Hey everyone,

I was just wondering why silver harms ghosts? It's been a little bit since I've played Morrowind or Oblivion, but I don't recall the games ever directly mentioning why they hurt ghosts, just that they do.
Is it based in Elder Scroll lore or perhaps our own lore?

Any information you guys can give me on this subject would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I don't recall anything in lore explaining it. My guess is the whole "shoot a vampire with a silver bullet" thing.

Werewolves, maybe, which originates from accounts of the Beast of Gévaudan being killed by silver bullets. But in some older fairy tales silver is indeed the ingredient for weapons to choose against otherwise immortal enemies, like powerful witches and such. Can't really remember more than the (original?) The Two Brothers right now, though. ^_^
Guess Beth were going for that.

So wearing silver armor should make you immune to ghosts. Nice.

Well, steel armor painted with silver. Well, that's pretty much how the weapon is made.

How come?

The real reason is that silver and ghosts both look alike so they must be able to influence each other!

The same actually goes for silver and fog. Each night In Skyrim the fog get so dense you can't see anything at all. It's allot like Morrowind where you can't see past the third three either, but only there it is called smog. Now you really can't grow anything with all that fog, keeps the sun from reaching the ground. So each morning the Nords of Skyrim run up to the mountain, draw their silver swords and run down again cutting the thick fog, letting the sun in.

Silver is way too soft of a metal to be used as an effective weapon. If it was made entirely out of silver, it's more of a decoration than anything, like gold weapons.

Silver in the TES universe is more durable... I guess? Silver is actually just mithril and iron which have been grinding to eachother for some years with the continents moving around and all that earth-moving and eventually it became: SILVER!

Right?

EDIT: Actually, I'm wrong about my assertion that it's pretty much silver painted onto steel or something. It was something I read a long time ago on UESP. A better source is the Manual of Arms, which seems to make it a weapon entirely made out of silver, but notes it is much less durable. Here's the quote,


However, I still find that to be a bit bogus, as silver IRL (yeah, I know) would be quite the bad weapon, and would be extremely expensive. The idea that it's silver plated or painted on a cheaper metallic weapon sounds more reasonable. Plus, it has to be less expensive to just add silver to a steel sword of something.

Some lame-ass, fantasy convention, influenced by real-world superstitious and paranormal remedies.

Cool :goodjob:

In real life, a glass sword would be a terrible idea. Silver seems common enough that it isn't too expensive in TES games. You can get a ruby for the same price as a repair hammer.

Besides, this is fantasy! Apparently you can make armor out of anything if you can make it out of glass. I'd bet they've got a dev making a model in game for a suit of Smegma armor.

Well, the silver nordic axes look to be plated with silver. But yes, I know pretty much anything can be made into armor, even volcanic green glass that's a crystal before made into armor.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Legions_of_the_Dead claims that it's because silver is a "refined" substance. Whatever the case, it's been somewhat inconsistent because in TES III, Dwemer, Glass, and Ebony weapons all affectected ghosts, but not in TES IV. I suspect this was done to make silver weapons more "unique".


Just because it isn't an original idea doesn't necessarily make it lame.

I always thought glass swords and armour were just TESified http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass.

As for the original question, I always just figured it was because silver in Tamriel is somehow inherently magical. It's like how enchanted weapons can hurt ghosts- there must be something in silver that naturally radiates a small amount of magicka, and by that logic there must be something in Ayleid and Dwemer blacksmithing techniques that artificially imbues their weapons with the same properties, or at least retains the alchemical properties present in the raw materials. If Enchanting was still a skill (and if the Dwemer and Ayelids were still around), I'd bet good money both races would have a bonus to it.
Daedric, ebony and glass weapons/armour are made from materials which are pretty much outright said to be magic, so it stands to reason that that's why they can hurt ghosts.

It may have to do with the Lunar Lattice: at least in some Earth mythology, silver is the metal of the moon, which is the source of its power against the unnatural (who apparently are also moon-powered). So it's a case of fighting fire with fire.

Ugh...That's disgusting. :wacko:

I was guessing 9/10 wouldn't know what that was. You are the one!

Make me another, I just didn't want to dignify such a...nasty problem that some males catch.

http://elderscrolls.com/games/morrowind_weapons.htm

Haha, so just because then.

"It may have to do with the Lunar Lattice: at least in some Earth mythology, silver is the metal of the moon, which is the source of its power against the unnatural (who apparently are also moon-powered). So it's a case of fighting fire with fire. "

That's very interesting. I'll have to do some outside research on that.

Thanks for all the responses everyone!

Ah, thanks a ton! This now gives my assertion that steel weapons are jiffied steel weapons much more credibility.

Wearing steel armor doesn't necessarily mean people can't harm you and steel kills people just fine. Just because something can hurt them doesn't mean it also must protect against them.

As to why silver works against ghosts and such, it probably is an idea inspired by silver being used against supernatural creatures in various stories, but in the case of the Elder Scrolls world, it's probably because silver has some kind of inherent magical properties in it that makes it effective against enemies that can't be harmed by normal weapons, why does it have this power when iron or steel don't? Who knows, the designers thought it would be cool, I guess, sounds like as good a reason to do things as any.

Bah, stop being Captain Killjoy you two.