History of Lock Picking Content . The modern lock has a fascinating history in Cyrodiil . The need to restrict access to one ' s home has been a problem since homes were first built . The very first security system was a simple bar across the door . This has the obvious shortcoming of only being functional when the owner is at home . The first recorded instance of a lock is the ingenious armbreaker of Castle Anvil . The count of the day put five slide bars on the side of the door . A hole in the door just above them allowed him to reach in and manipulate any of these bars . Only one of the bars truly locked or unlocked the door . The other four released the clasp on a hammer that fell down on the person ' s arm . Only by knowing which sliding bar was the true lock could one safely open the door . For over a hundred years , the state of the art in locks was defined by sliding bars and punished traps . Then the famous dwarf Mzunchend invented the pin lock . The first example had three pins . The key was turned in the lock four times , each turn depending on a different pin being in position . Obviously a pin could be used more than once . It was 65 years before anyone devised a method to open a pin - based lock without the key and without damaging the lock . It wasn ' t that the problem was so difficult . It was that nobody other than royalty could afford Mzunchend ' s locks . An enterprising blacksmith named Orenthal decided to mass - produce a common form of the lock at a reasonable price . Suddenly every shop had a lock . Now there was a reason to subvert the locks . It wasn ' t long before lockpicks and lockpicking appeared . Orenthal became quite wealthly inventing more and more sophisticated locks . Today ' s locks are sophisticated mechanisms with spring - loaded pins . Each metal pin must be pushed up by the key precisely to open the lock . Any imprecision in the key , any poorly made copy , or any clumsy attempt at lockpicking releases the spring tension , causing the pin to clamp down upon or even break the key or lockpick . Locks are made more secure by using multiple pins in the lock . Multiple - pin locks are more delicate and difficult to make , and more expensive , but provide a greater reliability against tampering . Multiple - pin locks have the further virtue of resetting all pins when any single pin is tampered with . A single mistake with the fifth pin of a five - pin lock requires a thief to reset all five pins again . Most affordable locks are one - pin or two - pin locks . The five - pin lock is the highest achievement of the lockmaker ' s craft , and the greatest challenge to a would - be intruder . Picking the modern lock is an art form . A lockpick is a thin metal bar with a small tooth on the end . The tooth is used to press the pin up into the lock mechanism . The thief uses skill and experience to manipulate each pin in turn to determine the exact tension necessary to set the spring - loaded pin at its catchpoint . With a subtle pressing and lofting of the pin , the master thief determines the exact motion required to set it . A novice thief breaks many picks while learning his trade . Only with time and practice will he get better at guessing the tension and timing necessary to set a pin . As a result , novice thieves tend to carry a great many lockpicks , while the masters only need to carry a few .