Study of Ayleid Architecture in Cyrodiil
A report on the construction materials, architectural styles and municipal planning of the Heartland High Elves before the Alessian revolt. Published in the one-hundred and sixtieth year of the Fourth Era under Titus Mede the Second, Chosen by Akatosh as ruler of all the lands of Men.
Septima Valentia, Imperial Geographic Society
Throughout Nibenay and the Heartland travellers can readily spy the ruins of Ayleid construction dotting the landscape. Their white columns glistening in sun- or moonlight are readily used as travellers' way-markers and milestones, and stand in contrast to the castles demolished by Tiber Septim or the ebony eyesores that remain as a legacy of the Oblivion Crisis[1]. But few scholars have embarked on real study of these structures. Perhaps it is the undead and magical constructs that dwell within (quite apart from bandits and rogue mages, who readily use these old ruins as shelter). Possibly it is simply the bitter memory of slavery and oppression under cruel elven masters.
Nevertheless, in collaboration with noted archaeologists and various travelling mercenaries I have embarked in study of nine Ayleid sites in the region around Lake Rumare. The discoveries I have made are, I feel, sure to add greatly to our knowledge of the mysterious Heartland High Elves.
Let us begin with our knowledge of Ayleid construction materials. Fortunately, enough has not been looted over the millennia that we can gain a very good idea of what materials the Ayleids used in constructing their majestic cities.
The main material used in Ayleid construction seems to have been a marble-like stone of exceedingly brilliant white colour with a unique sheen of which we at first could not discern the cause. After solution and magical probing we discerned that this rock was filled with microscopic flecks of gold which served as cause of the incomparable and particularly brilliant shine. I do not believe this stone came about naturally, and suspect some kind of magical process.
The Ayleids built everything, it seems, out of this white-gold stone. Temples, city walls and monuments were all made out of the material. They carved it into bricks, large blocks, statues and columns. I have strong suspicions that White-Gold Tower itself was made using this extraordinary substance[2].
The Ayleids seem to have liked wide, open spaces throughout their cities - windows and open colonnades were very common. Most windows were simply open to the air, but others seem to have used a special kind of glass, reported in a pre-Revolt account from a Firsthold diplomat:
...Our degenerated descendants in the Heartland are obsessively fond of a material they call "varla-glass". The glass is a magickal creation which their petty kings use for windows and skylights. Using petty magick their craftsmen can shade the glass all sorts of colour so that they can make pictures in windows out of it (a crude mockery of the Crystal Tower's world-windows)...
More information is provided by Ayleid sources themselves. These sources are rare and scattered, but at least one is relatively well known, the Lament for Delodiil by an unknown poet.
...Woe for the [Temple/Palace] of Light Neverending!
[Sunrise/aurora]-windows will never be again, Merid-Nunda weeping!
Woe, woe, woe!...
...[Starlight?]-glass is gone from [Nirn/memory]
Merid's [image/statue] is forlorn!
The ten thousand shimmering lights of the Lady's Image - blotted out!
Woe for the bare-thighed[3] goddess, her [sunrise/aurora]-statue has no supplicants forevermore
Woe for the [brilliance/splendour/gold]-crowned Lady of Limitless Light
For whom slaves were slain in tiger-sport
For whom heathens had hearts cut out
For whom northern men fought each other in blood-games
At the opening of your temple, O Lady
When your osprey-winged statue was built of [starlight-glass?]
In ten thousand colours, to stand as guardian 'gainst the [heretical/corrupted/morally threatening] folk of foul Abagarlas...
(I apologise for any aesthetic error in the poetry. Valerio was a great translator of Nordic texts, but his facility with Ayleidoon writings left much to be desired.)
From the above extract of Delodiil we see two references to "starlight-glass" which I believe is the varla-glass mentioned by the Firsthold diplomat quoted. Of particular note is the reference to multiple colours or hues.
It seems that varla-glass had a number of uses apart from the aesthetic. I present as evidence an extract from The Sack of Talvinke, part of an old (and mostly lost) Nord saga called The Kynesfuhrdottarenssenavel (Loosely translated as "The Song of Kyne's Four Sons and Daughters):
The Elf-captain grimaced gorily as he saw sunwards the Winged Bull,
Making murder of his standard-bearers, heavy hands hewing huge sword-strokes[4]
Drew his sun-spear, held out starlight-shield...
...The Great Bull gored the grim Elf-captain, unhorsing him,
shattering shield into rainbow shards, piercing his heart with horrid horn
Left him as raven's-fodder, not to walk the whale's-way
But to dwell in a poisonous pavilion, Hellheim where are wicked wraiths...
Of note is the reference to the Elf's shield being related to starlight and being multi-coloured ("rainbow shards"). Was varla-glass used to make armour and weapons? It seems likely among the decadent Ayleidoon.
Also notable are ancient references to Ayleid ammunition as "glass arrows" laden with "killing magick". We recovered glass shards from seven known battlefields and under magical testing we discerned that they had been enchanted with shock, ice and fire magic among other spells. It seems that the Ayleids used varla-glass, impregnated with a one-use enchantment, as ammunition for their bows and ballistas. Why they tolerated such an inefficiency remains a mystery.
The Ayleids used the celebrated Welkynd stones to provide light throughout their dwellings. The stones were somehow pulled down from Aetherius and collected by Ayleid wells, where they were cut, polished and magically treated before being put to use.
It is oft said that Welkynd stones had many more purposes than simple lighting. An unknown writer during the reign of Empress Hestra describes Nibenese recollections of the Ayleid civilisation:
...The rude folk who dwell along the River are much affrighted by the old ruins. They describe great strands of evil varliance and welkynd-craft that made the sky into a spider's web. From the "wheel of White-Gold" they say this wicked magick allowed the Heartland slave-drivers to spy on them from above and walk impossible distances at single steps. Every city, they say, had a great welkynd which fed other stones with the Ayleids' power, and this power ultimately flowed through Chim el-Adabal (Know they not that it serves Men, not foul elves?) from the heaven, whence it descended through a great beam of starlight which fell on the Imperial Tower and could be seen through all the land night and day. The foolish superstition of country folk truly knows no bounds...
To make furniture Ayleids used metal and a variety of woods. Strangely, all artifacts uncovered have been various types of jungle wood, which seems to add evidence in favour of the oft-recurring "Cyrodiilic jungle" theory.[5]
From excavations and geomancy at various sites we have uncovered that Ayleids habitually built their settlements in a circle or wheel-form. The most important organs of civic life - temples, palaces, storehouses - would be at the very centre. Immediately next to them were the villas of the elite. Outward, would be gradually less important buildings until a circular stone wall marked the perimeter of the city. Below the city was a vast warren of catacombs, forming an undercity which housed slaves, criminals and the tombs of the dead. This network of tunnels was lit by welkynd stones. Often segments of these undercities are all that remain of Ayleid settlements, after millennia of the above-ground areas being looted for use in contemporary building projects.
Ultimately, though they are long deceased, the Ayleids' fascinating material culture is perhaps the only way they still live on.
- [1]Where they have not been plundered for scrap metal and building material, of course.
- [2]Our request to chip off a piece of the Tower's outer facing was regrettably denied.
- [3]Meridia is customarily represented with wholly bared legs. My studies of her have not yet furnished me with an answer as to why this is so.
- [4]The Nord sources seem extremely confused on whether Morihaus was a (winged) bull, a man, a minotaur or even a man-headed bull. Is there any way of unravelling this historical puzzle?
- [5]I myself find it doubtful. Archaeology has found no traces of jungle soils anywhere in Cyrodiil's past. If the jungle was changed to grassland, why is there no evidence of such a change at any point in history?