Is it ever explained in Morrowind? You find all of these remnants, yet I've never really found an explaination. :idk:

This is better answered in the lore forum, and there may be a topic there already - if I can find it.

Edit: Yeah, http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=674012&hl=dwemer, some time back.

The dwemer became the skin of numidium, but were stopped by the tribunal, by becoming the Skin of Numidium they sacrificed there entire race. The end.

Taken from the UESP:

The Dwemer inexplicably disappeared during the Battle of Red Mountain, during the War of the First Council. Tonal Architect Lord Kagrenac constructed Kagrenac's Tools to harness the powers of the Heart of Lorkhan to heighten his race to Anumidum. The disappearance of a whole race in a flash sparked many theories, but is thought to have followed their attempt to use the tools on the heart, to make a "superweapon," or to make their race immortal, and simply coincided with the war. It appears that the Dwemer were inconclusive as to their opinion of using of the Heart. Some, including Bthuand Mzahnch, opposed its use, warning that massive side effects were likely, while the majority of the Tonal Architects, including their chief, Kagrenac, remained unconvinced.

Even Yagrum Bagarn, the last living Dwemer (whose existence is owed to the fact that he was in the "Outer Realms" when the event occurred), has no explanation as to what actually transpired. It appears all members of the Dwemer race were simply removed from the world, possibly to an unknown location in the outer realms. In the Dwemer ruins of Bamz-Amschend in Mournhold, Morrowind, there are numerous piles of ashes present next to weapons, on chairs, and in beds. This suggests their physical presences were suddenly reduced to ash in some way.

Uesp isn't a source. It is written by people like me and many who know a lot less than me, usually utilizing a fraction of available knowledge and forcibly deprived of all candor or helpful perspective, as per the style guide.

Xal, a Human Maruhkati, Port Telvanis:
Ah. I will tell you the truth, because you will believe none of it. The Brass God is Anumidum, the Prime Gestalt. He is also called the divine skin. He was meant to be used many times by our kind to transcend the Gray Maybe.

The first to see him was the Shop Foremer, Kagrenac of Vvardenfell, the wisest of the tonal architects [Mechanists - MN] Do not think as others do that Kagrenac created the Anumidum for petty motivations, such as a refutation of the gods. Kagrenac was devoted to his people, and the Dwarves, despite what you may have read, were a pious lot-he would not have sacrificed so many of their golden souls to create Anumidum's metal body if it were all in the name of grand theater. Kagrenac had even built the tools needed to construct a Mantella, the Crux of Transcendence. But, by then, and for a long time coming, the Doom of the Dwarves marched upon the Mountain and they were removed from this world.
- http://www.imperial-library.info/interviews/skelm.shtml (Xal was being played by Michael Kirkbride)

Also:
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=482103&view=findpost&p=6918624

Ok, here comes a stretch. Maybe I should?ve started a new thread for this, but what the hell:

What if Yagrum Bagram (or whatever his name is) is lying to us?
What if he wasn?t in the "Outer realms"?
What if he is tied somehow to the dissapearance of his people?

Didn?t Vivec or someone else said not to worry about why are the Dwemer gone, bur why is only one left behind?

I don?t have any evidence on the subject, but when I was playing Morrowind, it always bothered me the coincidence that he wasn?t in this plane when the Dwemer vanished, I have always thought he might be hiding something. Or maybe he doesn?t remember... I don?t know, any thoughts???

I believe that's the "Yagrum Didn't Press the Button" Theory.

Sorry, care to elaborate?

Numidium was supposed to do more than sit there, so some people have wondered in Yagrum was supposed to activate it but caught Corprus instead.


...although he must have taken his sweet old time getting back from the outer realms if there was Corprus in existence.


Other people have pointed to his opinion of Kagrenac's theories and said that he screwed up the whole venture by not being there for the collectivization party.

That actually sounds really good, except for the corprus part... maybe it was something else... or he just got cold feet and ran for the outer realms


Ohhhhh yes..... I forgot about that!

However, I still find it hard to believe that they all just became Numidium?s skin, maybe their bodies, but their souls must have gone somewhere else... for better or for worst.

Maybe by Yagrum screwing it up, they ended up in the dreamsleeve or worst.

You got it mixed up- their bodies turned to ash, their souls became the Numidium.

Every wondered where the name Dwarves came from? The gods were giants that gradually shrunk into mortals. That's why Altmer are taller than other races; they are obsessed with staying that way. The Dwemer saw that they were part of a universe that was once whole and sacred and split into many pieces that are lesser and profane. Classic elven worldview. So what does lots of little Dwemer turning into one giant statue signify?

Quite literally a deus ex machina...or would it technically be a deus in machina?

Hey, at least that would mean that the Dwarves technically didn't fail!

Machina in deum. Machine into god.

They failed because the statue remained a statue. It was supposed to a gigantic symbol that came true. Cosmic theater that rearranged the universe so that the Dwemer were the highest form of existence and everything else was a subdivision of them.

Oh Now I get it.

And the Heart of Lhorkan was supposed to act as the Brass God?s Mantella.
Is that why it could be later used as a weapon instead of becoming a god? Because the soulgem (The Underking?s heart) used to power it wasn?t enough to give Numidium some sort of self-awareness (i don?t know how else to put it) and it only kept up the basic functions, like movement and shattering the Aldmeri Dominion?

So that only leaves us with all the theories about why did Yagrum was left behind, thanks Paws.

Why it didn't work is a mystery that will probably never be answered. Talos' Mantella was a weak proxy of the Heart, but Dagoth Ur would have had the real deal for Akulkhan(which apparently was just a weapon as well).

Turning your entire race into one god might be a bit complicated. Perhaps Kagrenac simply hadn't quite worked out the kinks. Maybe he thought that the Numidium would turn the tide of battle... but it wasn't quite ready yet.

Basically, if that's the case, he took a gamble and it didn't payoff.

Unless they were just one soul short thanks to Yagrum.

Who said they were trying to become gods? Transcedence doesn't have to mean divinity, though I suppose it depends on how you define "divine."

Anumidium (or Walk-Brass) is/was a Tower, one which http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta_nu-mantia.shtml.

Did the Dwemer fail to become gods (or a god), or succeed in their abnegaurbic enterprise?

They didn't disprove a thing, though. Moth Priests do better.






The Dwemer didn't want to become a god, they wanted to subvert the entire schema of gods, mortals, and primal forces.
Since they loathed the idea that they were beings of a lower level of existence (subgradient), and profane rather than divine, they created one large being out of many smaller ones. This a symbolic action that their magic had the power to make true. Reversing the universe's process of creation, basically. How could the Dwemer be part of a low subgradient if they replaced the highest level with themselves, in the form an indivisible identity of shining brass.

What it would have done to Mundus had it succeeded, I don't know. There wouldn't be piles of ash sitting around, though.

The Dwemer refuted (dis-created) themselves. Was that the price of failure, or the prize of success?

They partially altered the mundane physical state of their bodies and made their souls the pawn of just about everyone who sought to tamper with Mundus' rules over the next thousand years.

They became a Tower, with their souls fortifying Mundus and enabling the creation of the Empire that restored Shezarr to its center. The best they got was disappearing in a temporal anomaly, being digested by Mannimarco or spewed out by Zurin Arctus. What success?

Anumidium is a Tower, anyone who has the requisite tools to activate a Tower can use Anumidium. It doesn't need Dwemer-soul skin-grafts to power it.

The Dwemer are gone, or at least http://www.imperial-library.info/tsomw/mw_18.shtml, and I don't think he's lying about that part.

The question is, is the disappearance of the Dwemer (even from the "divine world outside of mortal time") an accidental consequence of something they planned to do but failed, or is it precisely what Kagrenac intended?

Some of the Dwemer may have preferred out there to down here, but I don't think Kagrenac was one to think small. He'd rather be on top of Aurbis and on the winning end of its damned equation or nowhere at all. Unless he chose dissolution for his entire race at the prospect of being defeated by the barbarians, I don't see success in what they left behind.

There is an abnegaurbic element to nearly all merish philosophies. The Dwemer took that philosophy to an extreme. Consequently, other races find them bewildering, frightful, heterodox, et cetera.

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/battle_redmountain.shtml was precipitated by Kagrenac's building the Anumidium, discovering the Heart of Lorkhan, and knowing how to use it. Vivec thinks (unless he's lying), that the Dwemer were trying to make a new god, and failed (because of the heroic Dunmer who stopped them). Maybe Vivec is correct, or maybe Vivec projected his own use of the Heart onto the Dwemer in an effort to make sense of the activities of a race he never really understood.

Lets not argue semantics. I just called Numidium a god for simplicity. I just consider god to be a broad term.

Their souls went into the numidium, it didn't turn on.