Okay, I was just wondering, how smart are Frost and Storm Atronachs? I know a lot of Daedra have at least man or mer level intelligence, but I don't know if that applies to the various Atronachs.

I also seem to remember a talking atronach in Morrowind, but was that Atronach unique? Sorry if this question has been asked already, but I really want to know.

They had the little atronach switch between Daggerfall and Morrowind. In Daggerfall they were Frankenstein monsters created by the mage's guild that were formerly people, in Morrowind they replaced the Fire and Frost Daedra. In Arena, they were present, but not really talked about. In both Daggerfall and Morrowind, Atronachs could talk and were fairly intelligent. From a quest in Morrowind we learned that a child of Molag Bal ran off with an Atronach as a lover, so they are certainly enough to stand up in the daedric world. They have names as well.

So, either Atronachs used to be people and are as smart as people, or they are daedra of similar intelligence. They can speak, and could form societies if given the chance.

There's also Battlespire, where lots of conversations with daedra happen, including the ice and fire atronaches (they hate each other)

Okay fire and frost atronachs I could see as Being Intelligent, but what about flesh atronachs... Hey seem like mindless zombes to me? Of course I could be wrong because here are already zombies in the game (oblivion).

well one of them once came up to me and said "hey smooth skin"

Well that purdy much blows my theory out of the water lol ...
You should have replied "he-... What the hell are you!"

I see what you did thar.

Atranochs are Daedric beings who are very intelligent and capable of easily breaking the bonds between a lesser Daedra and it's Daedroth lord. Golems are enchanted materials that move on their own through mac, but have no intelligence. They are often confused.


Flesh Atronachs are made, not summoned (from a realm in oblivion). They are actually Golems (I think)

maybe their bodies are made, but the spirit that moves them could be Atronach in origin. or a body built around a central "part" a heart or mind perhaps? do we know the process?



actually i blew his face off with this magic boom stick I found.

They are only confused after they made Atronachs into daedra for the game Morrowind, which also meant they were mislabeled for Oblivion. Fire Daedra and Fire Atronachs were separate creatures in Daggerfall and Battlespire, and neither appeared in Arena. I agree that golems are enchanted materials or mechanical constructs, and they were seen in Arena, Redguard, and Morrowind.

fire Daedra and Fire Atronachs could be different. I think that the fire Atronachs could easily be http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Daedra#Flame_Atronach and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Creatures#Flame_Atronach

while Flame Daedra are http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:DaggerfallFireDaedra.gif

The Daggerfall (Flame Atronoch) is actually a http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/1/11/DaggerfallFireAtronach.gif

The Morrowind and Oblivion Atronachs are definitely all really Daedra, considering they can be summoned from oblivion. The Daggerfall 'Atronachs' are all actually Golems.

And the frost/fire daedra looked like this in battle spire: http://www.imperial-library.info/bestiaries/battlespire_large_frostdaedra-1.jpg, http://www.imperial-library.info/bestiaries/battlespire_large_firedaedra-2.jpg

/\
same as in Daggerfall with better graphics. I'm going to assume that they are sevants of Dagon, by the way, since they definatley look like they could cause natural disasters.

There were no labeled Atronachs in Arena, but there were golems of various sorts, starting the whole "enchanted mage construct" concept for the creatures. In Daggerfall they received their proper names, but existed alongside Fire/Frost Daedra who resembled elemental humanoids (complete with armor) that resonated elemental energy. Indeed, the two seemed entirely separate at first with the Atronachs being found only in the company of human mages (the throne room of Shedungent for example, home to Nulfaga, a powerful sorceress).

Battlespire, taking place in a slipspace between the Mundus and Oblivion, only had the invading Fire/Frost Daedra who continued resemble and behave like their Daggerfall counterparts. You could have lots of conversations with them, as stated earlier, although that's probably because these Daedra were part of Mehrunes Dagon's invasion force and had their own motives/rants and raves to talk about. Pretty much all the Daedra in Morrowind, aside from scripted ones and quest-specific ones, seemed to merely be rampant or otherwise without masters, so I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't much to talk about anyway.

Still, I'm certain at least these elemental Atronachs are fairly intelligent, with Storm Atronachs being retconned in as part of a compromise between the Daggerfall and Battlespire families of elementals. That is to say, Bethesda probably found the Frost/Fire Daedra of Battlespire a little lacking in variety, so they decided to add in some of the elements from Daggerfall's Atronachs (there's an unused Air Atronach in Daggerfall, but there is also a functioning Iron Atronach) to add in a bit more variety. I would assume they're just as intelligent as their earlier Frost and Fire counterparts.

This leaves the Flesh Atronachs, but since thus far they've only appeared in the macabre setting of the Shivering Isles, I think the name may merely be an homage to the true Atronachs, or named due to their similarities with them (since they still follow the principle of souls inhabiting a material vessel).

To your last point, you could also summon zombies, ghosts, fabricants, bears, centurion spheres, and bonelords, so we can be rid of the notion that summonability has any bearing on daedric matters.

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/1/11/DaggerfallIceAtronach.gif and http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/5/58/DaggerfallFrostDaedra.gif are indeed different creatures, but we know very well from Daggerfall that the Ice Atronachs could talk and rebel against their creators, so by what means do we dare to think they could be golems? They are not. Never were.

Yes indeed, and they as Daedric beings are very much like their look in Daggerfall. Which is to say, they don't resemble the Atronachs.

That would have been a good idea for Bethesda to think through. What is Dagon going to do with Scamps and crocodiles? Beat up some homeless people and defecate in the streets? He needs some real destroyers. Daedra that suit his inclinations.

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/2/2c/DaggerfallFleshAtronach.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_Miser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Miser

Cue ragtime

How do you support your disagreement?

I suspect we can assume that Atronachs as golems have been completely and utterly retconned out of the setting, with the possible exception of the flesh ones, who, I get the impression, are still constructs, though I suppose they could have a Daedra bound to them, whether they've been combined with fire and ice Daedra or remain separate though, it's hard to same, but even if they look a little different, having two different varieties of elemental Daedra seems a little redundant, so I suspect that they are now the same.

As to their intelligence, there are several places in games where Atronachs have been shown to speak (In Morrowind, for example, one temple quest has you going to a shrine where three atronach's ask you riddles in order to test you.), that seems to make it pretty clear that they have a certain degree of intelligence, of course, the random enemy ones don't say anything to you, but neither did the random enemy Dremora in Morrowind, just because they don't talk (being as they're considered "creatures" instead of "humanoids", they don't have combat taunts, it would seem.) doesn't mean they don't have the intelligence to, it just means that they have nothing to say to you.



It should be noted, however, that the fabricants, centurions, and bears seem to be limited to special spells, the list of commonly available summoning spells seems to be confined to Daedra and undead, Atronach's are obviously not undead (Maybe Flesh Atronachs could qualify as such, seeing as they're made out of flesh, but frost, flame or storm ones are certainly not.) they also tend to be encountered in places where other Daedra are, are referred to as Daedra by the lore, and, in the case of Oblivion, appear using the Daedra summoning effect if I remember correctly (As opposed to the one used for undead.) so it seems pretty obvious that yes, they are indeed Daedra.

Yes, as of Morrowind, we have this:

So the devs put the two creatures - daedra and atronach - together. I'm glad they noticed how unnecessary two sets of elementals were. (if only they got rid of both)

This isn't targeted at your post specifically but I'll bring it up anyway as a reminder to everyone. We should not see the summoning of things like Centurions and Fabricants as actual spells, but rather a gameplay-friendly way to compensate. I've always imagined Centurions, for example, as being summoned from some fancy-schmancy unfolding Dwemer hammerspace cube. It would merely be redundant for Bethesda to go into deeper detail and create different visual cues for summoning these sorts of creatures.

Nonetheles, Daedra/Undead are the ones that seem to be summonable through sheer force of will and without the need for ritual materials, so Atronachs would be part of the Daedric contingent for sure.

It's up to each of us to decide how our characters summon a meat shield, but, any creature could be grabbed with a spell and brought to you in a manner like summoning from oblivion.

I believe it was said somewhere in SI that flesh atronachs are created by binding a daedra into the gems/runes on a stitched-together corpse. I would bet that apart from dwemer constructs, golems in general are created in similar fashion, simply using substrates other than flesh. As for intelligence, they are as smart or stupid as the story requires.

The dwemer constructs deactivate when they go too far from MW, so I doubt the dwemer did any soul transferring

But you don't summon them from Oblivion, you do from other parts of Nirn