its right there in the redguard storyline. gems dont matter because souls can be trapped/infused into different objects as well, like argonian eggs and swords.

prove it re the swords please

argonains may use eggs -other races do not apear to ...

soul gems also appear to be very durable ...

They may not matter or they may. Until other options become available they appear to be the way to do the job.

prove it? read the redguard storyline for gods sake, its right there. the soul of prince A'tor gets transfered into his sword due to an accident while trying to revive him. it doesnt matter that other races dont use eggs, argonians do, the point is that they can be used.

I hate to jump into this oh-so-gratifying and enjoyable discussion and potentially derail the momentum for a second, but 1999, I think the gist of what LN and proweler are getting at is either the gems aren't necessarily special and can be mundane crystals like in our world, or they ARE indeed magickal and grow in high magicka-concentrated areas but still aren't truly necessary to trap souls. Maybe even both.

edit: The Redguard storyline material and other posts make me speculate that damn near ANYTHING can be used to trap a soul, from a rock to a cow turd (note that I am mostly joking with these assessments; I'll ask you kindly not to take them seriously). But admittedly, I haven't done a great deal of research into the subject outside of this thread.

That said, I feel this has been reiterated numerous, NUMEROUS times in different ways, so I'm not even really saying anything. It's up to you to actually read it and soak it in.

During the http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part11.shtml, Prince Ator's soul, which had been inside of a soul gem, becomes infused in his sword after a ritual doesn't go quite as expected.

Edit: beaten to the punch.

Ty Flannigus

But sadly it seems that this is a unique event that is not repeatable - and so it does not matter ... and the basis of this thread does = where do soul gems come from?

It's been answered. A lot. If you can't find, or accept, an answer, then I don't see anything else to do that accept that one doesn't exist.

We all read the earlier posts where they first came from - but I think the creator of this thread wanted to know where they come from now 946000 - so if you know then please tell.

Although they may summon and study Daedra in controlled conditions I don't see the Mages Guild bartering with a Daedric Prince for Soul Gems.

Well hey now princey - got any sparklers today. Hows about we trade a few young boys /girls/whatever according to that particular Prince's perversion or other desires for a few crateloads?

And filtering down from daedric Cults does not ring true either.

It actually looks like a 'hole in the economy' and Lore - and maybe that is just what it is.

i dont see the creator of this thread asking, so i would assume that he made the connection you have missed. ive outlined it below.

-we know Bal created the first soulgems.
-we can safely assume that mortals learned to make soulgems on their own, either from him or developing this knowlege through independent research (argonians).
-we know that many items/materials can function as soulgems.
-we can therefore deduce that mortals now make soulgems out of what ever they please. gems just seem to be natural conduits hence their use is more common then eggs or anything else.

The notion of it being akin to an egg is interesting as soul gems take many forms other than the dull blue stones seen in Oblivion. If soul gems are effectively condensed magic, they could be seen as mimicking the Aetherius, and as souls naturally seek to return to Aetherius, a construct which mimicked the Aetherius could be used to hold and contain them. All a soul gem would be, in this case, is an object which mimics Aetherius, be it a homegrown crystal or the Amulet of Kings, or possibly even an Argonian egg (perhaps that the egg contains an unborn factors into it?). Once bound to the Aetherial-echo, the soul's arcane energies can be tapped and manipulated as one willed. So, "morpholith" would be referring to "(magic/Aetherius in) stone form."

Perhaps the other crystals seen in the game represent other constructs made possible by mimicking Aetherius (as Welkynd stones don't seem capable of holding souls, but rather just energy, or the "power of Mundus" as Martin says.) By mimicking the Aetherial realm, they allow a skilled user to act and manipulate the world in ways they would not normally be capable of.

As for how Molag Bal falls into this, it's states that one of his pleasures is the harvesting of souls. He attempts to thwart or otherwise interfere in the natural cycle of death, be it through vampirism or just keeping souls from being able to make another lap around the arena. From this desire, he opts to show mortals how to harvest and condense the Aetherial elements into stones which can then be used to spread strife throughout Tamriel as well as messing with death. Of course, Arkay had to get in the way?

Also, I suspect that, though mundane objects may be able to contain souls, they don't act in quite the same way. Using Redguard's ending, if any object could contain a soul in just the same way as a soul gem, then why wouldn't they just try again when his soul went to the sword rather than the body? And why, for that matter, would people use gems rather than, say, socks and bobbins? Any objects may "contain" a soul, or at least its energies, but it is not in a usable format. It's simply there, as with a body. When in a soul gem, which mimics Aetherius, things are different, for the soul is preserved in a state of existence, still pure, awaiting its reuse by the dreamsleeve, and thusly in a form prime for use elsewhere, such as infusion into another item.

No wonder that Daggerfall describes http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Artifacts thusly:

:cold: Then would using soul gems be... bad? Like, is it bad to prevent souls from going to Aetherius/the Dreamsleeve? No wonder the population of Cyrodiil and Tamriel is so small; there aren't enough souls to go into new bodies to maintain the population. Curse those adventurers and their enchanted items!

Don't forget tomatoes.

Presumably these hold the soul that runs the bonelord.

The OP's been answered in full now.

Indeed, and the thread is closed to make it clear.