Alright. A question i've had for a while is where the heartstones found in Solstheim fit into what we know about the Heart of Lorkhan, the red year, and their implications.
To me, it seems likely that heartstones are fragments of the heart of Lorkhan, somehow scattered when red mountain went boom during the red year and coalesced over the decades since. (a thought: will heartstones continue to coalesce? Is the heart of Lorkhan reforming through them, or has it taken a new form and insinuating itself more deeply into the fabric of Nirn?)
Now, as for effects, It seems that these heartstones have a great faculty for tieing souls to Nirn, as well as other magical effects of a similar nature. We seem them used to reanimate two people, one of whome had been dead for quite some time. They might have more powers, given Neloth's interest in them, but what they are a mystery.
More interestingly, they also cause those implanted with them to experience voices and creeping insanity. I'm partial to thinking that the voices are from the spirits of those who died during the red year, somehow merged together / trapped within the heartstones, and implanting one in you gives these spirits access to your mind.
Now, here are the questions resulting from these musings.
1.) Can a heartstone be used as a small-scale anolog for the heart of Lorkhan in certain magics? Could similar magics to what the Dwemer and the Almsivi used on the Heart of Lorkhan be used on the Heartstones with a similar effect?
2.) Is a heartstone inherently corrupting / insanity causing, or is there a way around that problem? If the side-effects of heartstone implantation are caused by the souls resident in the heartstones, would it be possible to 'purge' a single heartstone of its resident souls and use it as normal, without creeping insanity?
3.) To what extent can heartstones be considered individually? In essence, I am asking if all heartstones only represent instances of a larger whole, like nodes on a network, or can a heartstone be isolated as a discrete thing. Either answer has interesting implications.
Thanks in advance for any replies. I've been lurking the forum for about a year now, and have yet to see any topics that dealt directly with the issue.