Tamriel. "Dawn's Beauty" in the language of the Altmer,
or "Taazokaan" in the Dragon's tongue, is the continent upon which all the Elder Scrolls games take place.
Home to many diverse races, and even more conflicts, Tamriel has been host to many adventures.
You've experienced Tamriel in your own way, but want to learn more about its story.
Well, to get to the heart of the story, you have to go back to the beginning.
To this day, the Dwemer, or Deep Elves, are the most
technologically sophisticated race of mortals to ever grace Tamriel.
Their ingenious inventions and deep understanding
of the world around them make the other races of men and mer look like primitive apes in comparison.
At the height of their evolution, the Dwemer occupied laboratories and strongholds stretching the continents. From High Rock to Hammerfell,
from Skyrim to their home in Morrowind, Dwemer were one of the most widespread races in Tamriel.
Yet, they were hard to come by.
Theirs was an empire that did not need ruby thrones or white-gold towers.
Instead, they toiled away in the bowels of Nirn,
researching,
crafting, and defining themselves by their works, not their gods.
While the other races of men and elves slaughter each other above ground,
proclaiming the power of this god and that, the Dwemer abstained from such irrational thinking.
They mock the Daedra, the Aedra, and their so-called Divines.
The Deep Elves believed that if they equipped themselves with reason and logic,
then they could acquire the powers that could equal and
even rival that of the gods. In their underground cities, the Dwemer studied alchemy and perfected the art of metalworking.
Forget what you know about the skills of the Orcish blacksmith, or the sturdiness of Nordic steel.
Centuries before men and beasts knew proper smithing, Dwemer engineers had already cracked the code.
To this day, the modern races of Tamriel still have not uncovered the secret behind their metal.
Sure, the Dwemer make a good suit of armor, but their true
technological genius lies elsewhere. In the lava of Red Mountain,
the Dwemer learned to harvest the power of fire itself.
Their mastery of steam power allowed them to create airships,
sentient machines, and mechanical observatories.
Even today, few adventurers dare brave the ancient Dwemer ruins, because they are quite literally
crawling with Dwemer security. Dwemer spiders,
mechanical spheres, and mighty centurions still patrol the corridors of the Dwemer cities, even though it has been
millennia since their masters disappearance.
Built to last indeed.
I like to think that the Dwemer were somewhat comforted by their ability to animate lifeless metal into sentient machines.
The mere act of breathing life into an inorganic object defies the gods and their power over life and death.
You could think of Dwemer creations as a sort of living testimony to their belief in culture.
It was this culture of logic and reason
that allowed their technological capabilities to accelerate well ahead of any other race.
When comparing the Dwemer to the other races of Tamriel, don't let common misconceptions cloud your judgment.
Men call the Dwemer by their western name --
Dwarves. This has led to the false belief that a Dwemer has about the same height appearance as a child.
Simply by looking at a Dwemer suit of armor, you will see that
this is not in fact the case. These quote-unquote "Dwarves" were no shorter than the other human races.
Biologically, the thing that really sets the Deep Elves apart from everyone else is their ability to
telepathically communicate with each other. This mental communication
benefited the race greatly, seeing as it worked even across vast distances and their underground environments.
Like all Tamrielic elves, the story of the Dwemer starts when the Altmer
allegedly left Aldmeris to settle in the Summerset Isles. Unlike the Dark Elves,
we don't really know how the Dwemer ended up splitting off from their fellow elves.
However, we assume this division happened quite early on in their history, considering that Dwemer society bears few correlations
with the Altmer. What we do know is that the Dwemer would soon find themselves
on the coast of Morrowind, where they founded the city of Dwemereth; a city to call their home. Their newfound
isolation would not last forever. The Dwarven people soon found themselves looking at familiar faces
when the Chimer elves came to occupy their already occupied territory.
The Chimer were a newly formed splinter group of Altmer, who wished to freely worship their Daedric gods.
Naturally, the Dwemer scorned and mocked them. Over the coming centuries the fate of these two cultures would be intertwined.
The Dwemer would clash with the Chimer, in disputes over land,
resources, and of course religion.
While the Chimer and Dwemer squabbled over Morrowind, the Falmer of Skyrim,
also known as Snow Elves, were losing a bloody
conflict with the human settlers who later would call themselves the Nords.
Facing extinction, the remaining Falmer would turn to the Dwemer for help.
Some believed that the Dwemer would help their elven cousins by fighting off the Atmorans to avenge their fallen and help reclaim their land.
This would not be so, and when the Snow Elves came to the Dwemer for help,
the Dwemer made a deal with the Snow Elves for their protection,
but it was a trap. The Dwemer blinded them by giving them a toxic fungi native to Blackreach.
A generation later, the Dwemer had their very own slave race.
Back in Morrowind, clashes with the Chimer continued. The cultural differences between the Dwemer and the Chimer proved too great to ignore.
Dwarven culture was agnostic and preferred reason over faith,
while on the other hand, the Chimer were staunch Daedra worshipers.
It seemed all-out war was inevitable, but the Dwemer and the Chimer would soon find themselves in an unlikely alliance.
When Nordic warriors invaded Morrowind in the first era, the elves had to set aside their differences to face their common enemy united.
The result was the formation of the first council,
a governing group compromised of both Chimer and Dwemer.
The first council succeeded in repelling the Nordic invaders, and the elves drove the races of men from Morrowind.
After 16 years of war, the Chimer and the Dwemer found peace, which brought about a
unprecedented prosperity for both groups.
A golden age, but not for everyone. A clan of rebellious Dwemer refused to join the first council.
They did not trust the Daedra loving Chimer, and instead chose exile.
According to legend, their leader hurls the great hammer Volendrung towards the setting sun, and
vowed to settle wherever it landed.
The Dwemer named the land Volenfell, which was later translated to
Hammerfell.
Meanwhile, below the snow-covered landscape of Skyrim, the Falmer were instigating a rebellion of their own.
After generations of enslavement, the Snow Elves sought to put their Dwemer masters to the sword.
It is the ultimate fate of all slaves and their masters.
The war of the Crag was a tireless conflict that was waged in the deep dwarven cities. The Nords living on the surface above
carried on with their lives completely oblivious of the blood being spilled beneath them. This war would last
decades.
Until one day, when the Falmer charged the front lines
only to find empty suits of armor. The race of the Dwemer was no more.
Gone,
for reasons unknown.
At that
same time in the neighboring province of Morrowind, the Dwemer and the Chimer were spilling each others blood in the battle of Red Mountain.
The first council who had brought the elves peace and prosperity for so many centuries,
was broken. At this time the high engineer of the Dwemer was a brilliant mind by the name of Kagrenac.
Kagrenac sought to harvest the power of the gods themselves
by using the fabled heart of Lorkhan.
With the heart, Kagrenac believed that the Dwemer were ready to ascend to godhood in the form of Numidium.
Numidium was the brass god of the Dwemer.
A gigantic golem of
incredible power, it is thought that Kagrenac wished to use the heart of Lorkhan
to aid his people in ascension, making the Dwemer one with their greatest creation.
A union of life-energy and steel, the strengths of both,
the weaknesses of neither. What happened next has left Tamriel without answers.
In an instant the Dwemer race, with all its rich culture and brilliance, was gone. An entire people
wiped from the tapestry of existence. The time of the Dwemer has passed, and while the Falmer still exist in Skyrim,
they too are but a shadow of their former selves.
In their place a race of men will rise, their people strong, their resolve unwavering.
Soon their empire would stretch from east to west, but that is a story for another day...