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The Soul Gem Lore Project



"The nature of the soul is now knowable. Every wizard that has attempted it vanishes without a trace. What can be known is that souls are a source of mystic energy that can be harvested."

- Souls, Black and White

Soul Gems have been used by mages of various schools for all recoded history and more, yet the mystic properties of the soul gems remain largely a mystery. Few wizards who have dared to research the subject more deeply often just disappear, likely due to the cunning and powerful parties interested in the souls.

Appearance
Common categorization of black and white soul gems have nothing to do with their appearance. Usually the color of a soul gem is purple and creation of a black soul gem does not make it black, but darkens it significantly. Rarely exceptional soul gems can be found that are colored differently.

Another way to tell a soul gem apart from other precous gems is their crystalline form. Soul gems are rarely cut as they aren't commonly used in jewelery. Moreover, changing the form of a soul gem will influence its mystic properties, suggesting that a successful attempt can only be performed by a skillful mage.

Lastly, soul gems can be found in various sizes, scaling from the size of a precious gem to a size of a fist.

Mystic
As the name suggests, soul gems can be used to imprison souls. These imprisoned souls can be used as a power source for several magical activities and in bargains with various powerful entities.

Soul gems can be found in different qualities. The most obvious indicator of the quality is the size of the gem, the bigger the better. Higher quality gems can be used to hold souls of stronger creatures. Quality of regular soul gems are categorized as petty, lesser, common, greater and grand, but rarely gems with even higher capacity can be found.

There are three known categories of souls: white, black and dragon souls. White souls are had by lesser creatures of Nirn and Oblivion. These can be held by most common soul gems. Souls of men, mer and beastfolk are considered black. Their souls are believed to be protected by Arkay himself, &#91;source?&#93; but black soul gems are created to bypass this protection and trap souls of the sentient beings. Finally, dragon souls are believed to be structurally different from other souls, making them impossible to be trapped into a soul gem. &#91;source?&#93;

The act of imprisonment occurs using the Soul Trap spell or the similar Soul Trap enchantment. Those few capable of using Thu'um can also use Soul Tear. However, the gem also behaves as a soul vacuum and an improperly filled gem will slowly drain casters soul into it.

It is known that the being trapped inside the gem remains fully aware and sentient. But a sudden death may confuse the soul making it lose the sense of time and place.

In most cases if a filled soul gem is damaged it will release the soul. The trapped being will not, however, regain it's physical form. Daedric Princes and Ideal Masters are known to posses ability to extract and alter the souls trapped inside the gems. Only known sorcerer to be able to restore a gem trapped being is the sload necromancer N'Gasta.

Acquisition
White soul gems occur naturally and can be found in underground deposits just as any other gem. One of the places rich with soul gem geodes is the huge underground cavern by the name of Blackreach.

Black Soul Gems
Unlike the white soul gems, black soul gems do not occur naturally and must be created using the white soul gems. Little is known about what exactly happens during the alteration of the soul gem. At least two ways of creating a black soul gem are known.

First and, likely, most common way of creating a black soul gem is by Shade of the Revenant, a necromancer ritual that can only be performed in certain dates and in certain locations and is performed by the Order of the Black Worm. During the ritual grand soul gems are placed as offerings to the infamous altmer necromancer Mannimarco, who is believed to darken the gems afterward.

Second way of creating a black soul gem is by going directly to the Soul Cairn, the realm of the Ideal Masters. There the lightning attractors can be found, that can turn great and grand soul gems into black soul gems. What makes this method difficult is the fact, that in order to enter the Soul Cairn, person must be undead or partially soul trapped.

It is worth mentioning, that alteration of low capacity soul gems is pointless, as they could not hold a soul as powerful as those of the Tamrielic races. Only great and grand soul gems are used for these transformations.

Schools of Magic
Needs a lot more research on Enchanting, Mysticism, Conjuration and Necromancy.

Technology
Soul gems are known to be included into the complex Dwemer Animunculi. Although the purpose of the gems is unknown, amateur expeditions confirm, that the soul gem is not used as the main source of power. Several different hypothesis have been made including the soul gem being the source of heat for the boilers or the soul gem being the source of Destruction magic capable of shocking transgressors.

Soul gems can also be found powering traps and defenses in ancient Nord burial grounds and now buried fortresses and cities.

Ayleid are also known to use different enchantments to protect their ruins, those, however, are not powered by regular soul gems.

Religion
Due to the high value of souls to all magic-users, soul gems have gained a role of appropriate offerings in many traditional and religious practices.

Probably the most powerful entities to value the souls are the Daedric Princes. Outside the magical bargains, Princes will often demand soul gem offerings from their worshipers. Combined with knowledge in magic, offerings to the Daedra may even cure the normally incurable Vampirism.

More traditional use of soul gems, that is not a direct offering, is seen in Morrowind, where it is customary for the Pilgrims of the Seven Graces to leave a soul gem in remembrance of their ancestors who were bound to the Tribunal's service.

Yet another cult to use soul gems as offerings is the previously mentioned Order of the Worm. During their ritual in which the soul gems are offered to the Mannimarco, they recognize their once mortal idol as a deity capable of hiding his worshipers from Arkay.

Prohibition
Supply of white soul gems is rarely lacking as the Schools of Enchanting and Conjuration are commonly practiced. Black soul gems, together with its School of origin Necromancy are, however, outlawed in the Empire.

Immorality and heretical nature of Necromancy has been known to mages since before the recorded history. The legendary Psijic Order had forbidden the use of Black Arts.

In the Empire School of Necromancy was first forbidden by the founder of the Mages Guild Vanus Galerion. The law have been questioned and even ignored by many guild masters since, but never officially dismissed. Today Necromancy remains illegal with exception of special permission and supervision from the Mages Guild, with the sole purpose to study the enemy. Mages who practice the School of Necromancy will be considered the enemy of the Mages Guild and will be hunted down by the Order of the Lamp.

Notable Soul Gems

 * Azura's Star - a daedric artifact of Azura, looks like an ornamented star, can hold white souls, but does not break when a soul inside is consumed, making it reusable.
 * The Black Star - an altered version of Azura's Star, capable of holding black souls.
 * Soul Tomato - a soul gem found in Shivering Isles, Sheogorath's realm of Oblivion, looks like a Tomato.
 * Mantella - a massive green soul gem intended to replace the Heart of Lorkhan and be the heart of Numidium, played a role in the historic event known as Warp in the West.
 * Reaper's soul gem - used to summon the Reaper, daedra inhabiting the Soul Cairn, unknown if parts of his soul were actually trapped in the shattered fragments.
 * Quintilla's soul gem - a yellow soul gem, that had been enchanted and used in several pieces of jewelery, played a role in lives of such historical figures as Quintilla, Pelagius II, Potema and Pelagius the Mad.
 * Hannibal's soul gem - a colossal black soul gem Arch-Mage Hannibal Traven used to trap his own soul, the gem was used in the battle, that lead to the death of the infamous Mannimarco.

Sigil Stones
Sigil stones are crimson, usually spherical morpholits. They are daedric in origin and can be used to enchant items and in high level Conjuration rituals. Sigil stones of various potency were used by the Mehrunes Dagon to power the Oblivion Gates during the Oblivion Crisis.

Crystalline Structures
Crystalline structures that can be found in the Soul Cairn resemble gigantic soul gems and share the appearance of common soul gems found on Nirn. These soul gems will rapidly drain any soul who comes near them. For protection a plant only growing in the Soul Cairn, the Soul Husk, can be eaten or the more potent Soul Husk Extract can be used. It is untested if the potion protects the user from the effects of other similar gems outside the Soul Cairn.

Varla Stones
Varla stones, "sky stones" in Aldmeris, are white and radiant morpholits. They are believed to be Aetheral in origin and were made by the Ayleid from meteoric glass. Modern races can use these stones to recharge their magical items, unfortunately destroying the stone in the process. Ayleid took the art of crafting Varla stones to their grave, rare leftovers can be found illuminating Ayleid ruins throughout the Cyrodiil.

Welkynd Stones
Welkynd stones, "heaven stones" in Aldmeris, are more potent variation of Varla stones, sharing their appearance and origin. Welkynd stones are believed to have been used as a power source for whole Ayleid cities. Each Ayleid city is believed to have had a great welkynd stone to power its enchantments. Art of crafting these stones is lost as well and study of these incredibly rare stones is made even harder by the ruin looters.

Dark Welkynd Stones
Unlike the black soul gems, dark welkynd stones have nothing to do with imprisonment of souls. Dark welkynd stones are glowingly red welkynd stones, that have been enchanted with powerful Destruction magic. Designed to punish thieves and invaders, dark welkynd stone will burn, freeze or shock anyone who touches it. These stones can still be found in Ayleid ruins.

Meteoric Iron
While not a morpholith, meteoric iron was used by the Ayleid to build Ayleid wells. These wells posses the ability to recharge magicka from the stars and store it until somebody absorbs it. Utilization of these wells do not require any skill in magic and still work in the Fourth Era.