Speculation on the true purposes of the Drastic Artifacts.

It's clear that Daedric politics are extremely complex, and that the relationship between the Princes and the Mundus in particular is not as it seems at the surface level, if only because the Princes often seem rather more obsessed with mortal affairs than their supposed refusal to take part in the creation of the Mundus would imply.

This interest in mortal affairs possibly indicates an interest in or even part of Lorkhan's plan to orchestrate Amaranth. And if we're talking about Amaranth, we're talking about CHIM. If we're talking about CHIM, then we may as well talk about the rest of the Walking Ways.

The Daedric Princes collectively do seem to go out of their way to help select mortal Walk the Ways. The most obvious are their various blessings, by which mortals Walk the first. Akatosh is a good choice of patron for a blessing, and is popular enough for his blessing to have its own name-- Dracochrysalis. Kyne is also a common gifter, with her Spriggans. But the Daedric Princes have their own, most notably Vampirism and Lycanthropy, though there are rarer blessings like Namira's thing with beggars. I'll also note the way Vivec learned the secrets of CHIM from Milage Bal.

Now, on to the meat of things. Mankar Camoran Walked the third, Nymic Surgery, with Mehrunes Dagon's Razor. Game mechanically, when the PC gets their hands on the Razor, they merely benefit from a mild chance of an install. There's a pretty big gap in capabilities there. What I suspect is happening when the PC uses the Razor, is they also cut the Nymic, and occasionally they hit something critical in their amateurish flailing, but to a master of using the Razor, it is a much more potent tool.

The Skeleton Key is rumoured to be able to unlock anything, up to and including hidden potential, which, again, seems to me like a form of Nymic Surgery. And once again the average user of the device seems to utterly squander this potential (though, going by the way the Fortify Security effect was implemented in Oblivion (this line of thought leads me to believe that this was not in fact a bug, but a clue), the Hero of Kvatch was uncommonly skilled in its use).

Now we have two Artifacts that seem geared towards assisting mortals with Nymic Surgery, assuming a certain proficiency in their use above and beyond that demonstrated by the PCs. At this point I wonder what the other Artifacts might be capable of, which Ways they might assist with the Walking of...

Skyrim showed us that Resist Magic effects work just as well on effects generated by Tonal Architecture as they do on effects generated by magicka, and yet they never impede normal function for the user, implying some sort of selectively permeable field of isolation from reality. I begin to suspect that the Savior's Hide is meant to take whatever principle that allows this to the furthest extent possible. What if the Hide is meant to assist with the Will part of Love Under Will, to reduce the chance of zero summing when attempting CHIM?

Other Artifacts, like Umbra and the Ebony Blade, seem very obviously suited to Soul Stacking. Probably the Mace of Milage Bal too; his Vamprism thing indicates an interest in that direction already as well, but the whole Domination thing (and the teaching of Vivec) makes me suspect that CHIM enters into the equation somewhere as well.

I haven't thought through all of the Artifacts yet, and I need to go to bed now, but I hope that this spawns some productive ideas and discussion as it stands.

... Also, I hate autocorrect. The "Drastic" in the title should obviously read "Daedric". If a mod would be willing to fix that, that would be nice.