In an esoteric and obscure letter from a mysterious character known as Nuhata, addressed to Chancellor Akato of the Elder Council and his fellow counselors, a warning is described that the barriers between Mundus, of course the mortal plane, and the realms of Oblivion are weakening. This letter was written by lore warrior Michael Kirkbride, former Morrowind developer and one-time Oblivion writer, and it foreshadows Mehrunes Fagan's invasion of Samriel. In this letter, Nuhata talks about the creation and purpose of the Direni Tower, which before it was known as the Direni Tower, was once just called Ur Tower, or the Adamantine Tower, or sometimes just Adamantia. The letter reads, Aurel, that is Akatosh, returned to Mundex Arena from his Dominion planet, signaling all Aedra to convene at a static meeting that would last outside of Arabic time.
His sleek and silver vessel became a spike into the changing earth, and the glimmer winds of its impact warned any spirit that entered Aura with it would become recorded. That by consent of presence their actions here would last of a period unassailable, and would be so whatever might come later to these spirits, even if they rejoined the Aether or succumbed willingly or by treachery to a Sithite erasure. Thus could the Aedra and their cohorts truly convene in realness. Our forebears saw the erection of Adamantia, Ur Tower, and the Zero Stone.
Let the elders acknowledge this truth. Every tower bears its stone. The impossible point of the convention was the first, though another bears the true title of First Stone. Now, a lot of that might seem like unintelligible nonsense, but those of us who are used to reading Michael Kirkhryde's work might not be so surprised.
Basically, and we've heard about this event before, we have this convention of the gods on Mundus or in Mundus, but this time it's described with a little bit of a science fiction twist. It seems, if taken literally, that Aureal comes to Mundus to decide what Lorcan's fate will be and what the fate of Mundus will be in a kind of spaceship, what Nupata refers to as the sleek and silver vessel. The spaceship implants itself into the ground upon landing and becomes the first tower, the Ur Tower. He also states that each tower has its own stone, and this concept of the convention of the gods itself becoming the stone for Ur Tower.
It's the Elder Lore Podcast, and today we are talking about, you guessed it, the towers. These so-called towers, and I refer to them as towers with a capital T, as more of like a metaphysical concept than an actual physical construction, although they are both. These so-called towers are the linchpins that hold Mundus from slipping back into the realms of Oblivion. As we already learned, each tower has its own stone, stone with a capital S, which is what gives the tower its power.
There are several named towers, but there is, of course, always the possibility that there are many more we do not know about. The tower that we've already discussed, the Ur Tower, was the first. It was created for the purposes of the convention of the gods to decide what they were going to do with Mundus and what they were going to do with Lorcan. Magnus, who we know as the god of magic and the architect of Mundus, has fled into Aurobis, carrying a hole in the heavens which now functions as the sun, which causes Akitosh to call this meeting of the gods.
Ur Tower was their meeting place, and the meeting itself becomes the stone for that tower. Now, this stone is known as the Zero Stone. It's not actually referred to as the first stone, which can be a point of confusion. It is located at the highest point of Balfiara Island in the Iliac Bay.
It is rumored that the tower extends just as far beneath the surface of the island, as far as it is called, but it's not really known for sure, because I don't think its furthest depths have ever really been fully explored. We already know, of course, that the gods decided to separate Lorcan from his divine heart as punishment for tricking the gods into creating Mundus. His heart is removed from him, and it is thrown, or sometimes shot from Trinamax Bow, into the far east, where it lands and becomes the Red Mountain, which is our second tower, sometimes referred to as the Red Tower. Now, between Ur Tower and Red Tower, these were the only towers that were created by the gods themselves.
Supposedly, all of the other towers were built by the elves in reverence and in imitation of their divine ancestors. So, deep within Red Tower, or the Red Mountain, was its stone, which is the heart of Lorcan. Here's a quote from the Monomyth. But when Trinamax and Ariel tried to destroy the heart of Lorcan, it laughed at them.
It said, this heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other. So Ariel fashioned the thing to an arrow and let it fly long into the sea, where no aspect of the world may ever find it." The Red Mountain itself dominates the skyline of Morrowind's continental island, Vvardenfell, which is a Dwemerian name which translates roughly to City of the Strong Shield. At the heart of the volcano is one of the great Dwemer citadels known as Dagoth Ur, which is of course where Lord Kaepernak originally delves deep and discovers the heart of Lorcan, which has remained there for ages untold. As previously mentioned, the Red Tower and the Adamantine Tower, Ur Tower, were the only two towers that were constructed by the Aedra.
Those that remained were either built by the elves, or some might argue created or came into existence through different means. The White Gold Tower in the middle of the Imperial city in Cyrodiil is one of these towers that is of elven make. The Aeliids build the White Gold Tower around their magical gemstone, the Qim el-Adabal, which we know of course would later be made into the Amulet of Kings. Before it was the symbol of the Divine Rite of Cyrodiil the Emperors, however, it was a large Aeliid soul gem.
The Aeliids believed it was a conduit of magical energy which maintained this direct line between themselves and the Aedra. We do also know now that the Qim el-Adabal was part of the covenant between Akatosh and the first of the Cyrodiils, in which Akatosh vows to keep the barriers between Mundus and Oblivion impenetrable to the Daedra and their hordes. This fits rather perfectly into the notion that the towers are this axis upon which Mundus remains intact and does not dissolve back into the realms of Oblivion from which it came. When the Aeliids constructed White Gold Tower, they designed it as a wheel within wheel, which supposedly gives it a greater measure of power and significance than some of the other towers.
And we'll get into the specifics of that one later. The Crystal Tower, also known as Crystal-like Law, is also constructed by the Alps. Although this one, this time it was constructed by the Aldmer, not the Aeliids. It is located in Alinor, in the Somerset Isles.
And as far as I know, its specific stone has been unspecified or unnamed. There is also a tower referred to as Walk Brass, which conventional wisdom seems to point to the Numidium. If this is true, then the tower's stone is most likely the Mantella that Soul Gem built that harnessed the power required to operate the enormous brass gaunt. We did do an entire episode on the Numidium, and it's kind of long and sordid history in Thamriel.
So if you'd like to find out more about the specifics, be sure to listen to that episode. Then there is the Snow Throat. A naturally occurring tower, as far as I know. Snow Throat refers to the great mountain in Skyrim, the throat of the world.
The stone of this tower is unknown. In fact, the tower itself is rather unknown. Perhaps it is not the mountain itself, but rather some other aspect of Nordic culture. And there might be some spoilers for the main quest of Skyrim incoming.
But many believe that the peak of the mountain may be the stone itself. It could be the localized dragon break that was caused when the Elder Scroll was read at the top of the mountain. It could be the local time, rather the local terror in the time continuum that followed. It could be Alduin himself.
It could be Parthenax himself. You know, your guess is equally as good as mine. It could also be that the Thume itself, the existence of this dragon shout, is the stone, or maybe even High Hrothgar, are part of the stone of this tower. Any way you look at it, it's more than likely that the mountain itself is the tower.
And again, its stone is as of yet unspecified. There are others as well. The details of them are unknown, perhaps more unknown than the details of the ones I've already discussed. There is a tower known as Green Sap, which might have some connection to the Valenwood, or possibly the Hist, but it's far more likely that it has to do with Valenwood.
There is the tower known as Orichalc, which might have some connection with the Myormar in Pyandania. It is speculated that it's common practice for an Elder Scrolls game to end in the destruction of one of these towers. I'm not sure if this theory holds up with Arena, the first of the Elder Scrolls games, but if we look at it chronologically since then, at the end of Daggerfall, we have the destruction, or the activation perhaps, of the Numidium. So that's one tower down.
After Daggerfall comes Morrowind, in which we have the destruction of the Heart of Lurken, and the deactivation of the Red Mountain. That's another tower down. After Morrowind came Oblivion. After, at the end of the events of the main quest of Oblivion, we have the destruction of the Ambulance of Kings, which means the destruction of the Kim El Adabal, which means the destruction of the stone for the White Cold Tower.
And then, of course, in Skyrim, we have all of these events that take place at the top of the throat of the world. We also know that the Aldmeri Dominion have started to destroy or deactivate these towers. You might wonder why would they do this if they are well aware that the destruction or deactivation of these towers might result in the dissolving of Mundus back into Aetherius, or back into the Realms of Oblivion. But the answer is really quite simple.
The Aldmeri Dominion believed that when Mundus was created, they were forever doomed to walk Nurn as mortals, forever separated from their divine ancestors, the kind of pinnacle of existence that they saw. If they succeed in destroying or deactivating all of these towers, and Mundus does slip back into Aetherius, then they believe they will be reunited with their true divine forms. I'd like to end this episode with another quote from Michael Kirkbride. It goes like this.
Every tower takes on a myth form. Red Tower is a volcano and it surrounds. Snow Throat is a mountain and its apex is only half there. Perhaps it exists in multiple dimensions.
Walk Brass walks about and takes on characteristics of a living entity most of the time. Even though the aliens gave the White Gold Tower a central fire, the whole structure resembles a wheel. There are eight lesser towers forming a ring around the central one. This design gives the White Gold Tower a power over creation, unlike any other of the towers.
And the importance of this quote is kind of twofold, I think. First, it lends credence to this idea that, of course, the tower known as Snow Throat is the mountain throat of the world, and that its stone is the dragon break that occurs at the top of it. He says it is only half there. Perhaps it exists in multiple dimensions.
But also that the White Gold Tower, as we mentioned before, has special significance and special power over what Kirkbride calls Croatia, unlike any of the other towers. And perhaps this can explain what inspires the Thalmor and the Aldmeri Dominion to push into Cyrodiil and to take the Imperial City until eventually the Cyrodiils, the Imperials rather, are able to retake their city. But perhaps this extra significance and this added tower of the White Gold Tower is why the Aldmeri Dominion begins their conquest in the first place. Perhaps I'm just reading too far into it.
And that's our episode for today. There are a few things that I'd like to say in closing. First of all, thanks for everybody who is still subscribed to the podcast and still following the blog. This episode in and of itself is a promise that I am still here and still dedicated to this project, although I have less and less free time in which I can record and produce these episodes.
It's also a promise of things to come. I still have episodes that I'm still working on writing and still planning on recording and releasing, so keep an ear out for those. Stay subscribed to the blog. We also now have a Facebook page.
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So I hope you enjoyed our episode today. It was a little bit more on the metaphysical side. I'm sure every stage we made. So tell me about it.
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