Glass/Malachite Mines in Summerset

LMar · November 2018

Given the Altmer are pretty good with glass armour I wonder why they didn't include any glass mines in Summerset

Number_51 · November 2018

It's a volcanic material and mostly mined in the Morrowind region (source).

LMar · November 2018

That's the thing, Altmer were making glass armour long before the Dunmer. Where did they get the material from?

WhiteCoatSyndrome · December 2018

I would also like to know the answer to this. They're too xenophobic to trade for it, I don't recall any mention of any nearby volcanoes, and if they had, say, a massive vault of the stuff from back in the days of the Ayleids it would need to be big enough to be its own point of interest...and there would still need to be some mention of it.

And it's not like they just had X many sets of Glass armor and have been passing the pieces down through the ages, because we're still making this stuff in the Second Era. $:\$

Bruccius · December 2018

Is glass really volcanic? We can find it in Skyrim, and Skyrim doesn't have that much volcanic activity (all it has is in Eastmarch).

Darkcaster224 · December 2018

Maybe they altered some minerals magically to create this kind of glass armor

RaddlemanNumber7 · December 2018

The volcanic glass of Vvardenfel is not the only type of glass to be found on Tamriel. In fact, the green glass used by the Chimer/Dunmer may be a poor substitute for the types of glass that were available to them before Veloth led them away on their exodus to far off Resdayne. After all, the green volcanic glass does not seem to be intrinsically magical.

The glass available to the High Elves in the Summerset Isles comes from meteoric and possibly synthetic sources. Meteoric glass includes Welkynd, Varla, Malondo and Culanda. As we can see in the game, large quantities of raw, unworked meteoric glass can be found underground in many locations.

The Culanda Lacquer and Vitrified Malondo (see, it's even called "vitrified") that are used for Psijiic and Sapiarch armour may be very highly processed or even magically synthesised.

LMar · December 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

The volcanic glass of Vvardenfel is not the only type of glass to be found on Tamriel. In fact, the green glass used by the Chimer/Dunmer may be a poor substitute for the types of glass that were available to them before Veloth led them away on their exodus to far off Resdayne. After all, the green volcanic glass does not seem to be intrinsically magical.

The glass available to the High Elves in the Summerset Isles comes from meteoric and possibly synthetic sources. Meteoric glass includes Welkynd, Varla, Malondo and Culanda. As we can see in the game, large quantities of raw, unworked meteoric glass can be found underground in many locations.

The Culanda Lacquer and Vitrified Malondo (see, it's even called "vitrified") that are used for Psijiic and Sapiarch armour may be very highly processed or even magically synthesised.

While that is a good hypothesis, and one i was also thinking of, do you have any sources that might help prove this bit? Not sure i found any so far

RaddlemanNumber7 · December 2018

My thinking is mostly based on empirical evidence, stuff that we can actually see in the game - delves full of raw lumps of meteoric glass, and glass used as armour components by Altmer.

The lore books are very thin on the subject. "Aetherial Fragments" by Lady Cinnabar of Taneth was my starting point on UESP. There are links from there to more specific topics.

LMar · December 2018

I think there might be some sources talking about goblin slave labour in glass mines but I'll need to hunt those down