Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-121.217.164.118-20130929050443/@comment-96.253.10.33-20150525203822

As I understand it, at the height of war between Dumac of the Dwemer and Nerevar of the Chimer, the dwarven master engineer Kagrenac did something to the Heart of Lorkhan which made every dwarf in the world vanish so that not even the gods know where they are.

Occam's Razor explanation: Kagrenac targeted the dwarves, and tried to escape from Nerevar. It worked.

Later, Sotha Sil would use the Heart to achieve apotheosis, which raises the question of why Kegrenac didn't also do such a thing. There actually is an explanation, it turns out: In the dwemer and chimer's united defense against nord invasion many years earlier, Nerevar killed a god. Kagrenac had no reason to believe that godhood would guarantee victory or even survival.

The answer then is: where did they go? Vivec (who achieved apotheosis through the Heart of Lorkhan) could not locate them anywhere in time and space, dead or alive. Thinking about it, there are two obvious solutions: they're either outside of time and space (where Vivec would be unable to find them), or somewhere directly related to the Heart of Lorkhan (where Vivec would be unable to find them).

These two possibilities might not be separate.