Skyrim's Strangest Ruin, Explained (Kind of)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Skyrim is a game which features an endless number of places to visit, but few are more strange than the Dwarven ruin of Kagrenzel. Located deep in The Elder Scrolls 5's far eastern mountains, Kagrenzel is an ancient structure filled with mystery and various unique quirks. While on the surface level, this Skyrim location may seem mundane, a deeper analysis of Kagrenzel's depths suggest it may be one of the most important locations in The Elder Scrolls universe. So today we'll be exploring one of the oddest places in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.
It took me all morning climbing around to find this place!!! But now I'm ready, and I'm goin' in!!!
HECC YES, OUR SKYRIM GRANDMA IS GOING ON ANOTHER ADVENTURE!!
SKYRIM GRANDMA! I LOVE YOU AND WISH YOU LUCK DURING THESE TIMES
Good luck Shirley, I'm 'going in' later today, weather too nice to leave the garden at the moment.
Go Shirley!! Happy adventures!!
SKYRIM GRANDMA! Good luck with the dungeons and dragons in Skyrim
"Zel means City, and [...] Kagren can mean music"
So Kagrenzel is .... Funky town?
It's Nashville
its florida
@StinkyPirates It fits hilariously well
@@kaileyhagen4621 as a nashvillian, a native of music city. Thankyou for this, I love my city and any shoutout to it lol now I can envision an ancient nashville in another dimension
🎶Won't you take me dooown 🎶
🎶Down to ka-gren-zeeeel🎶
The biggest mystery of skyrim is how much more content Nate can squeeze out of it.
The answer: YES
Yes. Lol. TRUE.
As long as some game character gets murdered to death I'm fine with it.
Just imagine when 6 comes out
@Lord Sheogorath where is the book ;P need it
@Lord Sheogorath where are those books?
Some postulates:
The snow whales could fly by using their song.
Kagranac's name contains the word for music and this is not a coincidence.
Perhaps the whales were being studied for their tonal abilities.
Another theory could be that snow whales use their voices as some form of tonal manipulation. We already see it in real life whales when they moan in deep and long tones to communicate.
Yeah, maybe kagranac means master of tones or something, and it's not his real name. And the city was actually called the city of tones.
"City of singers" rather than "City of song"..? Maybe the skeletons were young snow whales and the long vertical chamber was some kind of nursery before the Dwemer capped it (leading to the whales extinction).
@@arnabkar8792 yeah I think song is a mistranslation or poetic interpretation of the original text. We already know they didn't think of music for entertainment so why would this word mean song in our modern interpretation of music. I also think the heart is another eye of magnus, or possibly a variation of it.
This is a fuckin gojira song
Theory on the snow whales: Whales in our world were hunted back in the day for industrial oil purposes, which was crucial for the industrial evolution. Maybe the omnious "dwarf oil" from the game is actually snow whale oil and the Dwemer bred them for that very purpose.
The dwermer society has been the worst thing that happend to humanity
@El inodoro que habla they never even bothered with humans or other elves. If anything the oblivion crisis and thalmor are the worst things to have happened to humanity
@@eggmug562 industrial dwemer society and it's future
@@Literallyryangosling777 Introduction
1. The Dwemer Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the Mer, Man and Beast folk races.
They went full "Vault Co." experimental slavery on the Snow Elves. So it wouldn't surprises me if there were further disputes with other Mer or Men and beastfolk. Disregarding the unearthing of the Heart of Lorkhan or the creation and downfall of the Dwarves by the Numiddium, of course. They and their ruins were all over Northern Tamriel, so it could've been possible.
Whales are known for their nearly magical singing.
Yelling want to shit doesn't consider singing -_-
@@comeatme6ro413 I think English might be his/her second language.
Adele,lizzo, etc
@@justnoob8141
Shut up
Pill Cosby For what? You don’t have stomach?
Well the dragonborn is also implied to be a shezzarine, or mortal incarnation of lorkhan, so if the kagnrenac city theory is correct, the orb may have detected the soul of lorkhan
woah
I think you just answered that question
Interesting thought
Seeing as how the cave is filled with dead bodies, it implies nothing has made the bottom of the cage open up in quite a while, so why was the Dragonborn the first to make it open in such a long time?
Kind of supports said theory.
Ta’varen
I accidentally turned up the volume so my ears got blasted with: HEY HOWS IT GOING GUYS
sort of like with jacksepticeye
I always turn the volume on his videos down to 20. It’s good to listen to on the other side of my house on max. Heck I think I can even hear it from outside
Same
Bruh got done listening to music so felt u
Is it such a bad thing?
Ancient Nords: Manage to extinct snow whales from the skies. Modern era Dragonborn: Can't even lower the amount of dragons flying around after defeating Alduin.
well overtime the DragonBorn probably will make all dragons extinct. There are loads of dragons that were slain before the time Skyrim is set, and the DragonBorn is only one person, whilst the ancient nords were multiple people.
@@alt-f4 I think the commenter was making a joke :) at least it made me giggle
@@alt-f4 also there's dragons in Akavir that are just hanging out
@@evak5673 all of the akaviri dragons are dead...the tseaci and the Tao people killed all of them
True. I have 61 dragon souls. I don't know what to do with them. No idea. Annoying Dragons keep spawning. At this point I just use Bend Will and ride them. 😂
That kagrenak connection is very, VERY interesting, because those bones at whalebone bridge aren't just any whalebones-They're Aedra Bones, the remains of Stuhn, brother of Tsun the shield-thane of Shor, or Lorkhan. If those bones in kagrenzel are the bones of aedra-like creatures, and kagrenzel is the city of kagren, then kagrenzel housed not only the heart of lorkhan but also aedra-like bones.
*_And kagrenak said he was making a god._*
What better way to make a god than with the bones of aedra-like creatures and the actual heart of an aedra?
The Heart of Lorkhan is (was) in Vvardenfell
The cliffracers are back!! Never mind Alduin, this is priority.
We must pray that Saint Jiub is gonna return to send them back where they came from
That was my first thought! Why would you download a mod to bring them back? The sounds they make still haunt my memory
Calvin Schuster He’s in the soul cairn, no one can save you from the cliffracers now!
Someone call the Saint from his recording booth
ua-cam.com/video/rTeVz6rP6r4/v-deo.html
Back? Were they ever gone? And please just cast a target spell on them and watch them fall through the sky. Or just I dunno... use a bow?
If it’s not the cloud district I don’t want it
Nazeem hi I'm the dragon born huge fan it's an honour to meet you
Nobody cares Nazeem.
I'll use you're soul to enchant my boots so you can get there on the reg!
Did you behead him when he claimed that there was no pussy in the cloud district?
Your comments make these videos better
so I just went to Kagrenzel during a playthrough, and while falling my character hit a jug and died. I just fell on the floor and laughed
Ive been killed by random shovel before, never been so sad, but ive never laughed so hard before
Hm. I should do that next time I bring a hero into my kingdom and he or she tries to attack me like a couple of Hero of Kvatches attempted...
fun fact if irl you fall into the water and hit a news paper floating on the surface it will be almost as hard as falling on concrete floor
Bethesda games be like that. In Fallout 3, I fast traveled somewhere and a car fell from the sky, exploded, and killed my character. 🤣
@@kumakena Now thats hilairous😂😭
The Dwemer actually named their cities by stepping on LEGOs and writing down whatever they called out
Why is this so funny
"Anyways, the secret to our inteligence is- KAGRENZEL!"
ALFTAND!
I literally laughed out loud.
This is how im gonna name my kid
"By refreshing my memory with "Divine Metaphysics," I believe I can explain. The Dwemer were not unified in their thinking. Kagrenac and his tonal architects, among them Bthuand Mzahnch, believed they could improve the Dwemer race. Others argued that the attempt would be too great a risk. The war with Nerevar and the Dunmer may have led Kagrenac to carry out his experiments prematurely. Although this book argues that nothing disastrous could result, the disappearance of my race argues otherwise." - Yagrum Bagarn. He says this in relation to a book called the Egg of Time in Elder Scrolls 3. He was not in Nirn at the time of the dwarves disappearing, meaning the disappearance was soley focused on Nirn and left him as a sole survivor, unfortunately he caught the corpus disease and ended up eventually falling himself. As for theories to where Kagrenac lived, Yagrum was one of his close friends and workmates so it would be reasonable to assume that they lived within the red mountain or atleast in the shared space of Vvardenfell, especially since Yagrum specifically states that Kagrenac's journals are within ruins on Vvardenfell. In fact this is further proven by both his journal and planbook being found in Morrowind, alongside sunder and keening which were core parts of his research.
The theory behind the city being used to store a super weapon that had fallen out of use is possible, since in theory Kagrenac instead may have decided to use the heart of Lorkhan to turn the whole dwarven race into immortal gods. I am unclear on that part. Only one living character knows and he went off to Akavir and never came back.
I've been wondering what happened to the last dwarf, since he had corprus which made the victims (somewhat) immortal and the Nerevarine killed Dagoth Ur thus freeing the victims from his control. How come we've never heard from the dwarf and for that matter, the Nerevarine? What happened to them?
Ok chill dude to much for braing
TY for your detailed explanation. It is quite possible that Kagrenac lived on Vvardenfell. I really like the theory that some huge machine was being stored there. The entire cave seems to have been purposely dug like a vertical shaft reminiscent of a missile silo. Why else dig a vertical shaft unless you want to store a vertical thing in it?
Im pretty sure it was where Neumidium was assembled. :)
This is supported by the fact that you can find Kagrenac's workshop in Vvardenfel. I used the construction set (cheaty me) and found it as an interior area you can go to. You can also find some robot parts inside. Me and a friend spent a long time assembling the robot in the construction set (from now on I'll be referring to the construction set as CS) and it is huge. It's about twice as big as a Skyrim centurion. Data mining in the CS can be really rewarding sometimes. Especially with lore contributions like this. It looks nothing like a centurion either.
P.S. The peices are lD'ed as "mech parts" too, so that might mean something.
You also forgot the aphorism from one of the Dwemer fairy tales, the only that that is genuine: "Many can build a golem, but only a true master can become a golem".
Yes, that's the disappearance of the dwarves and what the Heart's power was used for.
It's pretty clear now almost ten years in that the amount of cut content may overshadow the amount of actual content.
@@quesoquesadila6094
Deez nuts
What mod??
@@cameron4994
Deez nuts
I find that as awesome. And it all leads to stuff like this.
It was Bethesda's lost goldmine for dlcs to flesh em out
@@cameron4994 cutting room floor
Considering the city is set so remotely, I could see it being a research center away from tonal pollution, like how telescopes / observatories are high on mountains to minimize light pollution.
Love this hypothesis.
Heck, the security system could be checking that visitors wouldn’t mess with the tonal studies. Dragonborn, being semi-divine and tonally resonance with the Thuum, would be allowed instead of your average bandit.
Or it’s searching for divinity, since the dwemer considered themselves equal to the divines. Divinity and tonal resonance might actually be connected.
Maybe whatever creature the skeletons were used tonal manipulation like Dragons and the dwarfs were studying them.
@@pinkwings8036 perhaps it allowed the dragon born down as a suitable specimen, a naturally tonal skilled creature for the dwemer to study
"The orb must have subjected those nearby bandits to the same test. However, rather than let them down, it murdered them to death for some reason. Why?"
*ad starts*
"ACCIDENTS HAPPEN."
WHEEEEEEEEEZE
Been paying for UA-cam for a couple years now.... it’s literally a couple bucks a month, and haven’t seen an ad since. I’m retired/stay-at-home so watch like 8 hrs of random stuff per day on the second monitor while playing games . Well worth the money.
@@draelon did anyone ask?
@@darknova9978 Well.... It IS a comments section. :)
@@darknova9978 Did anyone ask you for your opinion on this person's comment?
When i was in the stony creek cave i saw the "secret entrance/exit" and looked on the local map and was like "yo thats leads to somewhere!" So i did some epic bethesda wall climbing then saw this video and saw i entered it backwards 😂😂😂
best way not to get pregnant right there......
You're way more tenacious than me! I've been in stony creek so many times (gem, radiant quests, and general wandering in early years of playing), and it sure looked like it ought to be connected to something else, but I just gave it up as being unfinished/cut content. Kudos to you for not giving up so easily!
So many radiant quests have sent me through stony creek, I honestly thought that was the entrance for the longest time. Then I finally noticed how there was a undiscovered dwarven ruin on my map that I had somehow already cleared
i entered the cave from the bandit side and i never noticed that there was a second entrance in there XD
I did the exact same thing. Found it by going through Stony Creek cave.
Okay so I noticed a few things in this, and you should hear this out. 1) there's An expert locked chest at the bottom of the lake you fall in, which is extremely filled with overpowered loot.
2) those whale bones we see in the map - if you look at the spines of them sideways, it looks like there's letters on them, maybe dwarven alphabet or language of the dovah
.
3) I totally agree with all these theories, you have just changed my life mate, thanks.
Everytime I watch one of your intros I imagine you surrounded by thesauruses, frantically searching for a new synonym for giant.
I kill the Thesauruses, and turn their bones into boots.
Ribbitgoesthedog Lastnamehereyeah you good?
"Hi, im Nate, and Skyrim is the oldest anarchy server in minecraft."
2 arrows 2 knees 2a2k
Cole McGuire (STUDENT) no it’s not
@@fxd4163 Look at Nate's most viewed video.
Didn't expect this here lmao
No lollyggaging!
I’ve got my own theory. First the giant skeletons could have been dragon skeletons in a massive dragon burial ground. We know that dragons can live forever, so they could potentially grow to infinite size. The consistent size of dragons we see in game is probably just because of engine limitations.
The dwemmer could have excavated it hoping to learn more about dragon shouts, which are a form of tonal manipulation. After excavating it, kagranec could have used it to store the numidium and study dragonshouts at the same time. Th orb could be identifying you through your use of tonal manipulation with dragon shouts. The falmer could be workers who helped construct the numidium.
Dragons stop growing, but they don’t stop ageing.
If there should be dragon skeletons, why not use them but mammoth skeletons instead? Goes just the same as with the whales. Maybe we have to wait for another game in which the lore is lifted before we can understand what bethesda intented.
@@philipphammer3474 Dragon mammoth hybrids... after all, elephants(this implies by default mammoths too) make some powerful and significant sounds
@@philipphammer3474 as far as I can tell this dwemer ruin is in the vanilla game and the first appearance we had of actual Dragon skeletons aside from the dead ones we kill is in the dragonborn DLC so as a substitute they would more than likely use giant Mammoth bones
Wouldn't that make Parthanax fucking massive?
This makes the College of Winterhold even more upsetting. They had all of the stuff already build. All they needed to do was add some quests.
they had the simple part done and only needed to do the complicated part...
not only that, but the cave that is linked to kagrenzel, has one of the insects in a jar, and a barenziah stone in the same cave. so the cave connecting it was also part of some other cut content. 2 really big cut content quests right beside each other.
You cant imagine my disappointment when I thought it was going to be a old, ancient and huge dwemer ruin but turns out just to be your casual falmer cave, with no secret rooms or doors, and not even the interior is even dwemer.
True and let me tell you this around Windhelm somewhere is an unmarked location with an ancient Nord table. There for the first time I encountered The Wisp Mother. Damn never seen her ever again. It's as mysterious as another ruin near Windhelm from where you get the Helm of Yngol that unlocks with a coral dragon claw which you again find randomly at winterhold from some bar maid I guess.
@@InfernoBlast-th1ot isn’t the wisp mother a generic reoccurring enemy or am I stupid? I may be stupid
@@lusciouslunk I don't know, that's the only time I have seen a wisp mother. I have completed each and every single quest. And my character is level 80.
I actually entered this place in reverse by whirlwind sprinting from a pile of rocks opposite the hidden entrance. Didn’t know there was the ruin above until a while later.
Exactly, I was in this ruin countless times, but always went in from the bandid cave. Never in my innumerable amounts of hours in my playthrough have I seen Orby.
I always knew there was a way to get in there! You figured it out!
I always get sent to look for ancient vampire remains here, and the quest marker always sends me in through the back
Same
I crouched and jumped up the wall by the waterfall. It took some time but I was determined to get through. I had no idea there was more!
Speaking of kagrunzel, I once went in there not knowing about the giant fall, and was surprised when the ground opened up. At that point I still had no idea it was such a deep fall because I didn’t get to experience it. I fell a good distance and then I touched the bucket that falls with me with my feet. I died instantly. It mistook it for fall damage. Didn’t go back until I watched another video and was like woooww I missed out on that lmao.
Yeah, push the clutter away before activating. It's lethal.
😂
When you think about it, Kagranac wasn’t creating a new god, he was rebuilding an old one.
Not really. He never planned to power Numidium with the Heart, he only used it for the transition
False.
ehh arguable.
Lorkhan seems to be a very complex et'ada/isn't as simple as "no" "i am not", etc like the numidiam was.
Mind you that is very much within lorkhan's sphere, but he is also about space, limitation, and various other things.
Numidiam's whole sphere is literally just rejection of everything. Mannimarco literally uses it in daggerfall to ascend by likely just going "i am a mortal" to numidiam and having it go "NO" and then bamn he's not a mortal.
mind you thats a very simple way of thinking of the logistics, but the point stands that its whole role is to literally just reject. Someone skilled like mannimarco can use it to ascend, someone who is a power hungry tyrant like talos will use it to commit genocide and break space/time while using it as a literal giant robot and curb stomping shit with it
@@DivineXPotato You really bought the high elf bullshit Talos was proved to be a God during the oblivion crisis
@@floridaball4896 he became a God similar to Mannimarco, using the Numidiam to cause Dragon Break, making himself a 9th Divine, it is you, that bought into Tiber Septim's BS lies on how he became a God. the Thalmor are wrong about many things even the idea of man becoming a God, but they weren't wrong about Talos Techinically not being one, he is only one because he literally used a machine that the Dwemer used to help themselves become gods, but instead of disappearing like the Dwemer, it worked for Tiber Septim, just like the 3 living gods of Morrowind didn't disappear when they tapped the Heart of Lorkhan
Isn’t the dovahkiin sometimes refereed to as the “avatar of shore” you know the god, maybe the orb is there to recognize godlike souls/very powerful souls to power the numidium, just a thought.
OH SHIT. THAT'S WHY SHOR WASN'T IN SOVANGARDE.
@@shiteyanyo1111 yes, you are Shor. To be exact, every protagonist of TES' main series is a Shezzarine. Lorkhan made Nirn, and he just keeps his shameless self-inserting in the moments of crisis.
Oh, and that also makes you an avatar of Sithis.
@@shiteyanyo1111 Shor wasn’t in Sovngarde because he was killed by Akatosh when they created Nirn
@@nightwishtech5329 No, Sovngarde is an afterlife, it's a place separate from the mortal plane. What you're saying makes no sense lol
@@crispycronchy5887 An afterlife. Created by God. A God who is dead. In a universe, where we’ve never seen evidence that gods go back to the afterlife they created when they die. What I said makes perfect sense
7:22 wait... no... those bones.. they cant be....
GIANT CLIFF RACERS!
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES
What?
@@Real_Eggman I'm assuming you haven't played morrowind, the cliff racers were a bunch of flying creatures that suck to deal with. (Quick summary of them as an enemy)
Nah, the bones look much bigger
I ran for my life from small cliff racers :( (I'm still running)
@Cactus Juice Jiubs Opus Volume III: The Northern Resurgence
Since the dwemer had underground cities I think the skeletons belonged to the creature's that helped dig out places to build their cities
Giant badger-moles confirmed.
They had flying whales that went extinct in the morrethic era kind of like morrowinds stilt striders
IIIII WAAAAANT PRIIIIIINGLESSSSSS
@Lucas Jean i believe dovazuul is also tonal manipulation, no?
Flying whales. Enjoy my lack of context? I didn't think so.
"We don't know if snow whales existed"
"There's a bridge made of snow whale bones in the Nordic heaven"
Not snow whale bones, unspecified whale bones
How do you know it's snow whale bone? What if it's sea whale or land whale bone?
@@EliteGODZ77 and that’s when the fire whales attacked
First of all, I love these videos. This attention to detail when explaining Skyrim's secrets and interesting features is amazing.
One correction though. The local maps are not hand drawn.
They are generated from a top down view of the level geometry. Which of course makes the placement of those bones in the level no less intentional. But the renderings on the local map are actually just representations of the models seen when falling down that shaft. You can check that by using 'tcl' in the console and position your character inside such a rib cage to see the position indicator on the map line up with the rendering of the bones.
2:18 Technically, there are a couple quests that lead to Kagrenzel. Stony Creek Cave is also part of multiple quests. If someone were to be looking at the map of Stony Creek Cave while exploring it, they would have been able to see the tunnel leading to Kagrenzel. So it's not entirely by chance that you would stumble upon it.
The name Kagrenzel is similar to the Dwemer ruin in Solstheim called Kagrumez which also traps the player in a cage once the middle pedestal is activated. The player is then attacked by waves of mechs in a Colosseum type battle where you can see that the Dwemer had viewing areas above the chamber almost for entertainment purposes. When I first found Kagrumez I noted that it sounded familiar and once those Darwven bars came up around me I distinctly remembered Kagrenzel and looked down in anticipation of being dropped.
I’d probably consider that more along the lines of training or research than entertainment. The Dwarfs weren’t known for their love of blood sports. The similarity of the names and situations is interesting though.
RhianKristen idk, there was a little arena in Blackreach that had a sort of stage with spinning dwarven blades, which makes me think it was an arena where the battle ground had “hazards.” We know the falmer can’t build dwarven machines, so dwarves had to have set it up.
Maybe they tested their dwarven centurions or other robots in the arena to see what they could improve
Maybe its not about the scientist at all. Maybe the names are actually Kag Ren Zel and Kag Rumez.
Kag meaning cage?
@@stomperchomper Who knew the Dwemer were fans of Robot Wars?
If there were flying whales imagine the shit rain they would cause...
That why the nords got rid of them.
"It looks like it's about to rain"
"Those are snow whales! Get inside so you dont get pooped on!"
I actually went into Kagrenzel because of the sidequest from dawnguard in search for blueprints on crossbows and bolts. That alarm, if you touch the light totally jump scared me in my first visit because nothing like this is in any other dungeon.
This has to be some kind of omen. This ruin has always stuck with me ever since Skyrim first came out and is part of my own elder scroll idea. It's great that even after all this time this secluded and mysterious place can be covered in an interesting light.
TES Enthusiast I’m curious too, is it a theory or?
TES Enthusiast that there's more to the first level then that room. Oddly enough most of the idea came from a dream that I had which involved more then one lexicon and the orb deactivating the trap instead of dropping the player
@@abramtankproductions6039 it's not a theory
@@Entropy_VS_Clarity Please do elaborate though.
I hope we learn what fully happened to the Dwemer and where they went in The Elder Scrolls 6
I am not to sure I WANT to know it, though.
You can after Bethesda adds the npcs and dlc expansion a year after the game comes out.
@@SwayRod836 what if... Bethesda are the Dwemers? ;)
I wouldn't say all but a bit more yes
kiomon I’m pretty sure you were making a joke about Bethesda cash grabs but a fully dwemer dlc would actually be pretty cool
Ok... I was like:
"No way I missed this, I have played Skyrim for who knows how long, no way I...[Shows us the light orb and cage]...Wtf!"
I just have to geek out for just a moment. I’ve been playing Skyrim since it first came out. But I’ve been watching your videos for over a year and I love them! I’ve actually downloaded mods you’ve recommended and I love how in depth you are with not only Skyrim but Fallout as well (which I play a great deal of) your videos keep me occupied and I learn so much! Keep it up cause I want to see more!
Same. I started on the 360, I've beaten it twice and STILL havent truly did all the things I'd like to do on it. Especially a lot of the alchemist stuff. So much content to explore and enjoy
Kagrenac resided strictly in Vvardenfell. The Numidium was kept under Red Mountain, and that's where it stayed inactive until Tiber Septim received it from the Tribunal after the Armistice. Kagrenzel was likely, in my personal opinion, simply an outpost or fort where the Dwemer of Clan Kagren (the clan that ruled over Skyrim at the time) mined for resources within the Velothi Mountains to be distributed to other colonies. Kagrenzel's namesake comes from.. well, obviously Orby. Who probably served as a security system against those who did not wield tonal magic.
When I first ran into this place I was SO confused and very weirded out at whatever was heppening when the cage appeared, and the orb of light started circling me.
How can you still be finding content from skyrim. I wouldn’t even think all this information exist
Awesome analysis as always!
This ruin is easily one of the most stand-out experiences for me out of all my playtime in Skyrim. Found it completely by accident 6 or 7 years after release, went in with my Bosmer character and her companion Meeko, got dumped into that cavern and was petrified Meeko wouldn't survive the fall (he did, thank the gods), and by the time they saw the sun again, I had no idea what I'd just been through, or why it was even there.
Underwhelming, maybe, but still loved rediscovering that sense of unknown adventure in Skyrim again.
OMG I stumbled across the stony creek cave the other day and saw that back entrance and was like "ok, I'll go outside and try to find the other entrance then, because it probably has one and I wanna explore it" and, after exploring for a long while, I stumbled upon Kagrenzel and my immediate reaction was "nope, this will certainly put me in blackreach again". I turned around and left, and I didn't continue to search for the entrance because I thought "well surely I'll have a quest sooner or later that'll tell me where it is"...
What if the Dwemer was taken back in time where no other elves or nords lived in Tamriel yet? It isn't a far-fetch because no one knew how the Dwarves got in Tamriel even before the snow-elves or nords came. And in the process they lost all their knowledge so they work hard again just to end up in the same fate, vanishing again and again like a timeloop.
I was under the impression that, like all Elves, the Dwemer came from the Aldmer, which eventually evolved into the different forms of Elf we know today. Furthermore, it does appear that they went forward. I think people would have noticed in the past, and the Dwemer wouldn't have let the Nords and Fumner become what they became seeing as it led to the Dwemer disappearing.
Kieranite FM112 No, that's why i added that their memory about the heart of lorkhan, them disappearing, etc. is removed from their mind. So they start back again, square one and re-do all they've done just to get telported back in time.
I definitely think this place wasn't used to store the mecha, it's too small and there is no place for it to leave or enter
A concept: The whale bridge is one whole item, instead of parts. Whereas the mammoth comes in parts, so they found it more mysterious to use the mammoth bones instead
I've heard you say it a few times now - but I'm pretty sure that the 'local maps' are generated top down images of the game 'cells' (areas that make up the maps) - they are not painted/drawn as you keep saying.
That would be an absolutely stupid amount of work for the game artists to do without much value added for the investment of time but its very simple for the developers/engine to generate them for the game cells.
This is also true for how mods get free local area maps when they add new cells to the game - the engine just generates them (and from memory it has done so since Morrowind when I used to do map modding)
If they were all hand drawn, there would certainly be errors in them (just look at how many other inconsistencies there are in the game - no one is perfect!) that we could point to - to show that they're hand drawn.
8:33 Maybe that explains their airships; Snow whale flight was powered by something, yes? Maybe the dwemer harvested that material to build airships on.
Perhaps the Heart of Lorkhan is stored in Blackreach, in the "sun orb" that hovers above the large Dwemer settlement. If the theory holds that Blackreach was the main settlement of the Dwemer in Skyrim, an artifact of that great importance to the Dwemers' future could surely be kept there?
Yea I can stand by Orby acceptance of the dragonborn’s tonal shout power as a way to let them into the dungeon
I really hope we find out more about the dwemer in es6, the dwemer and what happened to jyggalag after we took his place in the shivering isles dlc in es4. Skyrim basically confirmed that to be canon at the start of sheos quest, so whatever happened to jyggalag? What happened to the dwarves? Two very important disappearances with zero clear answers.
Somethings are best left unanswered. But Bethesdas lead writer is terrible, so I wouldn't expect anything exceptional.
“Not everything we say is always true. Sometimes, even we developers speak out of personal beliefs and idealisms about certain aspects of TES. And it is NOT always correct…. many times, it is INcorrect purposely.”
- Gary Noonan
And there are some things best left unanswered. As good as it is to learn secrets, there are also certain times when you need that secret to remain a secret.
So perhaps the Disappearance of the Dwemer is one of those; it is never intended to be revealed.
Isn't it likely that the huge bones buried there are meant to be the bones of Ehlnofey (aka the Earth Bones) much like the massive bones of Ehlnofey that are found in Grahtwood in the Bone Orchard? We know from dialogue in Morrowind that Kagrenac's theories specifically involved using tonal manipulation on the Heart of Lorkhan to bend the Earth Bones into "obedience". Based on Kagrenac's theories, if Kagrenzel was a site where the dwemer performed significant tonal experiments (whether Kagrenac himself was directly involved or not, and whether it was the location where the Numidium was under construction or not) then it would make sense for it to be located at a site where the remains of Ehlnofey were physically present.
The Sightless Pit in Skyrim is a bit like this dungeon. As far as I remember, no quests are attached to it, but it does feature a strange dwarven ruin in it if I remember correctly. Might be something worth investigating in a future video.
4:03 THE INFAMOUS "MURDERED TO DEATH" LINE
This is exactly the video I wanted. No, really. I was also really curious about this place, but would have never guessed about the Dwemer language, and I'm not quite well-versed enough in lore to remember the scientist in question. Though I did know about the Numidium. That's kinda hard to forget.
Kagrenzel scared the hell out of me three separate times when I first found it. First, when the cage suddenly shot up around me. Second, when that damn SCREECHING began. And finally, when the floor turned over and I fell for what felt like forever. Like I swear, that drop has to be as deep as the Throat of the World is tall, it's ridiculous.
This has always been one of my favorite locations. And the mystery surrounding it makes it even more eerie.
You should make another mod video
Thanks for the ❤️ Nate
Just a thought about the etymology and morphology n stuff. Kagren-ac, kagren and Kagren-zel have all the same radix, you know, which makes me think they just made up kagren as a word for music/tune/tone something like that, and used it, in Kagrenac's case at least, for the name of dwarven greatest tonal architect. The same radix in Kagrenzel can then be explained by either or both; kagren in Kagrenac, kagren as music or both, because its the most important concept in dwemer culture and most important dwemer connected to it.
Great theory!
Me: Why is there a mod for spawning cliff racers!?!
Mehrunes Dagon: MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE.
8 years and there’s STILL stuff to explore.
Personally I want to see an elder scrolls, where the dwemer (seeing that defeat was imminent) decided to leave for a time to bolster their forces. And then they come back to eliminate the thalmor, and restore the falmer in exchange for their help. And then they become the big bad. I would also like to see them and falmer become playable races...
That's just what I want to see
Same
Well that’s not good writing so I hope not.
I find it suspicious how I just rediscovered this ruin in a playthrough.
I really imagine the whales in the "music city", since whales are well known for their sing
Maybe the whales were kinda masters of tonal magic, just as dragons are masters of the voice
(even there would have been pretty logic that nords annihilate the whales, they were in "competition" with the dragons they worshipped)
Perhaps the whales were what the dragons are to the nods but for the snow elves and they were also targeted in the war between nords and elves
It could be that the dwarvs learnred tonal manipulation from these beings.
Skyrim’s dunwitch building.
That would probably be that one house in Markarth that Molag Bol controls.
My though is that the orb didn't recognise us as `worthy`, remember that it dropped us. It could`ve been an elevator-like platform that would gently move us down, instead dropping us like a garbage bag to our death.
That theory fails to explain the bandits it killed in place, however.
This makes sense bcz dwemer was more logical than to fall safely on a pool,maybe it is supposed to go up or down but it got broken so it just flipped
I dont think people were supposdrd to use this entrance at all. There are basically no dwarven structures down there, so this thing was probably only used to get materials/creatures down there. The laboratory is probably on the other side of the building.
Maybe it harvested the bandit souls since the Dwemer needed a lot of soul gems to power their machines but ours would fit into a soul gem so it dumped us
I absolutely love the mystery behind the Dwemer, and I love the way you investigate and come to these conclusions, that I like to believe are very close to the truth. I honestly hope the mystery of the Dwemer is never solved just to keep watching your videos.
Numidium and Akulakhan weren't typical Dwemer machines, they had organic-like components. Most notably bones; Perhaps this was where Kagrenac grew or found the bones, the cavern being the growth/excavation chamber.
last time I was this early, the guard still had okay knees
I think you’re right about the Numidium but the bones are a red herring. assuming Tamriel geology works similar to ours, maybe the area used to be a seabed before the plates shifted and made the velothi mountains? could be explained as how the elnofey wars were said to “reshape” the world
Kagrenzel is part of the Solstheim “Ghosts of the Tribunal” quest. You rescue the curate there to retrieve the Mask of Vivek. It’s actually one of my favorite quests in Solstheim. Don’t kill the cultists though, like I did the first time. If you join them, they will remodel their sanctuary, and you will have new merchants to barter with in Solstheim, and new armor to buy, and new weapons, which are unique to the cult of “heretics”. You also won’t be stuck doing endless quests for them like you are in some of Skyrim’s factions. Once you get the Mask of Dagoth Ur in the final quest, you’ll be done with quests for them, and can just visit when you want to barter with them.
Why are the names of Dwemer ruins so difficult to pronounce?
It's hard to say.
Ba-dum *tiss*
You do get taken there through optional side quests for the Dawnguard. Sorines quest ALWAYS brought me here at least once. Often twice.
My take on how events might have transpired:
Interesting, I've never come across this in all the time I've played Skyrim and I want to begin by creating a comparison.
I know in the star wars universe a world is devastated and the dark side chaos enabled Valkorion to come back to life, with which he then decided to absorb all the life out of the planet and he wanted to do it on a galactic scale so he could conceivably live forever and never be destroyed. Maybe this kind of thing happened, but this may not have been the intention of Kagrenac and he may have wanted a semi-omnipotent useful ruler but knew the heart had to be powered some way but couldn't be certain of how.
I think he failed or became corrupted in his experiments that caused the absorption of all the Dwemer into the heart and the Restoration Orby has been involved in channelling some of that combined intelligence, rather like how you can trap souls for later use, but with many souls in one object in this case. That integration of power might not have been hypothesised or expected and so now they are without form and in chaos trying to organise themselves and need someone of great influence or great power, like the Dragonborn, to navigate events in their favour so they can have some form again and live separate from the amalgam of consciousness they've been forced to share.
Since the absorption of all Dwemer would have had to involve some technology that all of them were affected by, it would have had to have been localised in each city they existed and maybe they weren't exactly sure of what the absolute potential of this tech they had was, I think all the areas where this tech existed has been lost, forgotten, and/or misinterpreted after the conflict.
In some way, each member of the civilisation may exist simultaneously in the ruins themselves and wherever their life is being focused to or perhaps it's simply looming around aimlessly since it could be that only a tiny amount of energy was able to form something that can be understood - becoming Orby, while the rest was disfigured and became one inseparable oblivion of consciousness.
The Dwemer were far superior in technology to anyone else and it's conceivable that they were centuries ahead of current times and when everyone thinks themselves certain that Kagrenac was the reason for their disappearance, it could just be that he was only partly involved but had no idea, without the help from people of his intelligence, how to reverse the effects and considers all of them dead because they have no form and cannot directly interact with anyone to make themselves known. Just like you can capture a soul but cannot resurrect the soul back into its vessel and the consciousness has no means to communicate with you whatsoever, and if you do resurrect someone they feel like they're being tortured.
It is also possible that he did have malevolent intent and succeed in his mission but he was the one that wanted to control this god he made and knew of how he could potentially do so but failed in his attempt and because of the technological/intellectual difference between the Dwemer and other races, they can't reason at all how such an event happened. Kagrenac himself may have had no idea what happened but faced such abuse that he never tried to share anything of value because they wouldn't listen to him in the first place.
Edit:
Apparently, I was on the right lines, but it's not a new thing lol. Here (elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Disappearance_of_the_Dwarves) it states that the Dwemer race was attached to the Heart of Lorkhan in some way.
I suppose Kagrenac, being one of the brightest minds, knew that such a destructive event could occur and took precautions to exclude himself from the rituals performed or was purposefully excluded as someone who could reverse the effects if anything too bad were to occur, but the calculations were incredibly wrong.
After all, we have the opportunity to do something similar to Arniel, the conjuration master at the College of Winterhold, only using the Keening and the Dwarven Convectors. There was a lot more used by the Dwarves that they obviously all agreed to in running the experiment. If their task would have succeeded then they would have become a far more superior race and continued development but it didn't work at all, the other tech they used may have actually caused their death literally which would make my thought about them existing in some etheric, non-communicable way untrue.
Arniels experiment seemed rather simplistic, he may as well have said bippidy boppidy boop and waved the dagger around. I don't know anything about the prequel to Skyrim apart from it not being in Skyrim but maybe some aspect of the Dwarves and their influence with regard to Skyrim will be eluded to in books or quests.
Well, if it's true that the last dragonborn is an incarnation of Talos, and Talos mantled Shor/Lorkhan, this place has everything to do with us, because we ARE Lorkhan, whose heart was used to build the Numidium. That's why the security system let us in.
Well, as the Dragonborn you are given the title Ysmir by the Greybeards. Ysmir is a recurring avatar of Shor/Shezzar/Lorkhan and I believe all who have worn the title have indeed been Dragonborn themselves. You are literally a living mortal incarnation of Lorkhan.
this is my theory exactly
In those three sentences you have just said what this channel would take a 30 minute video to say. Just add a 5 minute intro about Skyrim being really big, background about who Shor and Lorkhan are, and what it would mean to be a living mortal incarnation of Lorkhan. Throw in the phrases "but... I digress" and "as always like ratings are very much appreciated" just to make it more epic nate.
Dude. Woah
@@mosherubenstein8248 you forgot "so without further ado, let’s do further" :D
Thought before watching the video: honestly when I went here in game I thought this had something to do with like sending the falmer/snow elves into a trap and it was part of the “betrayal” that is spoken of. It makes me curious though like what powers the orb is it magic or steam power like every thing else. I don’t know? I imagine in the past the dwarves sending in the snow elves and using the glow as a lure because of the sun god auriel and it being a glowing light. Then when they get to it it does that stuff. Anyway ima watch the video 👌🏼
Nate, I've got a couple details for your 10 tiny details series (that I don't remember you covering).
Detail 1- There are three, not two pregnant characters in Skyrim: Dinya Balu, Seren in Dawnstar and thirdly, Rhaida in Markarth's Treasury House. You can find this out if you speak to Eltrys in the Temple of Talos.
Detail 2- South of Hillgrund's Tomb, there is a a fallen tree crossing a deep river gorge. You can use this a bridge if you like. My detail for you is this: on this bridge is a a bandit who will only fight you if you go on the bridge itself. I believe this is a reference to Little John who famously fought with Robin Hood on a bridge/ford.
Something else?- This might be evidence that the Dark Brotherhood are being manipulated by Daedra. The book Sithis, found in their sanctuary, ends with a sentence in some other language which explicitly mentions Hermaeus Mora ("Herma Mora").
Has anyone tried going to Kagrenzel before they have discovered they are “dragonborn”? I’d be curious to know if the outcome is different then.
kagrenzel sounds like slang for taking a dump "Imma drop a kagrenzel"
*reads this while actually taking a Kagrenzel*
The first time I found these ruins I was playing VR. The feeling of surprise and momentary terror when falling were priceless.
"Bear in mind, Skyrim's local maps were all hand-drawn by the game's artists"
Umm... no, no they aren't. They're created dynamically by rendering the objects from above with some weird edge technique that I don't know the specifics of.
If you change the position of any objects or add more in the Creation Kit, the local map will be updated to reflect this.
Heck, if you use an unpaused menus mod, you can see things _moving_ on the local map, notably water and some other effects.
It's entirely possible these were just placed in the void as reference for copy+pasting while they were designing the tunnel, or maybe they _were_ placed so they'd show up on the map.
You can see a bunch of things outside the walls, or weird cut-off behind rubble, in the local map.
you are my go to guy for Fallout and Skyrim lore. I know I can always read up on the lore but waht's the fun in that when I can watch your videos that make the lore so clear.
In anniversary edition there's a quest through the companions for this place called family heirloom. It's not "technically" in it, but the quest description says get the heirloom from kagrenzel - however you go through the whole place to get back to the cave to pick up the heirloom in a place that you can't access from entering the cave.
if you're quick enough, you can escape the cage after activating the orb. the orb will do its rounds, the cage floor will open, and then reset.
why
Aquaman: But what about the whales?!
Game theory: the Emperor himself actually commission Kagronac in secret to build him a mighty war machine. That why we are let in; cause we, like the Emperor, are Dragonborn.
Or perhaps we were let in as the dragon born is a master of tonal magic through the thuum and if the theory for the snow whales are true then maybe it only let's in being's who know tonal magic such as the dwemer were
When I have to go to Stony Creek Cave for some random quests, I do always enter it via Kagrenzel, because there are some Falmer, a Moonstone ore vein and a Gold ore vein. Hey Nate: 194.000 klicks in only 3 days, I can only say WOW, so lovely to see how many people still love SKYRIM!!! With the Dawnguard DLC comes the quest "Lost to the Ages", where we have to open the tonal lock of a gate by shooting arrows at some resonators, but they require a special sequence. The same goes for the Attunement Sphere we receive from Septimus Signus to enter Blackreach.
Nate is the Alt Shift X of The Elder Scrolls. So entertaining and informative!
Love how ESO basically took a theory and made it canon
The rumbling sounds could be explained by seismic activity, we are near a large mountain range, tectonic action is what creates mountains.
Another small addition to this theory: Dragons are minor gods, and their language is a form of tonal magic. It makes sense that if Kagrenac was making a god, and since the dwemer were so invested into tonal magic, the Numidium would have the tonal powers of one as well. Kagrenac may have studied with the greybeards as well to understand the thu'um.
I’ve been thinking, since the Dragonborn’s shout is tonal magic (sound magic), he/she with the correct 3 words to the shout may be able to learn dwarven tonal magic and create the same tools/instruments the deep elves did!!
idk why, but i feel as if there are holes to that theory.
Doom Guy • 45 years ago because they’re different kinds of tonal magic. Shouts are tied to the soul, and are powered by the soul, whereas tonal magic is powered by a surgically precise use of sound, and I think dragon shouts are going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use, even with recreations. They’d have to basically start from square one to recreate it and rebuild it all from scratch around shouts.
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
These are different types of tonal manipulation, just like restoration and conjuration are different types of magic.
You wouldn't be able to make the deep elves' Tonal Architecture by using the dovah's Thu'um for the same reason why you wouldn't be able to conjure daedra by healing your wounds.
Dylan Yarbray Oh thanks
"if there were mammoths buried below kag then you'd think we'd find their skulls" okay sure but where are the skulls of these creatures? Reasonably sure that snow whales have heads too
It's more about if Bethesda had the intention to put specifically mammoth remains in the cave, then they would have most likely used the mammoth skull model, of which there are numerous already in-game.
I don't know if you've ever talked about this before, and I really enjoy your current content a lot !! very relaxing and informative, and I like your voice. but would you ever do a Skyrim playthrough on the channel ? I think it would be interesting to see :>
yes!
Whales are sound-specific creatures, the frequencies that whales use were certainly in some way very important to Dvemers.And the reason why they kept them in such a cave is probably due to the excellent acoustics that this deep cave has. Since Dwemers themselves used tonal manipulation, this is probably the reason why they needed whales in some way. Probably to produce some kind of "sound". This is just my theory, but probably a lot of people thought the same thing
I believe they were simply researching the whales, it would be weird if all the dwemer relied on such beings in their magicks, seeing as the race was mainly found in Morrowind, a place where these whales were never found.
Kagranak is most likely a title indicating his mastery of sound (being that the Kagren means "music")
Both Elephants and whales use incredibly low frequency sounds to communicate over long distances. The Dwarves probably lived underground because they saw what dragons could do (don't know the time line) and wanted to replicate their word weapons so studied them. This proved dangerous so opted to study the frequency of other less dangerous creatures.
Some time and science later the first dragonborn are made! This was the breakthrough they need in understanding tonal manipulation. How to successfully replicate results. Next step was to steal these dragon souls to power their machines, this is also the job for the dragonborn.
Obtaining the heart was a fortunate accident. With no more need for dragon souls there is no more need for dragonborn so they got rid of them.