If i soultrap someone and drop the gem in the sea, does that mean their soul is trapped inside that gem and doomed to be trapped in it for all eternity? Or is it just their energy and/or life-force?

It means some marine lizard will eat it and turn into Godzilla.

Well I'm not sure about that, but this brought another question to my mind.

Is there an afterlife in the Elder Scrolls?

That seems to differ between Morrowind and previous games and Oblivion. In Morrowind enchanted items would recharge overtime, suggesting that there was something that collected Magicka, presumably the soul. In Oblivion on the otherhand there is no such recharging and souls come only in 5 discrete levels of power so it would appear that it's just their energy.

In Redgaurd the Souls of Prince Ator is trapped to preserve his body and N'Gasta's soulsnare captures the souls of people. This suggests that it is the soul and not just energy.

I'd have to look it up how it worked in Arena and Daggerfall.

Of course this is mostly gameplay so it doesn't relate much to lore, from the story stuff the suggestion that you're actually trapping souls. So when you trap somebodies and drop the gem into the sea they're screwed. You can find a good example of this in the Story of Redgaurd.

Depends on i'f you're killed by mannimarco or not 0.0

Honestly, I've always seen it as capturing the soul, and when you use the energy of the soul, it's essentially atomsmashing the soul out of existence to use the raw energy.

Exactly.... :wacko:

Imagine the soul more like water. Putting it into a soulgem is like putting water into a jug, and if you don't use the water in the jug it doesn't return to the cycle. Using souls for enchantments is like using steam power.

I don't think they were in Arena at all. Could be wrong.

As for Daggerfall: firstly, enchanting was done with or without soulgems; all the soul added was a higher capacity for enchantment and a few added traits (good or bad) depending on the creature. However, if that item ever broke, then the trapped creature breaks free and, being rightfully pissed off, tries to kill you. I seem to remember game literature or perhaps the manual hinting that the released is the ghost/spirit/whatever of the creature; but as far as the game goes, they weren't any different from their fully corporeal selves.

I think they grouped all the values under 5 tiers to make things simpler.

As for lore, I wonder if it is possible to infuse the soul in a Dwemer construct or corpse, effectively bringing about the person's return.

Apparently you can put souls back into corpses, they make a lich or mummy. A'Tor would have been a mummy I suppose if they'd have gotten him in the correct funnel.

i belive with normal soul gems i think its just energy but with black soul gems the soul that is trapped in their is stuck for a LONG TIME or even forever :spotted owl:

I'd say that the whole Lunar Currency thing, as well as the one-liner description in Wolf Queen of her werewolf soul containing grand soul gem--- that the actual spirit is contained inside a gem regardless of what creature it is.

Black soul gems simply overcome Arkay's divine 'Meddling' against the capture and exploitation of the souls of "man/mer like beings."


As for binding somebody to an animunculus? I have had the same idea in the past, despite people scoffing at me. Prince A'Tor gets turned into a sentient sword, afterall. I dont see why it wouldnt be possible.

It's quite likely that it's the soul in my oppinion. Especially because of the whole sandbox/sandcastle theory, so without an afterlife, the "theft" of a soul doesn't nearly have as much meaning as it might have had otherwise.

You're just taking the remaining energy from a kill, not it's... Persona per say.

Oddly enough Arkays blessing used to prevent you from successfully casting Soultrap in the first place. Now it's as if there simply wasn't a Soulgem big enough to hold human souls.

But as I mentioned before that is gameplay and not Lore.

They also say that the Staff of Hasedoki is said to contain Hasedoki's soul, too. Too bad he bound his soul to such a lame artifact.