I've decided that the Stone is not Snow-Throat at all. It is...

...

The White Phial! Created from the first snows that fell upon Snow-Throat it was linked in myth form with the Tower. It of course has the obvious power to create from nothing and Stones are foci of creatia. Snow-Throat is cracked, and so too is the Phial. It is repaired of course, but it only has a small amount of its former power, only unlockable by an alchemist beyond all modern mastery. Curalmil, the Phial's creator is Zenithar, who used first snows, the gift of Kynareth to create the Phial.

So you're saying the stone is an insignificant phial in a near irrelevant side quest? Now that would be a twist

Back in Morrowind, attaining Umbra was undocumented, unnecessary, and completely irrelevant to the main story. Look what ended up happening with that.

True, but that was something that was added later on, the stones and towers have already been created... It still feels different

I'm thinkin the Dragonborn becomes the stone and Bethesda carries the character into the next game with the Thalmor trying too kill him/her.

The last time I discussed this topic someone came up with the Eye of Magnus being Snow-Throats stone. Now I did not play the College at all, but as far as I read, there is not much information about it's creation available. Could this be the stone? Lorkhans heart was thrown onto Mundus and created a mountain. So one could think that something quite similar created High-Hrothgar.

Also, what a lot of people seem to forget that High-Hrothgar isn't there completely; one part of it is in another realm; assuming Sovngarde.

Source? Nu-Mantia Intercept only says, *'Snow-Throat: the mountain whose apex is only half there.' Nothing about High Hrothgar the monastery, as far as I know.

*paraphrasing, because I'm in a hurry.

All of this has been staring at me in the face. I've been looking at the time symbolism and the philosophical time periods of who controls Snow-throat and the like... Akatosh is the Stone. Well, Time is the Stone, Akatosh IS Time, therefore Akatosh is the Stone.

Why else is all that time symbolism there, why else are Dragons so attached to it, why else would Alduin's two of three defeats occur there, why else would it be the center of the Thu'um, the expression of the Dragon Language? Snow-throat is described as "the mountain whose apex is only half there." The other half is the Dragon-God curled around the mountain.

I'm pretty sure MK described Snow-Throat as dormant. Why? Because Akatosh had to leave to fight Mehrunes Dagon and hold the barriers shut. Okay I may be reaching with that last one, but the rest...

I'd thought that the other half of Snow-Throat was Sovngarde. I came up with that theory, though, before completing the main quest in TES V.

I'd had some idea that you reach Sovngarde by meeting Paarthurnax at the summit, and Paarthurnax carries you from there to Sovngarde. But that's not the case, of course.

Is it possible for a stone to be a mythical thing, instead of an actual physical item?

I just had a thought that the stone might be the Thu'um. Snow throat is linked to Kyne. Kyne also gave the voice to humans, and presumably is necessary for talking in general. And what's the purest most powerful form of talking if not the Thu'um?.

This would mean that throughout history the stone has constantly changed, at first it was Alduin who as an aspect of Akatosh is the most likely candidate. Then when Alduin went bye-bye it was replaced by the Dragonborns, or perhaps even just those that receive the greybeards blessing. Meaning that Talos has at one time been the stone of snow-throat and that it's now the latest and last ever Dovahkiin. So that would mean that when your char dies, so does the tower.

Quite frankly, it is possible that we simple haven't encountered the Stone yet. The Red Stone was in the middle of the bloody volcano. Why do we assume we as Dovahkiin or as mortals in general, traipsing about the mountain-side, even come into contact with the thing?

Still, the "kingless, bleeding" reference seems the best we've got, and seems to tie into the Nords somehow.

I'm thinking the stone has something to do with Kyne's breath. Kyne breathed down upon the summit of the mountain and lore says that's where men were created (truthiness unknown). Children of the Sky says that "wind is fundamental to Skyrim".

The wind is probably helping hold the world down so it doesn't fall up into the sky.

So I think the air, wind, weather, etc, might have some sort of mythical importance to the mountain. Otherwise, it's just a plain ol' mountain right?

I find it unlikely the stone will turn out (if we ever find out) to be something that is not a physical object. I liked the idea of it being the Jagged Crown but there's barely any evidence for that.

It's Jurgen Windcaller's horn.

For all we know, there was this magic pebble at the base of the mountain which some moron accidentally stepped on and broke.

Seriously though, perhaps the Stone is inside the Throat of the World? The apex is only half there, so perhaps it means that the real summit requires going to its hollow insides from the peak and climbing upside down to reach the inverted base, where the Stone is.

Or perhaps when Alduin emerged from the time wound, he destroyed it to destabilize the world so he could eat it more easily.

Now say the exact same thing but in a way 110% more complicated and technical.

It's the Throat of the World. Think about how important Kynareth, god of wind and air, the wife of Shor, is to the Nords, and how when Arngeir speaks of the gods, it is Kynareth whom he names. The winds and storms of Snow Throat are the breath of the world. Now think about the concept of http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atman for a moment -- how across languages, there is a close relationship between "breath" and "soul". And in High Hrothgar, we have the Greybeards, masters of Thu'um, which is described as the ability to project one's vital essence through breath in a mighty shout.

Bear in mind how powerful mastery of Thu'um can be, as the Amulet of Kings or the blood of the Heart of Lorkhan were. In particular, notice how it grants power over elements, weather, and souls.

Mastery of Thu'um is the Stone of Snow-Throat. It is a sub-gradient of the soul of the world.

I may be remembering wrongly, but is it ever stated where the Convention happened? Could it have happened on Snow-Throat?

I suppose there'd be ebony in them hills then though...

Was it not supposed to start at/around Ada-Mantia..? Or have I missed something... Damned if I can remember where I read that though.

Didn't it happen at Direnni Tower (Adamantine Tower / Ada-Mantia)?

I re-read http://www.imperial-library.info/content/shor-son-shor-full again to figure out whether or not the cave that Shor enters below High Hrothgar might have some sort of stone. . . but I still can't make heads or tails of that particular text

http://imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept-letter-4

Take a look at the battle between Pelinal and Umaril, in the spirit plane "above" White-Gold. We were the Amulet itself once, why not again? The persons and their rivalry are adequately similar.

I assume "Snow Throat a mountain whose apex is only half here" could refer to its conjuncture of present and past. With that sundering healed, the mountain can stop bleeding. Whatever that means.

Wait, if it stops bleeding, there can be no other of Hrothgaar's blood.

M[n]emospore From the Desk of Iailiiniel of Dawnspire, 7.513 degree Thalmori Hieroscheme of Proscriptive Aurbigrammar, Alinor Epicentral Facility

"How many times must we reiterate this exact explication Tauvthantris? It tarnishes the varliance of my enantiomirrors, which I might remind you, I need .9999 percent clear if I am to perform my sacred duty of cleansing the xarxesphere of free-nymical heresies.

It's simple, as even the LEAST orthoaldic of my younglings could well tell you. Mundrial convention is kept discrete by the tower-constructs, kundalini machines with the grave telos of reaching their digital apparati welkynwise to pluck Aetherpura from within the inky maw of Misrule. The constructs then feed the harvested potentia into SHunyatic Zygo-Retro-Reactors, Doom-magnitude manolithics or "Stones" which perverts nth-possibility into profane actualities* before ejaculative dissemination across the facial membrane of Terra Anullius.

The particular form that the constructs, the stones, and the actualities take vary according to tastes and caprices of their local subgradients. In Falmora, it is realized quite concretely, as the "Breath" which blows down from the Windcaller Horn atop hoary Snow-Throat to invigorate the land and its barbarous inhabitants, whereas to the south in Al-Eshium, the parvenu-literates there see it abstractly, as "Imperium Invincible and Fair" that radiates out of the many bureaus of White-Gold** in the form of ruby-stamped tax forms and subpoenas.

This is my final illumination on the subject. Inquire again, and I will have you brought up on charges of Heteroaldic intelligence.

I of D, 4E 179"

* The most sick and deranged of which is refered to in captured samizdat as the "Nu-Man" .

** Technically speaking, the tower of Al-Eshinium is now Dracobal, but that proves less ripe for parody.

That works for me.

Creatia as money-shot. Nice.