of the Descent of the Dwemer and Foundation of Dwemereth
The Dwemer, whose name in old Aldmeris signifies "deep folk" or "deep elves", were a distinct element within Aldmeri society from an early period. They were the natural philosophers of the Aldmer, inclined toward the study of matter and mechanism rather than toward the observances that governed the religious life of their kin, and they were tolerated, though not always welcomed, throughout the long centuries during which the Aedra were openly worshipped. The withdrawal of the Aedra from Mundus at the close of the Dawn did not produce the dissent of the Dwemer. It rendered that dissent intolerable to the remainder of the Aldmer.
The Dwemer interpreted the withdrawal as a betrayal and concluded that only the Daedric Princes, who had declined Lorkhan's deception and retained their essence undiminished in Oblivion, possessed power sufficient to warrant the attention of a mortal people.
This conclusion did not, in Dwemer thought, entail the worship of the Princes. The Dwemer drew from the conduct of the Aedra the general principle that the et'Ada were not to be trusted as a class, and that the Princes were therefore to be regarded as objects of study and, where circumstances permitted, of negotiation, rather than of veneration. The distinction was fundamental to Dwemer doctrine and was not understood by the other Aldmer, who registered only the Dwemer rejection of the established gods.
The reaction of the Aldmer was hostile and took coordinated form. Their opposition was led by Trinimac, the greatest of Auri-El's champions from the closing of the Dawn, who regarded the Dwemer rejection of the gods as heresy and rode out at the head of a substantial host to halt the exodus by force. The Dwemer, who had not yet developed the military tradition for which they would later be known, were unequal to this opposition and were being defeated when Mehrunes Dagon intervened on their behalf, destroying Trinimac and scattering his followers. The full account of this engagement is given in the Radiation of the Mer. The Dwemer, thus delivered, completed their withdrawal: they assembled their population and their accumulated knowledge and migrated, first eastward to modern day Morrowind and subsequently downward, establishing the earliest of their underground freeholds in the period that followed. From this point the Dwemer were a subterranean people by preference rather than by exile. They continued to traverse the surface as their purposes required, and they raised substantial works in the open air where their engineering demanded it, but the centre of their civilisation was situated below ground thereafter. The realm they constructed beneath the surface, named Dwemereth, was founded at the opening of the Daedric Era.
Of the Dwemer Belief
The relationship between the Dwemer and Mehrunes Dagon is the central peculiarity of their civilisation. What the Dwemer obtained from this patronage was knowledge on the art of dominance, exercised over matter and over mind alike: the assertion of will over substance, and the ordering of lesser things to the purpose of something greater. This doctrine of control was the organising conviction of Dwemer culture.
The Dwemer ordered themselves accordingly, into a society of fixed and clearly distinguished functions in which authority was held by those who possessed knowledge in the greatest measure. The natural philosophers and the masters of the deep arts stood at the head of this order; the remaining functions of the realm were arranged beneath them and directed toward the purposes the philosophers determined. The needs of the individual Dwemer were subordinate to the requirements of the whole, and the worth of a Dwemer was reckoned principally by the function performed and the knowledge commanded.
Politically, Dwemereth was not a single unified state but was partitioned into regions, each region formed of a group of closely related cities, and each region governing its own internal affairs with little reference to the others. Above the regions stood a single king, whose authority extended in principle across the whole of Dwemereth but whose direct power over the interior of any one region was correspondingly limited. This arrangement persisted for the duration of the Dwemer presence beneath Auridon. The region called Ghramaz-dum was the division of the kingdom roughly corresponding to the location of the island.
Of the Deep Cities
The cities of the Dwemer were constructed predominantly underground, of dwarven metal and worked stone, and they drew upon the heat of the deep earth to drive the machinery and the mechanisms that sustained them. The Dwemer continued to raise structures at shallower depths and upon the surface, but these served subordinate purposes. The scholar who composed the Dwemer Inquiries observed that the shallower chambers, however grand in their construction, held little of genuine civic importance, serving instead as stores, warehouses for trade with surface settlements, and barracks for patrols of the upper ground. The structures of true consequence lay far below, beneath a threshold the same scholar termed the "Geocline", past which the city proper was held to begin.
"My studies, and this text, have focused heavily on the fact that Dwemer archaeological sites west of Vvardenfell seem to be built at much greater depths than their counterparts near the Red Mountain. I believe there was a specific threshold to which Dwarven excavators would dig before the construction of vital structures would begin.
I have referred to this threshold as the "Geocline," but I have found that to often be redundant with the Deep Venue of a colony. Still, there is some variation in the actual depth of a Deep Venue, whereas the Geocline is always the marker where I reason the City proper begins.
Tunnels and chambers at more shallow depths, while often grand in their architectural style, appear to have served little in the way of critical civic purpose. Surplus stores of food, warehouse chambers that may have been used in trading with nearby surface settlements, or barracks for topside patrols are common above the Geocline."
— Dwemer Inquiries, Vol III —
The works that filled these cities were of a kind no surface people of the age could produce. Foremost among them were the animunculi, the mechanical servants of the Dwemer: constructs of metal that moved and acted at the direction of their makers, ranging from small automata to the great centurions. The animunculi of the founding period and the early Daedric Era were animated by the fossilised hearts of dead gods, a method that required extensive labour for each major work and that consequently limited the number of such constructs the Dwemer could field. The construction of animunculi grew exponentially when Azura introduced the soul gems to the Dwemer, greatly reducing the costs of production.The animunculi of the founding period and the early Daedric Era were animated by the fossilised hearts of dead gods, a method that required extensive labour for each major work and that consequently limited the number of such constructs the Dwemer could field. The Dwemer suffered no shortage of the souls these gems required. The enslavement of the Falmer, the snow elves who had taken refuge in the deep places of Dwemereth, furnished a supply of captive subjects, and the Goblin Gate furnished a further one. The supply of souls was never afterward a constraint upon Dwemer production.