also refers to Anumidium as the Prime Gestalt, and the definition of a gestalt is an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, we can surmise it was designed to be the totality of the Dwemer. Rather than many small bits of divested divinity, they would come together into the divine construct and apotheosize together in an oversoul. A new narrative of reality, one of uniform divinity for the Dwemer unbound from the whims of another divine.
This vein of thought is further backed up in TESV:Skyrim.
In TES:V Skyrim, Arniel Gaine attempts to recreate Kagrenac's experiments on the Heart of Lorkhan and he essentially succeeds, because he then vanishes, never to be seen. However, it is revealed that the Last Dragonborn can summon the shade of Arniel Gaine. Arniel essentially bound his very being to the closest thing to divinity, which in this case would be the Last Dragonborn's dragon blood and dragon soul.
Yagrum Bagarn says: “I think Kagrenac might have succeeded in granting our race eternal life, with unforeseen consequences -- such as wholesale displacement to an Outer Realm. Or he may have erred, and utterly destroyed our race."
The Last Dwemer was right. Kagrenac gave his whole race eternal life, but because Anumidium failed to ascend past the mortal theater and remained in Nirn, the Dwemer remained stuck in Anumidium, trapped forever in their failed attempt to make of themselves a god.
Anumidium.
A New Medium.
A medium, that became the doom for the whole of the Dwemer.