Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-4015741-20131010112323/@comment-98.232.175.28-20140902042118

[sorry for the necro]

Yeah it was a bit silly that the Aetherium Forge quest ends with you musing about whether or not there's any other aetherium out there, when there are clearly mounds of the stuff in Blackreach, as well as a few other places.

My current understanding is basically that soul gems are made of low-quality aetherium, since the only place you can actually mine them is next to aetherium deposits.

Which leads into my whole idea for Aedric equipment -- you'd mine the aetherium in Blackreach, use it to create incredibly high-quality soul gems at the Aetherium Forge, then kill dragons while possessing said soul gems, and then use the captured dragon souls to forge armor. Basically, just like the in-universe method of making Daedric, only way more complicated, only doable by a Dragonborn (since you'd have to start the soul absorption process in order to do anything with the dragon soul at all), and probably resulting in better equipment (since dragons are generally more powerful than lesser daedra).