The mysterious sudden disappearance of the Dwemer race centuries ago has left many open questions to which scholars and archaeologists have been unable to answer.  One such question that struck me whilst searching the bleak halls of the Santaki Delve is why the Dwemer here incorporated so many facial images into their architecture, large machines, and even the Spheres and Centurions that patrol their subterranean fortresses to this very day.

Could it be that theirs was a dystopian state?  A totalitarian or authoritarian society that felt the need for their citizens to feel as if they were being watched through every wall, observed by every machine, and minded by every Automaton?

Or perhaps the almost uniform images were that of the Dwarven ruler of the time.  A cult of personality, the omniscient monarch’s image emblazoned in every structure.  An ever-present symbol to the citizens of an ever-expanding empire that they are all part of a collective, and subject to the legitimate rule of one leader whom they will almost certainly never meet or see.

Or maybe it was the people’s own insecurities that led to the forging of such images.  For almost every society defines people by the jobs they do, and more and more of these jobs were being taken up by the machines and automatons.  Perhaps these were but the reflections of a people struggling to hold onto their identities.

I fear we may never discover the answers to these and the many more important questions about the Dwemer’s sudden disappearance; but then again, I never would have thought I would get to meet the last King of the Ayleids on the ancient battlefields of Glenumbra Moors either.

S.K

As I descend into the dark and stuffy corridors of the Santaki delve in the Alik’r, I can hear a distant monotonous symphony of hissing steam, clicking gears, and the scuttling of metallic limbs echoing through the rock caverns.  Whilst the architects of these underground settlements are centuries gone, their creations live on.  A self-sustaining society of machines that never gets old; yet never learns, never builds, never grows, and never advances.  This is the stagnant society of the automatons.

The first mechanisms I encounter are the Dwarven Spheres.  Seemingly their sole purpose is to patrol and guard.  They roll up and down the tunnels, or through hidden pipes in the rock walls.  Only when they sense an intruder do they unfurl to their full height like a mechanical flower from a metal bud.  With a giant axe on one limb, and a crossbow on the other, they make for deadly adversaries.  Yet once unfolded, with an expert thrust of a bladed weapon, one might be able to expose their vulnerable cogs and gears, and like most machinery, their inner workings are particularly susceptible to fire.

Next, I meet the Dwarven Spiders whose function it is to perform maintenance on the other machines and keep the city itself breathing.  They travel the delve freely through steam pipes and can be heard in every wall and ceiling, or skittering across the cavern floors, always just out of sight.  Small, quick and agile, they fight with their sharp pointed legs and small lightning bolts from hidden instruments beneath their shell.  Alone they are but an irritant, but where there is one inevitably there are more nearby, and like skeevers defending a burrow, they can overwhelm much larger adversaries by sheer weight of their numbers.

Finally, I cross paths with a huge Dwarven Centurion, easily the height and width of three stout men.  There can be little doubt of the duty of these heavily-armoured giants, rarely do they wander far from their sentry posts.  With a hammer on one arm, and a mechanical axe on the other, pistons the size of tree trunks, and armour as thick a Nord’s skull, only the most fool-hardy would stand toe-to-toe with one.  Their strength however is also their weakness, for their bulk makes them slow and cumbrous and an agile warrior or an adept mage might dare to attempt to tear one apart from a distance.   But woe-betide if they should begin to run low on stamina or mental vigour, for once a Centurion has a foe cornered they will blow steam into the eyes to blind them, before battering them into pulp with their mighty crushing blows.

S.K

Just beyond the steep southern walls of Sentinel lays the Rain Catcher Fields.  An array of johads that capture moisture from upon the desert’s air, whether from the sparse rainfall or morning dew, which can be a vital source of precipitation in coastal deserts such as the Alik’r.  This water is then carried into the city by the workers in large earns.

But now the water stored in the johads has become tainted, giving off a peculiar taste and smell which has attracted giant Assassination Beetles.  These hostile insects are attacking the workers, both at the johads, and in their camps.  If we do not put an end to this contamination, then soon the city of Sentinel could run short of fresh water.

S.K