I've been playing Oblivion quite a bit recently, and a question has popped into my head - what are Ayleid ruins?

I know they were inhabited by the ancient Ayleids, etc, but in Morrowind you had Dwemer Ruins which were clearly factories, and with Oblivion I have no idea what the ruins are. Occasionally they call them tombs, which I guess makes sense, but they can't all be tombs, can they? They're not exactly inhabitable, because of the traps everywhere, so what are they?

My best guess right now is that they're prisons, because the things that hang from the ceilings in some rooms look a lot like cells - and putting huge traps everywhere would make a lot of sense. Thoughts?

Ayleid ruins are part of ancient cities and were probably used for storing treasures and protecting their kings, much like castles. Some were like forts, built for war.

At least that′s my thoughts :shrug:

There are thrones in some of the ruins, and you'll encounter quests that explicitly say they were cities (with kings).

I actually wondered that myself. I really don't think that was fully thought out by the developers.

In they seem to be tombs in general. But there are things like thrones in them, as well as wide open areas. Maybe some areas for rituals. And some correspond to cities, but with all the traps it's hard to believe that they were underground cities, so I guess theoretically there was an above ground portion that was worn away by time.

But the real answer appears to be that the developers just wanted some strange creepy ruins for the game, with out a lot of background on what they are.

It's also not clear why or how the ancient Aylied locked away so many Septims in their ruins, when Septims didn't exist at the time.

:lol: Whoops! I always attributed the various gold pieces & treasures to past NPCs who broke into the ruins and managed to stash their loot safely, but were at some point killed. This dosen't explain how such treasure respawns in 3 days, however. If they're supposed to be Septims, that is also a big oddity.

But it′s not Septims. It′s just gold! And btw I like your explanation and lets just not think about that godforsaken respawn, huh? :thumbsup:

I rarely run thru Ayleid ruins more than once per character, except for "one stop shopping" ruins like Screen that are full of NPCs. So in a way, it's almost like my characters loot the ruins, and those ruins now stand mostly empty in a RP sense. :shrug: that's hte way i usually see it at least.

I never go through any dungeon more than once either, except if I′m in big need of gold. But then I just like to think it′s been put there by other adventurers and bandits. Much like you said, I believe :foodndrink:

I like going thru the ones a second, third or fourth time (whatever) if there's NPCs dwelling in there. Because theoretically they could just move in, toss out the dead bodies lying in there, etc. That's my fave enemy to attack, Necromancers, marauders, etc.

They are the ancestors to the Altmers. They were very evil and and worshiped Deadra. They tried to destroy all the other races by summoning hords of Dremora to fight for them. The ones they didn't kill, they enslaved. It was the human imperials that sparked an uprising against them. Taking over the city and forcing them underground. That's why they have all those traps set.

The uprising started after an imperial, and I think it was a she, called upon a dragon god for help. Thus the bloodline.

There were several kings. Each had their own little underground city.

I've always assumed that the surface part of the Ayleid ruins are what the actual city was. The actual dungeons that are still intact were the crypts or prisons. It's not unreasonable to think that, after Alessia began her mass genocide of the Ayleids that many of them moved deep into their underground areas to be under the protection of their traps to keep the humans out.

You know, that's not far off. There is not that much above ground. It's like they expanded on to the depths of their dungeons. At that time they had no where else to go.

EDIT : I need to refresh my memory more, with a good once over, of the lore.

They are ruins of Ayleid towns and cities. There were probably more buildings on the surface, the underground parts are probably for storage or maybe for some religious purpose. The rooms with thrones are probably exactly that, throne rooms for the settlement's ruler.

Yea, it was storage alright. Slave storage. :thumbsup:

And corpse storage, judging by the number of crypts and sarcophagi to be found there.

They didn't have to go far to bury their dead, did they.

Yeah, this sounds likely. Thanks!

probably burial mounds like a pyramid i always thought, they seem to mostly be inhabited by undead and they have a tomb vibe too them. Or maybe a temple of sorts...hmm How religious were the ayleids?