What powers them, who created them, what kind of magic do they utilize, and how do they work?

I am fascinated by yet another part of TES universe. These games lives are great, aren't they?

Some of the scholars at the Arcane University http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:University_Lectures about them.

Not much is known on the Doomestones, they seem to align with the birthsigns, and the moons of tamriel, as well as some other things (Reman, ex.)
I personally have no clue as to what powers them, some of them seem to have somthing to do with daedric magicka given that upon activating them you get bound equipment.

Some opinions:

When looking at the stones and reading about them I get the feeling that they're thought up because during some dev meeting it was decided that there would be a stone theme. We got the Amulet of Kings, we got Towers&Stones, we got Magical Stones from the Sky, Magical Stones with Ancestor Energy, Magical stones creeping through the walls like mould.

Then we got those Doom stones. But what to make of those?

The stones themselves are kinda poor. We got a collection of heaven stones with the Birthsigns, always a safe option. Some bearing the names of what seems to be late 1st and early second era rulers, might be interesting. And then some with silly names that try to match the elements in heaven but match it in such a fashion that it comes of as contrived.

The Imperial scholars offers as explanation for the Rune Stones that they might have been used for navigation in the late 1st Era. Quite like the quest compass and I like that idea. Not as a justification for the game-play but simply for being able to magically detect direction.

The Heaven and Skystones might be primitive magic. Perhaps used by early mannish tribes or divine gifts. I could compare them to towers, or mess around other wise but in the end there is little useful information about them. So I don't think of them as being much more then yet another typed point-of-interest sprinkled into the countryside of break the monotony.

in a Birthsigns thread, wasn't there some thought that the constellations might have been parts of et'ada (ada?) that left after Nirn's creation, like Magnus? Or something, I dunno. Anyway, maybe the Doomstones are the last manifestations of the constellations in terms of creatia? =/

They're limited to Cyrodiil though, that strongly suggest an artificial origin.

Well, duh, TESIV doesn't go to any other continents. How else are the devs going to lay out their pretty rock theme if they can only put one or two of the Doomstones in Cyrodiil?

I kid, I kid.

Assuming, though, that the inclusion of all Doomstones was less lore and more convenience for gameplay, then yeah, I agree, my initial posit doesn't up well at all.

Do you think the Ayleids made them? Or whatever were the original inhabitants of Cyrodiil before the mer showed up?

This is just a complete guess. But the Ayleids did build their tower and its surroundings in the image of a wheel to amplify its power.


...


http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta_nu-mantia.shtml

Perhaps the stones are simply extensions of this idea, more fragments of creatia to amplify the towers power.

I can also imagine other possibilities:
1) They are drops of Lorkhans blood as his heart was thrown across the continent
2) They are the blood of Aedra or et''Ada
3) They were used to mark the territory/boundaries of the Ayleid city states

I have a theory regarding them, or at least a hypothesis, but it doesn't have anything like actual evidence to back it up.

I figure that since they're powerful magic artifacts, which can bestow buffs or items when touched, they may be pieces of the sky that fell when Magnus blasted off and punched a hole between dimensions. Maybe even pieces of Magnus himself that broke off his body due to the strains of said dimension breaking. Perhaps they were named by mortals only later, and are much older than Imperial civilization of any kind.

I always thought they were drops of volcanic rock as Shezzar's heart was sailing from Adimantine tower to the giant gap in the middle of Morrowind (Now Vvardenfell) The middle is the magical part, and the letters where made when people carved rock away to expose the magical part.

One user said that the blood drops are ebony.

I've thought about these a lot. Unfortunately to no avail, but I can give you a few of the things that I get hung up on:

-The doomstones are dotted around Cyrodiil, ignoring ancient borders, or any mythical pattern, implying some tactical or other significance (like those mentioned in the talks)
-The Hestra Runestones are in the shape of the Apprentice and are mostly (but not entirely) within Colovia, implying that if they were road signals (which I don't think they were), then it acted as a northern road connecting Colovia, Skyrim, and Nibenay as wayshrines in the (no doubt) war-torn Jeralls.
-The Sidri-Ashak Runestones are very roughly in the shape of the Serpent.
-The Remans are a mystery to me and defy the pattern above. It kinda could be the Steed missing a couple of stars, but I doubt it.
-The Runestones ignore southern Cyrodiil which, at the time, would've belonged to the Khajiiti Kingdoms (and a little to the Argonians), so that fits in line with them being used or constructed during the 1st and 2nd era Emperors.
-In order of supposed age are Hestra, Reman, and Sidri-Ashak with Hestra being the oldest.
-The Mage's guild speeches tell of Sidri-Ashak as being an obscure reigning Potentate (in the 1st era) and being the last strong one too, which is interesting in its own rights because barely 100 years pass since Versidue Shai's death that Saverien-Chorak and his heirs die, putting an end to the second Empire. It's more of a testement to Versidue Shai's effectiveness, because it implies that after his 300 year reign there are a series of short reigns in the 100 years until Saverien-Chorak. It implies at least two potentates (likely more) reigned in those 100 years, which was a short time for some road-building. Most relevant, however, is that at this point we have the Mage's Guild decently established in the Second Empire, so whatever magical arts that the Runestones have or function as are more important for their use than letting a blossoming Mage's Guild handle it.
-The Mage's Guild speeches seem to indicate that the are not aware of the powers that the Doom/Runestones give you, yet you know just what to do. Further evidence that the voices of God in the games is Lorkhan telling you what's what I guess.

These are the points I've thought about the most, but I still haven't quite grasped how to tie them all together.

Some kind of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge, maybe?