I have visited many of the c50 Ayleid ruins and have yet to figure out exactly what they are ruins of. The meagre literature available suggests they might have been the inner protected areas of the rulers. One assumes the towns themselves were above ground but made of wood and materials that have been destroyed. But if so, where did the rulers live? And how? There doesn't appear to be anything cosy and room like. Perhaps they were merely of religious use as there are too many altar-like things for them to be stone tables. If they were tables then I assume there was little consumption of alcoholic beverages. Stumble on leaving you could be mashed to red juice in an instant.

At least with the Daedric sites in MW you could make sense of them. So I ask the forum. How exactly were these buildings used?

Castle dungeons/jails, religious temples and military outposts.

Yes, by reading one or two accounts, they seemed to be quite a martial race... strange mixture of pristine architecture and cruel pasttimes. At least that is what I have been lead to believe so far.

Hm, those altar-like things seem more like sarcophagi to me, so my guess is they're burial places. Maybe the cities were built of wood and the ruler's palace was constructed above the tombs. They're quite ancient, after all, so it's logical to assume the people of cyrodiil used them as construction material source and literally took apart what they could.
A significant portion of the Imperial City is supposed to be Ayleid as well (the central spire, and by the looks of it also the walls), and the ruins have a similar circular layout. My guess is that each had a similar central spire, due to their lesser importance perhaps only partially built of stone.

It's like the Egyptans. Only the religious buildings have endured the time, because they were built for enternity, the palaces and housings needed to hold only a lifetime, but the tempels and other ceremonial buildings were for the afterlife/enternity, so they were built wery tough... makes kind'a sense, no?

PS - sry for the spelling

I'm buffled too. However he Ayleids were powerfull mages right? So I guess they used them to focus their power. It makes me wonder though... If they were as powerfull as they were supposed to be why couldn't they enchant their buildings and make them las forever? Anyway I don't know much about Tamriel and the game doesn't really reveal much...

Actually I agree with that point. It is only the palaces and burial mounds that really survived through the years, the remains of the cities were pretty much broken down over time.

Yes, it doesn't make sense that they would trap their every day buildings. These seem more for religious means, the mystical use of the stones, the altars, the thrones, all for their Gods. That is what makes sense to me. Also you'd wanna be burried in a Chapel if you are Christian right? (I'm not sure on Christian beliefs about that stuff....)

All of the Surviving ruins are underground sanctuaries. These sanctuaries can either be for the dead, the noble, or the faithful. There are more examples of tombs than any other type of sanctuary.

Vilverin appears to take the form of a underground vault - both for Expensive goods AND slaves. Also, there is a small tomb near the summit of the structure.

There are at least 2 examples of underground palaces - both are hinted at originating from the post-merethic era - or "first era" as it is known. The underground nature of the Palaces is clear evidence of the constant civil war being fought by Ayleid kings after the fall of White Gold Tower to the Alessian slaves.

The presence of Light emitting stones, or "Welkynd" stones as they are known - is due to the fact that Ayleids never recognised Fire as one of the four elements, instead they believed that it was a weak form of the Element LIGHT. Indeed, the Ayleids were worshippers of Magnus, the sun, and one of those who fled at Lorkhans Trickery. Hence - the Ayleids lit their sanctuaries with the purest from of magick and light.

An example of an Ayleid temple Sanctuary lies within the great forest - though I forget the name.

It's possible that they were built as a proving ground. Mabey the rulers had to get past all the traps to show that they were "chosen". Or, mabey it was a show of force. The cities could have been built to show to other races that they were powerful enough to create these long lasting area. Finally, another reason could be that slaves that rebeled would be thrown in and force to fight for survival. This would be ment to show to other slaves what happened for rebeling.

I'd guess that the traps are there for the same reasons that the ancient Egyptians and other Earthly races (like the Mayans) built similar traps:

To cut down on tomb robbers. Pretty simple, really. Naturally, the Ayleids themselves would know about their traps in advance, so they'd have no problems with them. As for tresspassers, escaped slaves or whatever... on the other hand... they would be in for quite a deadly surprise if they tried to break in and loot anything from the underground vaults, temples and sanctuaries. Quite a good deterrent.

Maybe they were churchs
considering the altars and large rows of bench in front of them in some ruins.
or a sort of labyrinth like in that story with the minotaur

The funny things about the traps is, that they shouldnt work. Neither of these traps have any real mechanism between the trigger and the actual trap. You step onto a plate or into a wire and get hit by something, and thats it ...

Bethesda didnt do a good job with those Ayleid ruins ... Most of them are computer generated and not one of them follows logical layout.

When you look at old Egyptian tombs and ruins, you will notice a pattern in the construction. All the tombs are centered around the actual grave, perhaps there were rooms for slavegirls which were sacrificed along with the dead, or some extra rooms for burial objects ... maybe some labyrinth and traps, but these traps were highly complex and not like these "traps" in the Ayleid ruins ...

Maybe there will be a mod who changes that. I mean there are already mods for deadly traps, but they are still very easy to detect ...

Wouldn't it be possible to:
---Set up an object so that when used, it triggers a trap? (Even better if it's a delayed trigger)
---Have a trigger that is directly in front of an enemy who will only attack with a direct line-of-sight?

One that might be interesting, though I don't know if it's possible, would be a zero-traction section of floor...

Or a trap upon open container or something...

This is nothing special, but it may help your topic. Ayleid Ruins are supposedly 2000+ years old. So, maybe other small buildings didn't stand the test of time.

All of that would depend on the environment, natural disasters, the construction ability of the Ayleids, and whether they were caught in the middle of a war. Different situations for different ruins. It would be neat to see an untouched (relatively) Ayleid city mod., like the (*SPOILER*) Akaviri Fort up north.

Have you removed any of the stone blocks in the walls, floors or ceilings to see if there's an underlying mechanism or not..?

Keep in mind that it's a fantasy world, where magical forces play as large (or larger) a role as simple mechanical devices do. The Ayleid ruins are heavily infused with magical energies... traps included.



Ummm... the entire game is "computer generated." Your favorite game in the world is computer generated. See, these are computer games so like, by default, it's ALL computer generated.



Let's stop there. Yes, you'll see an EGYPTIAN pattern in their construction. The Ayleids were not Egyptians and they had their own style of architecture. There are similarities between Ayleid structures and Egyptian tombs to be sure, but don't go into them expecting to see mummies and stuff. You're not on the Earth... you're on Tamriel. The Ayleids had their own plan.

I think that not one of the dungeons in oblivion follows a logical layout. They are 90% linear roots with guys in it that attack you.

True. There are few dungeons (Whatever type: Ayleid, Mine, Ruined Fort...) which have an unique feeling to them. Most are the same. Walk, kill, go around the corner, little bigger room, kill, go around another corner, loot... And even when they are unique or look nice, most of the times they are quest related. They shouldn't try harder on good dungeons just for quests, they should always try to make dungeons unique or special in some way.

I prefer the machinery of the dwemer (in Morrowind) over the magic of the ayleid by the way. It's more... noticable.

Yes, the ayleid ruins that exist in 3E 433 are not where anybody lived, these ruins, all being alike with the traps and such, indicate that the ayleid's usual structures (the ones they lived in) were of materials such as wood, because the surface is in no way marred by other structures. These ruins were for religius use, as well, royal bloodlines were probably buried there, along with important religious leaders, thus the large amount of sarcophagi in these ruins, they were probably protective of their dead, and created the traps. Another theory is that the ayleids created these structures (the ones that still exist in 3E 433) to protect their magical stones (Welkynd, varla) Perhaops both, I am unsure. Maybe the stones have a religious ceremonial value, I doubt they regularly used the stones to "recharge their magical equipment"

EDIT:
Being believers of magnus, this also compliments the theory of the stones being used as a sign for magnus to take the deceased to a happy afterlife (if you notice, the welkynd stones are above and a bit behind some sarcophagi) the varla stones are in such a spot that it looks like a religious leader would go in the center and chant important prayers for their side, because of the large amounts of civil strife that occured in the ayleid society.

Sorry if this topic died but...

If the ruins were burial grounds then where are all the bodies. There are some sections in the walls that have places for coffins and some have coffins but the majority of them are empty. I know there is plenty of skeletons in the dungeons but I thought that lore said that Ayleids were as tall or taller than modern Altmer. The skeletons are shorter than my Imperial so I doubt that they are the Alyieds. Probably just some of the human slaves that died and would forever serve their masters.

I'm actually thinking of making one, allthough I since (as mentioned before) the remaining ruins probably are temples/tombs it's really hard to make a mod for it.

How do you think the towns really looked like? Since Tamriel back then were divided by the many different Ayleid tribes, the tribes probably fought each other ones in a while, and therefor the cities also probably had a wall to protect the citizens. But how did it look inside? Large and long streets of white stone, with a tower in the middle and houses around in a circle? And how did the houses look like? Like the shacks in IC Waterfront, or in a totally different way?

I'd love some speculations about that, since it'd help me a lot to make the mod.