I've always been a bit confused by the (to me) ethical issue of soul gems. I know being a good mage you shy away from the black soul gems that trap sentient beings' souls, but aren't Daedra themselves sentient (if chaotic) creatures? Souls have always been the sanctuary, the last haven in most fiction portraying them and they are considered immortal. So by extinguishing a soul, haven't they lost all hope of "resting in peace"?

Also do you suppose it's really a "soul" you're trapping per say? How does trapping them work? Just curious about your thoughts, I've been pondering this for some time. Thanks!

At first I thought :facepalm: not another one of these...

But you raise some good questions about the lore side of things. I'm intrigued. But people don't care about sentient beings, just "good" people. I doubt anyone would really care if you captured the soul of a bandit, dremora or some other "evil" beings. Maybe they'd rawr at you for princible, but no one would care.

My guess, though I don't think there's anything about it in lore, is that you enchant with the power of the soul, not with the actual soul itself. Maybe it's unknown in Tamriel? Maybe they have a different definition of the soul? But I doubt that there wouldn't be at least one group actively against enchanting if the afterlife was threatened.

Don't confuse game mechanics with lore. As far as the lore is concerned by capturing a soul you capture the identity of something. Think Redgaurd, Feyfolken, and probebly a few more.

Oblivion is the first game that completely treats the soul gems as batteries. In Morrowind you could capture unique souls and in Daggerfall what ever was trapped would come out occasionally when your weapon broke.

No idea about gems, but here is my theory on trapping,

Go with proweler.

:o :lightbulb: Awesome mod idea for Morrowind! *runs off to mod forums*

Soul gems contain the essence or soul of a creature. In Morrowind (the game), things got problematic with people's souls. I believe Arkay's blessing or Arkay's Law addresses that concern. In Oblivion, black soul gems circumvented those restrictions.

Aside from black soul gems, it does not seem that too many ethical concerns have been raised regarding trapping of souls in the Elder Scrolls universe, on this matter, I can only assume one of two things is true. Either there ARE people who question the ethics of such a thing but they're simply not represented in the games, or no one cares since none of those entities whose souls are trapped are people. Perhaps no one objects to the practice for the same reason why you probably wouldn't feel bad about swatting a fly.

It also must be pointed out that, in Morrowind, enchanted items would recharge on their own, suggesting that the soul would permanently exist in them and continue producing power for the enchanted item. If you think about it, this may be an even more unpleasant fate.

That's true, especially with the Daedric weapons, which users can occasionally hear or experience cries and torment from. But well, it still does bother me considering it does seem that not all Daedra are evil in the mortal sense, they are simply chaotic and a lot are very much sentient.



Do forgive me, but I do not really understand this part. Does this mean that individual souls are not captured? As in, if Fargoth the Bosmer was captured, it would be a Bosmer's generic identity that is captured, but not Fargoth's individual soul? Thanks again!

no, you'd capture Fargoth the Bosmer. identity is [arguably...] unique to an individual.

I know what, but I just don't like it how OB treated souls as batteries. DF's and Reguard's handing of soul gems were superior, followed by MW (but only slightly, for it only retains name, just is pretty much a step above OB's batteries)

Since we're talking about two different types of soul trapping mechanics I used identity (of that person or creature) to describe the essence of a person as something unique and indivisible. This so I could differentiate it from the way the previous poster used describe is as a power, being dividable and generic.

So, could there be two types of "soul trap" effects? One has the actual soul (the thing that gets sent to the Dreamsleeve or the Waters of Oblivion), and the other is just the binding energy released when the soul separates from the body (anology: bond energy between atoms/molecules in chemistry).

On a related note, the Ingenium/Umbriel certainly took souls, lots and lots of souls. I guess it matters when it's people.

I am pretty sure you are actually taking a living beings actual soul. I think in daggerfall some people actually had an ethical concern about it, and in an OB book, an Orc necromancer argued against Traven about how trapping the souls of things would be considered necromancy.

Also in Daggerfall, if a weapon you enchanted with a soul gem breaks, a really pissed soul will come out and try to kill you. So I also guess souls are transferred into a item when enchanted.

I don't think so since the latter only exists as a game mechanic.

Plus, it's soooo booooring!

Apparently certain people in Tamriel, or at least Hammerfall, find it unethical to trap souls according to character dialogue. Trayvond the Redguard seems to believe that some Redguards view wizards as people who "steal souls" among other unsavory things. This would strongly imply that a Soul Trap is just that.

In Redguard, However, a certain sload WAS stealing the souls of all those who died on that island With his 'soul net'

I'm curious about one thing - going with Daggerfall's mechanic, if I trap a creatures soul and use it to enchant an item it is imprisoned for as long as the item exists. But if the item is a scroll? Using a scroll is a bit different then breaking a weapon or a piece of armor after all... So, would the soul be freed, destroyed or something else altogether?

For what it's worth, I think his text was a bit simple. Regaurd has a few hints that their magic is is slightly different or focuses on different things then eastern magic at least. Prince A-Tor for example had his soul "trapped" in a gem to preserve it while looking for a cure for his body.

I offer a some what scientific view on it.

It is known (or atleats theorized) that Information can be stored on a Crystal, Perhaps a soul is just Information about what/who you are being stored in the Soul gem. How ever powerful a being you where dictates the power of the echantment.

A bit off topic:

I think it makes sense that if your weapon breaks the soul should have a chance to escape (Kinda like Daggerfall) It would be kind of cool if TESV had a thing where if your weapon breaks there is a chance of the soul escaping, yiou would have to reforge the weapon and trap a new sould for it. But then again it might not make sense as the item is supposed to be enchanted whether it is broke or not, if there are 2 parts of this weapon would both parts still be enchanted? would the soul move to one part? or would the soul split? Can you even split a soul?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Souls,_Black_and_White has some interesting info. However, I believe the book's classification of souls as Black and White may be due to ignorance of the process of creation of Black Soul Gems and that they circumvent Arkay's Law or whatever it's called. Still an interesting read and the most straightforward in-game piece of lore alluding to the phenomenon of Zero-Sum.