It's not outrageous to suggest this game mechanic may be rooted in lore. We know the Nords were crafting things with it at the time. A few of the Dragon Priest masks specifically need to be tempered with it, as well. If the devs had chosen, they could have simply added higher level Draugr weapons with similar visuals. Draugr only ever use two types of weapons - Ancient Nord in various stages of quality (some of the weapons do more damage but have the same visual design) and Ebony. You never really see bandits wearing glass or anything. If you examine the Aldmeri world view on Lorkhan and realize what Ebony actually is, it may indeed be a blasphemous substance to them.ДЄs for Skyrim's leveling - it's much better than Oblivion's or even Morrowind's. While the obvious insult would have been desecrating the Eye of Magnus I can't help feel some other actions may have compounded the Falmer reaction. Long enough for Saarthal to become a bustling population center and nexus of magical and martial study. They only sacked the city after living peacefully alongside the proto-Nords for quite some time. That is, the topic of weapon design.ДЄs for the blasphemy, apparently the Nords did SOMETHING or maybe even various things to piss off the Falmer. It's Occam's Razor at work.ДЄlso, I saw someone on the forum refer to the artist's comment as 'offhand'. Just that the evidence you've put forth can all be easily explained away. So it feels like you're casting it aside because you simply don't like it, rather than on the account of contrary evidence.ДЄnd I'm not saying you don't have any contrary evidence. And especially in this case, I feel, because we already know that you dislike the design as a Dunmer design. But I feel you need better reasons if you want to convince anyone else. You could also say the artist was off his rocker (nothing new, art interpreters have been disagreeing with the stated intentions of artists for centuries). But that doesn't help you in any regard here. I do think the swirls are a fair point (although to be truthful nothing entirely new to Ebony weapons).ДЄt the very most, you could say that the the developer's comment only referred to the ebony weapons (which it did) and not the armor. And honestly I'm not putting a lot of faith in the authority of Skyrim's leveling system to determine lore. There is nothing that has ever suggested that forging with ebony might be blasphemous. Let's reject all other evidence and blindly follow what they tell us!Д®h, I'm personally not convinced Pilaf. But an artist said it in an art book so it must be true! He couldn't possibly be mistaken, misinformed or having a false memory of a rejected idea. 'The dear leader said it so it must be true!' Doesn't explain the Nordic swirl patterns or the fact Alduin considers it an ancient Nordic weapon. Blind appeal to authority is one of the worst types of fallacy IMO. Apparently because a dev said it it must be the gospel truth. It makes more sense for a battle axe with swirls than for a foreign weapon, honestly.Д®dit: Further on the topic of ebony weapons - I notice people on the forums are attempting yet again to dismiss the notion that they're of any design other than Dunmeri. I thought that was exclusive to Dragonbane, the Katana. Speaking of ebony, in a certain light Nordic swirls are apparent on the Ebony battleaxe, and when I used it against Alduin with my newest character he gave me the 'Weapons of my ancient enemies' speech.

Skyrim tesv edit