Lore:Dwemer Inquiries Vol I

life's work   the Dwemer, their dubious history  mysterious banishment. My goal with this text is   my findings and conclusions based on eighty years spent studying their unique architectural remains.

The Migration of the Dee lves from their ancestral Dwemereth, now  , is a generally accepted fact. Recorded history supports this, specifically mentioning the   Clan's refusal to join King   in the forming of the    and their subsequent exodus to  . The architectural premise is also sound, as the building habits of the Dwarves adapted and changed, albeit slowly and in subtle ways, over time and land. I propose that some of these differences are stylistic as well as practical. 

Traditional viewpoints suggest that the   Dwemer were the most prolific of their kind. Based on my excavations throughout  , Morrowind  and  , I am not sure that this is the case. While Vvardenfell is almost cluttered with  warven ruins poking through the surface of the landscape, the construction of those ruins is fundamentally different from the majority of what I've observed elsewhere.

Further , as we delve into Vvardenfell ruins, we notice that their internal structure is quite different. While major civic and operational chambers are found near the surface in a Vvardenfell Ruin, that is not typically the case on the  ainland. Minor passageways and storehouse rooms are near the surface, but more important locations   occur until we explore much deeper. 

Because such major locations are well-hidden in Dwemer Ruins outside of Morrowind, many scholars believed they were in fact not present in ruins outside that province. This premature conclusion   led some to believe such sites to be mere outposts. My research has shown this not to be the case.

  few theories   may explain this difference. Perhaps  lan architects simply had their own styles and preferences when it came to civic planning. This seems only somewhat likely, as Dwarven techniques were based on empirical study,   there was likely little room for creative interpretation when it came to building technique. Geological makeup of the terrain almost certainly played a role, especially in a region like Northern Skyrim  where the ground near the surface is very rocky and often frozen,   the volcanic substratum common in Vvardenfell or the ubiquitous aquifers found in Hammerfell. It's possible that Dwarven architects in the North were not   able to excavate larger structures until reaching more pliable  . 

This scholar would like to suggest, however, that many structures west of Morrowind were built after 1E 420. When the Clan Rourken left Vvardenfell, it seems evident that several clans broke off to create their own settlements,   to live in greater isolation than their Eastern brethren. This theory is particularly fascinating, because it leads me to believe that Dwarven architects may have developed even more elaborate methods of hiding their strongholds over time. 

This opens the distinct possibility that undisturbed  warven archaeological sites exist throughout Tamriel, even in southern areas like   or    where Dwarves are not believed to have ever had a significant presence. Though we   not get carried away on flights of fancy, one could extrapolate this logic to suggest that some Dwarven  lans were living among us for much longer than previously believed, perhaps well beyond the disappearance during the War of the Red Mountain in  .