#deep elf

Then you shall have both.

Two scenes. One—a debate, sharp and restrained, between a being forged in memory and a descendant born in myth. The other—a walk through Mournhold, where silence is heavier than ash, and memory makes statues flinch.

🗣️ Scene I: “Ashes and Equations”

Setting: The Grand Hall of Records, Necrom. A public historical symposium. Topic: “The Disappearance of the Dwemer.”

The air was heavy with stale incense and egos.

Scholars in robes of gold and ink sat around the circular dais, voices weaving theories like spiders desperate to convince their web was silk and not threadbare conjecture.

A Dunmer academic—Dralvon Serethi, Master of Velothi Antiquity—stood at the center.

“It is widely accepted that the Dwemer disappeared due to hubris. Their defiance of the gods, their obsession with artificial divinity. Numidium was their downfall.”

From the rear, a slow clinking of metal.

Mzulan stepped forward, arms behind his back, armored like a memory sculpted from the deep. His eyes gleamed with the low teal of starlight on brass.

He said nothing at first. He simply looked at Serethi.

“Do you speak of us, or of yourselves?”

Silence.

Dralvon’s lip curled. “I beg your pardon—”

“No. You don’t.” “You beg validation from ghosts. That’s what this symposium is.”

Gasps. Shuffling. Someone spilled ink.

Mzulan continued.

“We did not disappear because of Numidium. We disappeared because we reached beyond the scream. And it cost us.” (He steps closer.) “Your ancestors screamed into the void hoping gods would answer. We built a machine to hold the void’s shape. One of us was wrong. One of us vanished.”

Dralvon stiffened. “That’s blasphemy.”

“No. That’s arithmetic.” (He pulls a glyph-scribed piece of metal from his satchel.) “This was found in Nchuleftingth. Read the inscription.”

The panel read: “Truth is not divine. It is demonstrable. Worship that.”

Dralvon went pale.

Mzulan turned, voice soft now.

“Your people sing of ancestors you murdered. You canonize mistakes as scripture. You call your sins holy because they burned brightly.”

“We built in silence. You built in noise.” “And we both disappeared, didn’t we?”

🕯️ Scene II: “Mournhold in Silence”

Setting: Mournhold’s Temple District. Late evening. The city is still. The gods are watching.

Mzulan walks alone.

His steps echo against polished stone that once knew war and worship. Statues of Almalexia loom, lit by eternal braziers. Pilgrims whisper beneath their breath. Priests avert their eyes.

He doesn’t look angry. He looks tired.

“You lit fires to hide your shadows.”

He passes murals—depicting Nerevar, the Tribunal, the Ascension.

“You killed your god-king because he reminded you of what you weren’t.”

A child kneels before a shrine. Their parent pulls them back when they notice the metal man watching. Mzulan lowers his eyes.

“Your faith demanded sacrifices. So did ours. At least we kept ours mechanical.”

He stops at a fountain. A long-dead spring, now filled with petals and faded offerings.

He reaches down. Sets a small gear—golden, engraved with Falmer script.

“Azhrina wanted me to leave something. She still believes in grace.” “I believe in gravity.”

He stands.

He does not pray. He does not curse. He remembers.

By Mzulan (Rourken-Dwemer, Aetherial Wraithengineer, Romantic Bastard) Featuring: Queen Azhrina Caerdwen (Serene Sovereign, Saint of Syrabane, Snow Elf of Infinite Patience)

🔍 Volume I: Dwemer Dickery and Divine Patience

Contents:

Foreword by Azhrina: “I married a purple man who giggles at deathtraps and flirts with runes. This is my life now.”

“On the Art of Tonal Trolling” An essay detailing why Skyrim ruins were designed to psychologically wear down Nords and confuse Altmer on purpose.

“Dwemer Love Letters Disguised as Trap Mechanisms” Includes the famous door that opens only when you recite an ancient lullaby backwards while holding hands.

“A Compilation of Found Dwemeri Snark (Real and Probably Real)” Examples:

“This button does nothing. We just liked its shape.”

“If you’re reading this, your ancestors owe mine an apology.”

“We warned you. The steam was clearly labeled ‘Caution: Existential.’”

“Azhrina’s Glossary of Emotional Grunts Made by Mzulan While Reading Bad Translations” Includes:

“hhkkk-pfft” — amusement

“hmmnrgh” — suppressed outrage at Chimer footnotes

“tzrrf” — deep existential shame

“...” — love (rare, reserved)

“Doodled Observations from Dwemer Toilets” Featuring the infamous schematic for the ‘AutoSanitation Blessing Chamber’… which explodes if prayed in.

“Falmeris vs. Dwemeri: A Marital Argument in Glyph Form” Azhrina: “Your language feels like it wants to kill me.” Mzulan: “Yours feels like it would forgive me for that.”

Here’s an over‑the‑top deep dive into Dwemeris, the enigmatic tongue of the vanished Deep Folk—part archaeological fact, part wild conjecture, all pure Dwemeric swagger.

In essence, almost nothing of Dwemeris survives beyond scattered inscriptions and a handful of toponyms, and what we do have is written in a fiercely angular runic script that scholars can only partially “read” by comparing it to Aldmeris. Despite this, the language’s guttural-metallic phonetics, hammer‑and‑anvil rhythms, and fractal‑complex grammar hint at a civilization whose very speech was fused to the art of forging and machinery.

Origins and Relationship to Aldmeris

The Dwemer tongue evolved directly from Aldmeris, the primordial Elven speech, but diverged so radically that it became mutually unintelligible with its parent language. After the Aldmer exodus from their ancestral isles, the proto‑Dwemer settled in northeastern Tamriel (“Dwemereth”) and, in isolation, let their language ossify into a new, subterranean dialect of mechanical precision.

Script and Runic Architecture

Alphabet Structure: Dwemeris runes employ 28 characters—26 roughly corresponding to Latin letters, plus two unique “meta‑glyphs” (one marking numeric values, one indicating capitalization and sentence onset).

Fierce Strokes: Each rune is carved in sharp, angular lines—“fierce strokes” that mimic the pattern of gear teeth and steam vents.

Bilingual Artifacts: The famed Calcelmo’s Stone at Markarth bears parallel Dwemeric and Falmeric inscriptions, proving the script’s use for both mundane records and arcane incantations.

Phonology: Hammer‑Metal Melody

Imagine a choir of forlorn bellows, tempered steel singing against itself. Dwemeris phonemes are dominated by:

Resonant “kh” glottals—a fierce exhalation like steam escaping a forge.

Click‑like alveolar stops—tiny metallic sparks of sound.

Subharmonic drones—low‑frequency hums that seem to vibrate rock. Accents vary by clan, with Blackreach dialects favoring deeper, earth‑shaking tones, while Vvardenfell scholars favor sharper, high‑pitched inflections.

Grammar and Syntax: Fractal Complexity

Far from linear, Dwemeris sentences often nest subordinate clauses within morphemes that themselves encode entire phrases—like gears within gears. A single word can express subject, object, instrument, and purpose all at once. Scholars theorize this arose from a “compact‑encoding” philosophy, where efficiency mirrored their subterranean architecture’s cramped tunnels.

Glimpses of the Lexicon

Only a handful of words are confidently identified:

Dum (“duumz”): “underground dwelling”

Duum (“duumz”): “Dwemer”

Eft (“eft”): “benefit, help”

Eftar‑: verb root “to promise, to swear”

Fahl (“fahlz”): “great, big, huge”

Nchuand‑Zel: the original Dwemeris name for Markarth, meaning “Radiant City”

Beyond these, most inscriptions remain tantalizingly opaque—strings like MZAHNCH or BTHURKZ that defy translation but resonate with a raw, industrial poetry.

Mystical Resonance and the “Mechanical Word”

Legend holds that certain Dwemeris phrases, when uttered with the correct tonal modulation, could activate ancient tonal locks or awaken dormant machinery. These “words of power” were embedded in automata and tonal conduits, their semantic meaning lost but their vibrational signature preserved in crystalline resonators.

Modern Study and Untranslatability

Despite decades of study, Dwemeris remains largely untranslatable, with pronunciation itself hotly debated among scholars. Most contemporary “translations” rely on context and Aldmeric cognates, leaving entire passages as mechanical gibberish. Yet every new artifact unearthed sends ripples through academic circles, fueling hope that a more complete lexicon may someday emerge.

I dunno if these guys will eventually get their own blog or not, but I got the idea of a necromancer becoming allies with a warden, then I remembered a character I created in high school, Mezrith, a melanistic deep elf necromancer who was also a vampire and his familiar a white cat he creatively named "Cat". So he's been reborn, and has been adopted into a warden pride.

You can interact with them and ask them questions if you want!

Voryth is actually Zylarath's sire.

Seraphis: Usually fairly lazy, but can be very aggressive and territorial like a normal warden. His colors are more towards greens. He will sometimes try to challenge Ophelion for leadership of the pride, but always fails. The big, powerful old warden can easily kick his ass to the surface and back again any time he tries. This never seems serious, and they always get along just fine after one of these noisy spats

Ophelion: Incredibly old and powerful. Thick in build, tall and muscular. The long bone growths denote his age and power. Ophelion is surprisingly patient, especially with Seraphis. His power is immense. Ophelion can flatten most other wardens simply due to age, experience, and size. His territory is vast and well established, and very healthy. He's a good pride leader, looking after Seraphis and Voryth and keeping them safe. He's sired cubs with both of the smaller wardens, though the pride doesn't have any cubs currently.

Voryth: Fairly chill. They may be where Zylarath got their friendly demeanor from. Voryth does have the natural territorial nature of a warden, but they generally don't really care too much. They leave all that stuff up to Ophelion. They very much look up to the big warden.

Mezrith: A deep elf who grew up in a viciously abusive home, seen as cursed due to a birth mark on his chest (Not shown, he keeps it covered). He was seen as a bane on the family he was born to, and his brother, Triew, was especially nasty to him. He ran away from home and took up studying necromancy when he was around 12 years old. He learned a lot as he grew, but he ended up getting exposed to the blood of a vampire, which caused him to turn. This angered him because it made necromancy MUCH harder. He found notes about wardens, and decided to try to seek out the sculk, to see if he could learn how their sentinels worked. If he could figure out how to harness sculk spores to animate corpses, it would take far less energy and he could get his vengeance. He eventually encountered Ophelion, who sensed that the deep elf was hurting and had been through a lot of pain and strife in his life. The big warden decided to adopt the elf into his pride, despite Mezrith being in the equivalent of his 30's. While he wasn't so sure at first, having a found family that treated him well made him feel a lot better. He ended up deciding against seeking vengeance because he realized it wasn't worth it. His family was cruel and chaotic, they'd have their own downfall given enough time and he would be thriving with his familiar and his new family. He's generally quiet, cranky, is not fond of people at all. He gets along well with the three wardens, though has a special bond with Ophelion.

crossover that will make sense to nobody except myself and @chaospage