I was re-reading my old ES gameguides the other day, and in the section dealing with daedric artefacts, the blurb about Azura's Star caught my eye. Specifically:



I've seen this before, and it didn't seem to quite gel with the ES word we know today. This is Daggerfall era lore, of course, but I wondered - when did soultrapping become common enough, accepted enough even, to be used by the general populace in Tamriel? Is its immorality a defunct lore idea that got overturned by the popularity of its gameplay use, and accordingly brushed under the carpet? Or are Tamriel's magic practitioners simply inured to its exploitative nature by the time Morrowind and Oblivion come around?

Following on from this, is soultrapping the one and only method of enchanting items in Tamriel? And if it is, considering the practice of it is so frowned upon in Daggerfall's time, how is it that there are still reams of enchanted items floating around the game world? If soultrapping and soulgems are considered the reserve of the Dark Brotherhood, Necromancers and immoral mages, would it not make sense for enchanted items to be banned, or at least harder to obtain?

I'm aware that a lot of these contradictions are purely to do with gameplay issues, but Bethesda is famous for making lore out of gameplay quirks, so... GO!

Morrowind introduced enchanting as a skill and it would have made more sense to me to have enchanting without souls so you wouldn't be a slave to scrounging up soulgems for everything to use the skill. Like they said about the souls Oblivion, you use them like batteries for enchantments and collect them just for that purpose as obviously they don't allow you to sell them to daedra lords like people in the lore do. I would rack this up to casual treatment of something that could have been taken more seriously in the games.

Souls were not required for enchantments in Daggerfall. The enchanters in Daggerfall were smiths who forced the magical effects into the item and made it unrepairable apparently. There were only two or three quests I can recall that involve soulgems, and they dealt with necromancers anyway.

But the blurb above was written specifically for Daggerfall. I never personally did the quest to get Azura's star, but it acts as a reusable soulgem - there must have been a method within the game of enchanting this way.

Personally, I agree with it being an abandoned lore idea. I think it had a lot of potential for interesting friction between magic practitioners and ordinary people, though. It really perpetuates the idea that you have to sacrifice quite a large part of your ethics to gain experience in certain levels of magic that aren't intrinsically bad, ie enchanting items.

I really hate how everything in Daggerfall is regarded as "archaic" simply beacuse Morrowind contradicted it. Oblivion contradicted much in Morrowind, yet why don't people reject those aspects of lore? They are just as illegitimate.

Daggerfall took place in High Rock, and Morrowind took place in Morrowind. Different cultures, different practices of magic, different uses for soul gems. Its pretty self-explanatory. We already know the Mages's guild in High Rock is pretty seperatefrom the one in Morrowind (for example). We know Dunmer magic is very different from Breton magic techniques. Cyrodill has black soul gems, Morrowind and High rock don't (there's another provincial difference right there). There are different methods of enchanting. There are different uses and cultural reactions to soul gems. Cows exist in both India and England. the British see cows as stupid animals no better sued for food, Hindus refuse to eat cow meat and regard cows as sacred representations of life and nurturing. Same concept.

Honestly, does everything from Daggerfall have to be reconnected out of existence for you people? Simple and logical explanations go a long way...

Souls are optional for enchanting in Daggerfall. Binding a soul to an item gives the item additional advantages and disadvantages, plus the consequence that if the item is broken, the soul is released and attacks you. Otherwise, soul trapping and soul gems work more or less as they do in the later games.

Enchanting without the use of souls seems to be an art that is unknown outside of High Rock or has fallen into disuse. Perhaps this has removed the stigma previously attached to harvesting souls for enchanting (except, of course, among the Redguards).

The Indians, however, are nowhere near as bitter, even after a few hundred years of oppression.

Would you like a nice cup of tea? Your ideas are interesting, but you seem to be having something of a trying day.

I agree with Mortazo.

Redguards se soul trapping completely immoral, powering up the weapon or armore by just using magicka is however more like sharpening it. They don't like Necros either

Dunmer does not se Soul trapping as immoral, but got complete accept for it along with complete accept for the Deadra. They do however se Necromancy as completely immoral. And black soulgems is bound with Necromancy.

The Imperials does not se Necromancy as immoral. I guess there even exist Imperial Necromancers, or atleast til the "Imperial" Mage guild was turned upside down. I guess most decided to completely screw over the guild and thus alot also left to join the king of worms.

So, if you look at it like this, it adds another dimension to the already strained political tensions between the provinces, which is also kind of cool.

i kinda take the tone of the post that lore regarding daggerfall is the utmost authority, but didn't the devs state that daggerfall was largely a testing ground?

notice it says "trade" in souls, perhaps to be taken literally that many frown upon trading souls for profit, or collecting them as a fetish. daggerfall's dark brotherhood had a soul gem merchant, which sold filled gems. of course the brotherhood couldn't utilize them, only the mages guild and temples could use them in application. and remember, the dark brotherhood and to a lesser extent, the mages guild are archaic to commoners, and commoners tend to have ignorant views, based largely on rumor. that has been something gamesas has stressed in the series.

and soultrapping isn't common to the general populace, heck, magic isn't even common to the general populace. it just seems that way because the players are "heroes", magic is common to players, and the players tend to mingle with other hero types. i use the term hero here loosely, as someone more than signifigant than a commoner. remember, enchanting is mainly with the mages guild and temples.

also, looking to morrowind, dunmer culture is vastly different than the western provinces. dunmer practice their own magics, and have their own vastly different ideas of morality. just look at the temple, and the telvanni (well, telvanni are largely immoral...). morrowind was about as foreign of a culture as tamriel can get, aside from possibly the argonians. the dunmer did have living gods afterall.

of course, gamesas used daggerfall as a testing ground for lore. soultrapping was a unique game idea, and gamesas wanted to expand on it. using it as a base for enchanting gave soulgems a greater function rather than an oddity. and enchanting is largely limited to what the player can create, or use of services of the mages guild and temples.

If that was true, then Morrowind is the afterbirth and Oblivion was the extra dookie.

of all things to comment on in my post... :rolleyes:

as for daggerfall enchanting, we do not know anything of what the smiths did. did they use their own soulgems or not? it's not out of the realm of possibility, maybe the enchanters had their own supply of soulgems used to as a bas for enchantments.

it does seems to me that the player using soul gems in daggerfall was a different process than used in morrowind and oblivion. daggerfall seemed more like binding the actual properties of the soul to the item, while morrowind and oblivion just took the raw energy to enchant. afterall, a broken enchantment in daggerfall conjured the angry soul.

The morality seems to be less of an issue for trapping the souls of Daedra and unintelligent beasts. Heck, the Daedra do it to each other.

I think enchanting with soulgems is just a game mechanics. I guess in lore it's more common to enchant with your own magical power or something like that, but you can't build this into a game where you're able to refresh your whole magicka with waiting 1 hour.

It is immoral to trap or bind unwilling souls and abuse them. The Amulet of Kings is a soulgem, but it is not regarded by anyone to my knowlege as an immoral object.

This has to do with the fine line between necromancy and the summoning/binding of ancestors.

1. Seems to me that the only wrong with Daggerfalls guide is that in hindsight the statement is overly broad. Why would anybody ever frown on the use of a rat soul? Especially when it gives that extra bite to your blade?

There still seems to be a general taboo on trapping human souls. Something that wasn't possible in Morrowind due to gameplay and cast into Lore as the Blessing of Arkay which could be explicitly circumvented. Here the morality is also more obvious as trapping a souls denies it access to the afterlife.

The groups mentioned in the guide, the Dark Brotherhood and Necromancers are still trapping or capturing human souls. From Oblivion Rufio and the Black Soulgems come to mind respectively and in Redgaurd the soul gem holding Prince A'Tors soul was the McGuffin.

Though the issue itself has never been the focal point of any game, considering it retconned out of existence is beyond rhyme or reason.



2. That people can trap the souls of others and enchant items is a fact but the exact mechanics of Soultrapping and Enchanting are ultimately a gameplay procedure. This means they are not relevant to lore will either have to be invalidated the moment a new mechanic comes along or be adjusted again to match the new situation. This makes any explanation ultimately meaningless.




3. The Redgaurd fear of magic portrayed in Oblivion is the hackneyed image of a stereotypical race of warriors that only understands and appreciates physical prowess. The truth however is Ansei, the truth is A'tors wizard, the truth is Saban. There is as much magic among the Redgaurd as there is among any other race in Tamriel. Western magic, but magic none the less.

Thanks Prow, I was waiting for you That was very informative.