Skyrim: 10 Things Most Fans Don’t Know About The Dwemer

With the Elder Scrolls series taking place in a fantasy world, there are plenty of common fantasy tropes found within the games. Most of the fantasy tropes such as elves, orcs, and magic have been tweaked to separate them from other fantasy works, but one of the more interesting takes within the series is what they did with the Dwarves.

The Dwarves, more commonly known as the Dwemer, were a mysterious and advanced race that has been lost for centuries. While they themselves are no longer around, their ruins and remnants of their technological advancements still linger around today, and can commonly be found in Skyrim and Morrowind. It is easy for players to know next to nothing about this race, but these are some things that are quite interesting about them.

10 Them Being Referenced As Dwarves Is Mostly Based On Myth

The Dwemer share a lot of characteristics to the Dwarf trope. They lived underground, had advanced technology, and were expert craftsmen. Some stories liken the Dwemer to beings of small stature with beards, but other accounts acknowledge they were the same height as elves or men. The Dwemer were mostly nicknamed as Dwarves by the men races, and this was due to their height being compared to giants.

9 A Type Of Elf

In most fantasy settings Dwarves are typically separate from their fantasy race counterpart, the Elves. However, in The Elder Scrolls, the Dwemer are a variant of Elf. This can be seen in some of their characteristics such as their pointy ears. They were even called Deep-Elves and Under-Elves from time to time.

8 Architecture

Dwemer architecture is one of the few things remaining of the race. They lived in vast strongholds deep underground, which were composed of stone and metal. These strongholds often had advanced machineries such as elevators and automated gates powered through gears and soul gems.

The most notable architectural work of the Dwemer is Blackreach, which was speculated to be their capital. This area is a huge underground cavern that connects to several other strongholds within Skyrim.

7 Religion

In a world where gods clearly exist (as can be seen with Aedra and Daedra), the Dwemer seemed to be defiantly against the concept of gods. Instead, they seemed to spend their time devoting themselves to logic and reason, with those who were knowledgeable in academics like science and philosophy considered to be clergy. Their reasoning for defying the divinity of god-like beings such as the Daedric Princes and Divines was due to them believing that their status was equal to those of gods. The Dwemer would often spend their time focusing on ascending to divinity through their own means, which would ultimately be their downfall. While their beliefs mainly focused on logic and reason, some believe they worship Mundus, which is the physical plane of existence in the Elder Scrolls world.

6 Indifferent Towards Magic

Partially due to their contempt towards gods, the Dwemer are typically uninterested in the concept of magic. They mostly believed that their technology was superior to magic and that it was pointless to use. However, that does not mean the Dwemer never interacted with it. While it is not clear if they used magic themselves, they have definitely used magical artifacts to further advance their technology. In particular, they used soul gems to power their automatons, created weapons and tools out of Aetherium, and even attempted to use the Heart of Lorkhan to ascend to godhood.

5 Played A Role In The Creation Of The Falmer

The Falmer are a common enemy found within the game Skyrim. They are vicious creatures who abhor sunlight and live deep underground. However, before that, they were a type of elf known as the Snow Elves. The Snow Elves initially lived above ground in Skyrim but were driven out of their homeland by the Nords from the northern land of Atmora. Being utterly devastated by the Nords, the Snow Elves sought refuge underground with the Dwemer. The Dwemer allowed this in exchange for the Snow Elves being required to eat a toxic fungus. The toxins in the fungus deteriorated the eyesight of the Snow Elves and the Dwemer then enslaved them. Within slavery, the Snow Elves grew more savage and primitive until they devolved into the Falmer. The Falmer were slaves to the Dwemer for a long time until they rebelled and engaged in a long war against the Dwemer.

4 Their Disappearance

There is no direct explanation for the disappearance of the Dwemer, but there are a lot of speculated theories within the series. The most popular belief is that they disappeared after tampering with the Heart of Lorkhan. This is an Aedric artifact and is considered to be the actual heart of the Et’ada Lorkhan, the creator of Nirn. The Heart of Lorkhan resided beneath the ground and created the massive volcano, the Red Mountain. It was founded by the Dwemer and was experimented on in order to harness its power. After losing a decisive conflict against the Chimer (the progenitors of the Dunmer, or Dark Elves), the Dwemer tampered with the heart resulting in every single Dwemer vanishing from the physical plane.

3 Advanced Technology

The technology of the Dwemer was far more advanced in comparison to that of the other races found in Tamriel.

They could create massive metal automatons, they used crossbows with explosive bolts, and had special helmets which allowed them to telepathically communicate with each other. Likely their greatest creation was the Numidium, which is a massive brass automaton that stood 1,000 feet tall.

2 Created The Numidium

The power of the Numidium cannot be understated. It was created by a Dwemer named Kagrenac who sought to create a god and make the Dwemer immortal. The Numidium was powered by the Heart of Lorkhan, and after the Dwemer disappeared it was gifted to Tiber Septim by the Dunmer. Tiber Septim then used the Numidium to conquer all of Tamriel. The power of the Numidium is capable of breaking reality causing a dragon break, This is a phenomenon in which time splits into parallel realities to then reconnect into one timeline at a later point, thus resulting in all timelines happening at the same time.

1 Yagrum Bagarn

While the Dwemer are essentially gone from existence, there is one known survivor. A Dwemer named Yagrum Bagarn was traveling outside the realm of existence when the disappearance happened and returned to find his people entirely missing. In Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the player gets to meet Yagrum, but the Dwemer has certainly seen better days. He is suffering from a disease called Corprus, which has made him sickly and bloated, and his mind is not entirely there anymore.