It appears that the new Tutorial Level Select gimmick (shown in yesterday's reveal stream) is based in Adamantine Tower. Firstly I don't see why it needs to be an in-world gimmick at all, as a menu choice would be perfectly fine. Secondly, using the most important metaphysical construct in the world
as a tutorial and level select gimmick is a complete disservice to its major role in history.
Most importantly however:
why is it Ayleid?
I completely understand using a stripped down White-Gold Tower for the distant view of the tower in Glenumbra and Stormhaven; much easier than creating a new asset. But now that it's a direct focus of content, that needs to be updated. Adamantine Tower isn't Ayleid - it's an immense Aedric construct with a Direnni fortress at the base.
The lorebook
Tower of Adamant from ESO specifically states:
Adamantine Tower, it is called, for the unknown, ageless material from which it is built. Not white stone like WGT, but some other material. It is therefore highly likely that the tower is constructed of Adamantium (or a closely-related substance, since "-ine" as a suffix means "of or related to"). Adamantium is a metal, as shown by
its appearance in Morrowind, and is itself considered a pretty unknown and ageless material.
PGE 1 (High Rock) corroborates that it is Adamantium (or a related material), as it explains that
its core is a smooth cylinder of shining metal. The PGE further goes on to say that it has been
much modified and added on to over the years; Tower of Adamant explains this further by saying that
[the Direnni] can claim only the construction of the more recent keep that clusters around the tower's base. (This keep can be seen in the screenshot behind the trees.) Since the Ayleids arrived in High Rock after the Direnni, and the Direnni have never left the Tower, there is no way the Ayleids could have covered the rest of the Tower in their own construction.
Since we know that the Direnni only constructed the fortress around the base, and that the rest of the tower is literally built of an Adamantium-like material (by definition), everything that is not covered by Direnni construction should be metallic, not Ayleid.
How about the inside?
![unknown.png](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/561990177279705099/803751050401939476/unknown.png)
This certainly does look like the Direnni architecture we are used to seeing from Summerset, so that's good.
but what's that thing in the middle?
If that's the centre of the Tower, that should be
a smooth cylinder of shining metal, as has been noted above as the Tower's core, not some broken stone structure.
What's more, if this is the Foundation Vault (as has been theorized by some, as the only known room within the Tower), that should be where the Argent Aperture is found.
The ESO lorebook
Once describes the Foundation Vault, which is also the location of the Zero Stone:
At maturity, every Direnni of high blood is brought into the Tower, conducted to the Foundation Vault, and shown the Zero Stone. We are allowed to touch it—once—so as to feel the transcendent mystical power that courses through it, a power we have never been able to tap. And we are shown the Argent Aperture in the adjacent metallic wall, that door with its lock of thirteen slowly counter-rotating rings, a portal we have never been able to open.
This clearly describes the Argent Aperture being situated in a metallic wall - if we extrapolate from everything else that is described as "metallic", which predates all the Direnni construction, this must sit within the cylindrical metal core.
Since we know the Tower's core is metal, the middle of the Foundation Vault should be metallic, complete with the Argent Aperture and its thirteen locks, and not a broken stone structure. Also, where's the Zero Stone? That should be "adjacent" to the Argent Aperture.
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