What is it like inside a soul gem, whether black or regular? Are you just asleep, or are you in another world waiting to be released? Is the soul actually still alive?

It's like being in a Pok? Ball.

Hell, they don't really say. Just make up something you like and go with that.

I thought that something said that it was endless torment. I'll check TIL.

There is a conflict with it. In Battlespire they said it would be torment, but the guy who said it was guessing. In Redguard it would have meant that A'Tor made a direct choice to be in torment instead of going into his own body, which I doubt he would have done.

My guess, sensory deprivation... afterall, everything you used to actually sense things was left in your body...

Makes sense, and they've been clear in Battlespire that being in the soul gem holds your sanity together while being used as an enchantment tears your soul apart. So, it's the usage that rips up souls.

Dang, you beat me to it.

I heard somewhere that you were a fan of mudkips.

as for inside the soulgem, My vote is also for nonbeing and sensory depravation.

It's like dying, but waking up again afterwards to find out you're a sword that shoots fireballs.

My guess is that being inside the soul gem is torment, but once the gem is used, the soul is put to rest.

But man...I feel so sorry for poor Alessia, trapped in that little Amulet of Kings...

You have no idea how hard it is not to spam this thread right now.

...no idea.



This seems to be the best guess -- though, when you think about it, it is kind of the worst possible torture. I'm reminded of solipsism: upon the deprivation of all other senses, the only thing a person could do is think. Pure, unadvlterated thought...and yet no interaction with anything other than that pure thought. It would probably drive someone insane, which is why I think that Battlespire guy referred to it as "torture." Like spending the first fifteen years of your life in a box.

Amusingly, if we keep up the Poke Ball anology, then it certainly explains why Pokemon are so f'ed up.

Like a teabag in water. You're soon all used up, and need recharging with more teabags.

There is a short 1 or 2 liner in Wolf Queen, describing the wolf queen's amulet which features a grand soulgem with a werewolf soul inside it.

It says that if you 'look inside just right' you can see the form of a giant wolf pacing angrily back and forth.


I'd say it's a bit like solitary confinement, with the enchantment svcking you dry every time it fires, with no door on the cell.

Although you all should also remember that Traven willingly put himself into a soul gem. However, it still may be torment but in his case, honor and the destruction of Mannimarco seems to override the fear of endless torment.


~TK.R

I laughed at that one.

Most people here tend to ignore that fact and consider Traven to be an abomination and traitor to the guild sadly.

I personally think you're completely dead by the time you're in a soul-gem And that's factual. Soul can't sense so yes, sensory deprivation, but more than that. It's fate worse than death, by a mile. Your soul is being torn apart and re-made into raw energies. You are being erased from existence. Now you understand the sacrifice.

Arkay didn't just set his rules for fun, there's a lot of reason why soul-trapping a conscious intelligent being should be forbidden. I would say soul trap of anything is a crime. Imagine if souls were a proven fact in our world, and that they would encompass the very "essence" of being. And imagine someone would be harvesting them for some "cola-loca" drink or whatever. Even animal souls would probably be out of the question.

Of course, once the energy is used, the essence possibly returns, as noted for Daedra. But from what I know there's no knowledge of whether the souls of Daedra get re-made after being soul-trapped and then "used". (I'm sure they can be kept this way, which would be a good war strategy )

Just like, in our world, when you can, at dark nights of course, still hear the howling and screaming of people who died in whatever ways, or perhaps even see their ghosts?
It could be the writer making the story better.


Or maybe, he just didn't know any better.


Well, if he hadn't had so strict policies, Mannimarco wouldn't have achieved the same influence over necromancers.

So.... I herd u liek mudkipz?

(Ok, I saw that it had already been done, but I wanted to do it properly... )

And based on what I've read in this thread I suppose that using soul gems for enchantments most likely messes up your karma big time, as it basically vanquishes a soul from existence...

Lets just assume it's like a computer. And it steals souls

As for soul gems, they are just fancy gems that are titled 'soul gems' because some idiot wanted to experiment with his new spell. And with that the evil wizard casted his spell of soul trapping upon the mudcrab. thou mudcab's soul wasn't directed towards the evil wizards priceless gems, but a worthless crystal.

-The beginning of the evil

How can a soul feel the pain? To feel pain, emotional or physical, you need a body. Or does it work another way in Godhead's dream?

doesn't sound good to me in any way, it doesn't suprise me people ik trayvond the red guard frown upon doing this

I know and agree, but he still willingly put himself into a soul gem.


Actually you remind me of a certain point. Most people don't like soul trading/capturing, but it's ignored in MW and OB.

To quote Daggerfall, the description of Azura's Star:

Also in Daggerfall, high level souls would give you great enchanments, but also some side effects too. Almost like Sigil Stones in Oblivion. I honestly preferred the Daggerfall way for roleplaying's sake.

~TK.R

Well without a BRAIN you cannot feel anything (but you don't need a body to feel, just the mind). The problem here is that in RL I don't believe in "soul". There's the brain with it's electromagnetic/chemical processes and that's it. "you" are just a program running, like on a computer. The computer (hardware) is the body, the program is the "soul", but it doesn't go anywhere if you turn off power

But for game's sake I take souls as the essence of every memory, experience and so on of given individual. If you rip that into a heat spell, the individual is gone forever.

anologically to PC again..

Running programs are living people. If you stop them (very nice, in linux it's called "kill") they die, but their "soul" remains (program code + program instance data). If you put it on a USB key you got yourself a soul-gem. And if you could "change" the data to other data to achieve some nice effect (and in the process destroy the data, effective erasure) you'd use up the soul-gem.

Hope that helps

This brings up another question; can a trapped soul be given a new body by being infused in a Dwemer Animunculi?

Unless, I'm mistaken (which should surprise no one) the Numidium was a sort of giant soul gem composed of a huge Animunculi-like robot and a "golden skin" made up of the souls of the entire Dwemer race. So it doesn't sound like it'd be too much of a reach to do the same with a single soul.

** And seconds after writing this I am indeed proven wrong in the "Dwemer" thread... Well, sort of.



Also, I would think that the "torment" would be of a purely psychological nature. It wouldn't take long under conditions combining complete sensory deprivation and having one's soul torn apart to lose one's marbles.