What materials comprise Keening, specifically the blade? I think it looks like some sort of a crystaline materila, but I could be wrong. If anyone has any information on what the blade is made of, or the rest of it, please reply. Also anyone know of a mod for oblivion that uses this sweet looking weapon.

Keening was of Dwemer origin I'm pretty sure, so the handle and all that may have been made out of metal material the Dwemer used, but I'm not sure about the blade.

It was made from the sound of the shadow of the moons.

Natural laws determine what a material is, and how it behaves. Dwemer methods enable their crafts to refute the effects of decay and limitations of physics. This stuff isn't really metal anymore, or crystal or anything you've heard of. And the Tools are the most extreme example of this.

thats awesome.

I'm a bit skeptical of the Dwemer using magic to bend the Earth Bones so that their stuff doesn't deteriorate. I suspect that it might just be the explanation given by the Dunmer, and are actually just chemically treated and/or made into alloys that highly resist corrosion.

But Keening is not a normal Dwemer item.

Now why would the Dunmer give the Dwemer any more credit than is due them, if anything it should be them saying that its just 'chemically treated' (or whatever the TES equivalent is)... besides, Baladas is a more than credible source and its not like your average Dunmer would be talking about the Dwemer's mythopoeic abilities...

Sunder, Keening, and Wraithguard have mythopoeic abilities, not average Dwemer items. I don't think the Dwemer would do that sort of thing to everything they make, and I don't think that the Dunmer would understand chemistry like the Dwemer do. To the Dunmer, it'd be bending the Earth Bones, but it just happens to be far less amazing to someone like us who know how that sort of things like us.

There is no evidence of material matter as we understand it in the TES universe. My personal conception of it has shifted in the years I have been on this forum, and now I hold that the "substance" of the TES universe is more closely related to the "Substance" you interact with inside a dream. To the dreamer it has weight, is solid, etc--- but it is actually made of nothing except PURE imagination.

From what I can gather of the Dwemer, they were actually LOOKING for the concrete--- but everywhere they looked, they found NOTHING but the same metaphysical Dream-substance, just in diffierent guises. Hell, even the GODS were made of the stuff! I feel this is why the Dwemer were not so beholden to the concepts of Divinity, at least not the divinities presented to them. The Dwemer were looking for something that was "Real"---


The shadow of a moon is still a dream-scape construct, from the world-dream. It is therefor fair game, just as much as that iron ore is. The dwemer just realized that imagination and belief are what made the (dream) world go round. They found ways to make dream-substance more "real", so that it could not be re-cast, and deteriorated by time. Is it any small wonder that they would try to do the same thing for themselves? Afterall, it was "unpopular" to the dwemer to accept being "So far below the divine." (Read, permanent, and truly real.)


It's a bit like a cartoon character realizing it is a cartoon--- and wanting to be a real person.


When the cartoon realizes they are a cartoon-- what is to stop them from picking up a cartooned pen and paper-- and doodling cartoons of their own, and bringing them into being inside their cartoon world? Dreams look to be very powerful things in the TES universe, and functionally just as "real" as the waking world.

At best, there is a fine line between dreams, beliefs, and myths---- If there is even one at all.

The stuff God's cuttlery is made of. Unobtanium?

Don't know. The dissaperance of the dwemer civilization causes questions like these to fall into the nether-realms of conjecture and guess work, unfortunately.

What can flay a god anyway? Can change the myths of creation? Surely not some simple metal coated with a special chemical. Though having a blade made "dreamstuff" sound pretty faff too.

There's no evidence for what you're suggesting either. Or at least no more evidence than that to the contrary. If you look at Dwemer armor, it is slightly corroded and weathered; the process wasn't perfect. Although in this case, I should point out that it's actually just data recorded in a compact disc and projected onto a screen.


I'm not talking about Keening, I'm talking about your average Dwemer artifact. Keening, Sunder, and Wraithguard are no ordinary Dwemer artifacts.

That doesn't really matter, does it? If you can if use Tonal Architecture *CoughStorytellingCough* to change the mythopoeic properties *CoughStatsSheetCough* of anything, you can make all Dwemer Metal time resistant.

Yes, but we're not talking about "the Dunmer", we're talking about a Dunmer who's an authority on the subject...

Yes there is, or are you another that dismiss obscure texts?

Yes, I suppose that since after 4000 years the armor has become 'slighly corroded and weathered' that the Dwemer didn't get it right, oh wait...

Baladas is a Telvanni Master, not a chemist. I doubt that anyone in Vvardenfell has the chemical knowledge that the Dwemer had.


And the entire games seem to say otherwise.


If it was truly magic or mythopoeic or mystical in any way, there would be no corrosion; it would be perfect. It was just alloys that are highly resistant to corrosion. It would appear, however, that Kagrenac's Tools are different; they seem far less corroded and much shinier than the average Dwemer artifact.


You *do* realize how much metal that would amount to.

Other than the Telvanni, who are specialists in alchemy...

expect arguing over alchemy/chemistry differences. :rolleyes:

How does that matter?

Good call. My arguement is that there's a difference.


It would largely depend on how much effort is required to alter the mythopoeic properties of it.

And once again, I'm the guy whom everybody seems to disagree with.

I disagree! It's you that disagrees with everyone else!

Snicker.

Here comes the other side of the arguement. Alchemists were just primative chemists that actually came up with a lot of advances in chemists. Except that TES alchemy is mixing a bunch of organic materials together to make something magical, so the difference doesn't matter. But Baladas seems to be intellegent enough to make the "I don't understand it, so it must be incredibly mystical" jump. He's more of a skeptic scholor.

True.


It's more flattering to think of yourself as the devil's advocate to all our opinions.

At least for our purposes, alchemy involves the arcane properties, while chemistry involves mundane properties. And seeing as how the Dwemer are this mysterious dead race, people will typically overexaggerate what they did. Numidium included, but that's another debate. Either way, creating corrosion-resistant alloys could be bending the earth-bones, in a way, as they know not only alloys that resist corrosion remarkably, but they found a way to prevent their literary texts from decaying as well.

GROAN!

since the dwemer were knowledgable of the heart, i always took it that they changed the tone of the metal which made it extremely resistant to corrosion and age, forever altering the record of that alloy. perhaps they tried with other objects, but their metal alloy was the only subject that was stable.

the tools had a distinct connection with the heart, hince why they are very unique. keening was originally a tuning fork which was to be attached to wraithguard, which would make a lot more sense in how wraithguard absorbed the tones. i bet there were other tools used to manipulate the heart, but these tools had a specific cause.

Well, not really. Alchemists in our world did come up with some advances by accident, true, but alchemy was more an esoteric occult tradition than a science. Inasmuch as the world itself grows from the divine, alchemy is a method of reattaining spiritual purity. Lead or silver into gold refers to more than merely one metal into another. It's the sublimation of the silvery and inconstant moon into the eternal and conquering sun. They weren't necessarily trying to turn base metals into gold. They were indulging in typical gnostic pursuits of transcending human limitations, both material, psychological and spiritual. They were attempting to transmute themselves, by drawing on their observations of the natural world.

This is really not terribly different to what the Dwemer were attempting to do. Baladas isn't entirely sure if they used their prcoesses to preserve everything, but it's as likely a good bet:

"As the books and other artifacts in Dwemer ruins rarely show signs of wear or age, I believe that the Dwemer knew of a preservative effect, perhaps a device still active which denies or controls the Earth Bones governing time and decay"

As far as TES alchemy goes, it's more or less simplified chemistry and an empirical sort of practice. Gaining results from mixing natural ingredients. The distinction though, is just a merry chase that distracts from what's actually said about the subject by a reputed expert on the Dwemer.


You were expecting something other than the usual deflection?

Nah, just a lot more loud complaining.

Excuse me while I read your post properly.