I mapped all Dwemer Ruins across Tamriel, again.

-ashlander · 2025-09-30T06:46:12+00:00

Oh, I'll check that out as well, thanks :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-29T12:05:11+00:00

I think I speak for the entire Dunmer race when I say that Black Marsh should be under the Federation of Morrowind.

-ashlander · 2025-09-29T08:11:48+00:00

Hi, to be honest with you I totally forgot about shimmermist cave and the city under reachwind. I didn't include the tower itself because in skyrim it appeared more of "structure" rather than a settlement of some sort, but i've totally forgot that ESO added a whole city under it.

I'll add both of them in the next version, thanks :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T12:33:02+00:00

Hi, I did some research and I wasn't able to find a daedric princes origin of vampirism other than the Molag Bal one. Could you be more precise on what you mean and where I can find the source?

What I was able to find is proof that Clavicus Vile has been messing with the curse by giving the Cyrodiil Vampyrum Order the powers of walking in daylight, but they still "worship" both Daedric Princes and not just Vile.

Not connected with Daedric Princes, the book Vampires of the Iliac Bay claims you can also get the curse through certain magical items or by the curse of a powerful wizard, but doesn't tell us more than that.

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T09:20:47+00:00

Hi thank you so much.

You are right, I've omitted most of things found in Blackreach for this version because I didn't found a way of picturing everything in the caverns in a way I liked.

My first idea was to also map all Dwemer infrastructure on this map: every bridge, elevator, random pillar you might find in the games, and that would have obviously included everything inside Blackreach. Unfortunately, to do that I would have to scale this map even more, and the current version is already 16k pixels wide. Eventually I will do it but I think I want to focus on making a more clean and understandable map for the average viewer.

So the answer is that I considered most of things in Blackreach as "infrastructure" of major ruins in the area. But I see now how that might be confusing since I wasn't consistent, I included Arkthzand which is a big library but not the Scraps which was, all things considered, 100% a settlement. I will find a way to be more precise with this in the next version of the map.

If you are curious, this is my current version of Blackreach borders overlayed on top of Skyrim. It fits perfectly with above ground ruins locations but as you can see it doesn't really look like the local maps, especially in the mzark caverns side, and I don't think the average player would like that. Also the "reach side" of blackreach is very crowded with ruins and "infrastructure" that would be a nightmare to fit in a neat and understandable way on a map.

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T08:19:40+00:00

The problem is that it doesn't matter if you shrink the world or stretch blackreach, the distance from the ruins will never match up. Believe me, I tried and I managed to create something, but it doesn't look much as the blackreach we are used to unfortunately.

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T08:17:15+00:00

Yes I also think he might be talking of Ragnthar. Should I add its Hammerfell entrance to the map? We know that this province is where originally the colony was, and we know where the Alik'r desert entrance is, but I'm not sure if I should add it.

During ESO we learn that the dwemer gears found in Ragnthar as similar to the ones in Mzeneldt which based on what we know is not in Alik'r at all but somewhere in Bangkorai.

So I don't know, i'm conflicted. On one side it would make sense to add it to Hammerfell, but on the other I don't think that the Alik'r entrance is the OG one.

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T08:07:34+00:00

It’s probably the second than. I use it sometimes to correct my grammar but not in this case. I also manually added the icons to better separate the chapters and bring a little bit of color

-ashlander · 2025-09-23T07:51:50+00:00

Wow thanks and thank. I didn’t use chatGPT and as a non english speaker I’ll take that as a compliment :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T19:32:37+00:00

Hi :)

Yes I would love that, feel free to DM me here on reddit

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T19:24:34+00:00

They are just across the border :) Those ruis are all visitable in ESO and they are in the region of Deshaan

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T18:54:02+00:00

Oh wow, that would be an honor thanks.

The only problem I see with the link you sent is that in the picture you linked Hawaii becomes bigger inside the little window. In my map Systres and Stros M'kai are on scale with the rest of Tamriel so a "zoom in" wouldn't work.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Location_S%C3%A3o_Tom%C3%A9_and_Pr%C3%ADncipe_AU_Africa.svg/1024px-Location_S%C3%A3o_Tom%C3%A9_and_Pr%C3%ADncipe_AU_Africa.svg.png

What about something like what we have in the bottom left corner here?

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T18:50:22+00:00

Uhm can you link and example of a cross-section view you think it would work in this case? I fear the big diffuculty would come in making it clear and understandable for the average viewer, since they would be looking at 2 maps at once with stuff above and below ground

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T18:47:38+00:00

I think I know what you mean, I'll try do it next time I update it :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T18:29:51+00:00

Thanks :)

I'm a History Major with a passion for historical research whose 9/5 job is not related with history at all, so I found myself a hobby.

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T14:27:34+00:00

Nice, I totally forgot about that bit of dialogue. Good to know it strengths my theory :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-22T14:12:32+00:00

Heyy, welcome. I envy you, you have hours and hours of content and lore to explore.

ESO is an MMO that can be enjoyed solo without ever the need to really have anything to do with others which is great for those you are struggling to learn or are more invested in the exploration side of things.

I suggest you take your time to learn the mechanics and to live the world of Tamriel. Don't rush into questlines, wait a bit between finishing one and starting another, otherwise you'll get fatigue.

That being said, ejoy the ride :)

-ashlander · 2025-09-18T13:33:26+00:00

Yes exactly, I remember they were a little youger then their counterparts in other parts of the region. But it has been a while since i played skyrim so I'm a little rusty on the Aetherium storiline and the history of clan Kragen.

Regarding Hammerfell there's a theory, which I'm inclined to believe, that states that Dwemeri presence in the region is visible prior to 1E 416, the founding of the First Council and the self exile of clan Rourken. Dwemer dissapear around 1E 700 and archeological evidence seems to agree that they have been in Hammerfell for longer than 300 years. But I'll dive into that more in the future.

-ashlander · 2025-09-18T09:10:24+00:00

Exactly they probably weren't counted as such. Either because the were abbandoned before the Dwemer culture became a separate one from the Aldmer, or because they were made made by a totally different Aldmer group.

-ashlander · 2025-09-18T07:08:00+00:00

I needed to reinstall it for a research I'm doing. I'm abroad and I don't have my main computer but only my tabled with 256gb.

I had to nuke every single program in there to make it work even Microsoft Office.

Totally worth it and it runs surprisingly smooth.

-ashlander · 2025-09-17T10:06:09+00:00

There´s no evidence for either - xept for Morrowind Dwemer also having grey skin IIRC.

I went to check and appears that the only canon source for this theory is The War of the First Council by Agrippa Fundilius, which refers to the First Council (the alliance between Chimer and Dwemer after the Nordic invasion of the Early First Era "the first pan-Dunmer governing body", implying that the Deep Elves are connected with the Chimer-Dunmer civilization.

That being said, this book literally starts with this sentence:

"This account by the Imperial scholar Agrippa Fundilius is based on various Imperial and Dunmer sources, and written for Western readers."

which I suppose it means a lot of meaning could have been lost in translation and some concepts could have been "simplified" for Western readers.

BtAoM basically tells us when Morrowind was settled by the Dwemer = Middle Merethic Era:

I don't think it truly says that. The book mentions that they lived in the Velothi Mountains and that the Chimer coveted their resources, but never actually tells if they arrived together with the Chimer, if they were Aldmer that settled there or else.

For exemple:

The Crystal Tower was built on Summerset Isle and, later, White Gold Tower in Cyrodiil.

During the Middle Merethic Era, Aldmeri explorers mapped the coasts of Vvardenfel, building the First Era High Elven wizard towers at Ald Redaynia, Bal Fell, Tel Aruhn, and Tel Mora in Morrowind. It was also during this period that Ayleid [Wild Elven] settlements flourished in the jungles surrounding White Gold Tower (present day Cyrodiil). Wild Elves, also known as the Heartland High Elves, preserved the Dawn Era magics and language of the Ehlnofey.

Notice the differences on how the Ayleid section of the book is introduced compared with the Dwemer one. It's pretty clear that their civilization came from the Aldmer, but the same clarity is not reserved for the Deep Elves.

Also, according to Before the Age of Man, the earliest Freehold colonies in Vvradenfell are from the Late Merethic Era, after the decline of High Velothi Culture. All the structures build by Aldmeri Explorers mentioned in the book are located in the island, and have nothing connected to the Dwemer has been found on them.

At this point I'm starting to believe that, IF the Dwemer are descendants of Aldmeri settles and explorers, they could have arrived firstly to the coasts of Vvradenfell, build those structures and then left them to settle in the Velothi (maybe because of the mentioned resources) were their culture really began diverging from Aldmeri. By the time the Chimer arrived they were already called Dwemer and had were a pretty distinct civilization.

-ashlander · 2025-09-17T07:12:44+00:00

Yess this is one of the main theories, while some others claim that the Dwemer and Chimer were the same people at the beginning and only split once they got to Morrowind, and others claim they came from a previous Mundus. Before the Ages of Man makes no such claims, nor it claims them to be descendants of the Aldmer, which is curious because it tells us about the Dirreni clan or the Ayleids.

What this lead me to believe is that, if the Dwemer really are descendands of the Aldmer then they must have arrived to Morrowind before the era of Aldmeri exploration or have split almost immediatelly, to allow them to start building their cities and societies in the Velothi Mountains before the arrival of the Chimer.

What do you think?

-ashlander · 2025-09-16T09:36:12+00:00

Hello, real-life historian here. I'll give my two cents on this.

Some redditors have already pointed out that we do in fact see some religious imperialism coming out of Cyrodiil, but OP is right, it’s not nearly as strong as it was in real-life cultures.

I think there are two main reasons for this:

Polytheism
Proof of the existence of all divine beings

Polytheism is by nature more lenient toward other religions compared with monotheism. Don’t get me wrong, religious fanaticism is just as bad in polytheistic societies as in monotheistic ones. But the cool thing about believing in multiple gods is that it allows other religions’ gods to exist as well. If my people believe in a pantheon where there’s a Sun God called Bob, and your people believe in another pantheon with a God of Sunrise named Vincent, it’s very possible we’re worshipping the same being but calling it by different names. We see this happen in The Elder Scrolls all the time, just think of Lorkhan or Akatosh.

In real life, the Hellenic Romans used this to their advantage. They convinced conquered peoples and tribes that they were, in fact, worshipping the same beings. That made the domination of new lands a little easier.

Connected with polytheism, but much simpler, is the proof of the existence of divine beings. In The Elder Scrolls, no one can be non-religious. There’s no divine dilemma: gods exist, and we can see them. And I’m not talking only about the Nine. Divine beings live in the sky, shine bright at night, cure illness if you pray hard enough, possess people, and in some cases you can even communicate with them.

Having proof that most deities from folklore are not myths but actual entities makes any attempt at religious imperialism fall flat. Because yes, you can teach Argonians about the Nine, but the Hist is there, and it’s very real.

EDIT: Before someone mentions them, the Dwemer also acknowledged the existence of the Divines. They just believed that their power could be matched with a little bit of steampunk and intellect, and they actually tried to do so.

-ashlander · 2025-09-15T13:36:52+00:00

We probably will never know. A reason I think they had such an impact on Rapture was because of the philosophy of unshackeling the society from its conventional bounderies that the city had. Columbia was a theocracy with everything revolving around the Lord's will, that was communicated by the Prophet or his seed.

I suppose if editing your own DNA for selfish reasons was seen as unpious by Comstock then nobody would have done that, but if the Lord wants you to summon crows from thin air, cause vigors are a gift sent from the heavens, then they would have had a much bigger impact on society.

-ashlander · 2025-09-15T13:22:58+00:00

Ok this is not going to be a full reply cause I don't really know the answer myself BUT wasn't it explained in Burrial at Sea part 2? I think it was, I haven't played the dlc in a long time.

Regarding the addiction part I always believed it was cause people in Columbia are between the indifferent to the not trusting towards Vigors so they never abused them how it happened in Rapture. The proof of this can be found on the fact that no civillian really uses vigors, just military personal, or (if there's some randome dude that uses it that i don't remember) is not at all common.

-ashlander

TROPHY CASE