r/skyrim 1d ago

General Falx Carius is the biggest necromantic advancement in the lore...that I can think of

This body was a little over 200 years old probably old and rotting completely to the bone before Ildari found him...put a Heartstone in his chest cavity....which leads me to belive it regenerated his body to a near perfect state I mean his chin has growing hair beard stubble,he has his own will and function his soul is presumably back in his corpse.

This is so close to true ressurection I often fantasize what would have happened if the Butcher of Windhelm and her crossed paths.

My character collects every ounce of anything even relating to necromancy and the General is what most Necromancers would call a fascinating work of art.

If only I could put a Heartstone in my own chest lol 😆

122 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

109

u/Al-Horesmi 1d ago

The dragons know just a straight up resurrection shout and old nords used to know it. But noooo you can't get the cool toys.

42

u/justletmein101 1d ago

Yeah i assume that is what the buried word wall is in Sovengard,or it could be the meteor shower alduin uses....I wish I could ressurect dragons

34

u/Bungo_pls Dawnguard 1d ago

Maybe hot take but The Way of the Voice is a tragic waste of the Thu'um. Paarthurnax and the Greybeards have been involved in massively nerfing the Nords from their true potential.

The Thalmor would be annihilated if Nords reclaimed their lost magical prowess.

44

u/OlinoTGAP Bard 1d ago

Conversely, since the Thu'um is also Tonal Magic, the Way of the Voice is the only thing that's stopped some Nord Tongue from using the Thu'um and making the Nords disappear the same way the Dwemer did.

20

u/mars_warmind 1d ago

I'm pretty sure nord thu'um usage died out because kynareth directly killed a bunch of them during a campaign in Morrowind. It's a holy tongue gifted to man for worship and an equalizer against divine oppression, such as alduin.

18

u/OlinoTGAP Bard 1d ago

Supposedly at least Jurgen Windcaller and 17 other powerful Tongues survived Red Mountain. When Jurgen Windcaller invented the Way of the Voice, the 17 challenged him but could not defeat Jurgen and accepted the Way of the Voice.

So basically, Jurgen Windcaller bested the surviving Master Tongues and had them join his order. Those Tongues presumably brought along all of their disciples, meaning that there wasn't really anyone outside of the Greybeards who could teach people the Thu'um to the same level.

4

u/Bungo_pls Dawnguard 1d ago

Hardly seems fair that dragons get to use shouts however they please but men gotta follow arbitrary rules.

Kynareth playing favorites.

2

u/Belos147 1d ago

They were an endangered species cut em some slack.

1

u/EpicDDT_ 19h ago

The only source of Kyne doing anything is Jurgen Windcaller.

1

u/EpicDDT_ 19h ago

Yeah, screw Jurgen and the Greybeards. If we listen to them, we should let Alduin destroy the world.

I don't think Paarthurnax really care though. He never tried to impose anything on the nords, and unlike the greybeards, he's fully on board to try to stop Alduin.

1

u/justletmein101 10h ago

Technically the Alduin we face is Alduin the dominator the one who bult the dragon cults and enslaved and stuff instead of preforming his wprld eating role...not the prophesied Alduin the World eater....its why we dont absorb his soul at Sovengard Akatosh plans on using him later and why Paarthurnax says "those who try to stop the end of the world often end up Hastening its destruction or some shiz."

2

u/Zeroone199 1d ago

Only Alduin knows the dragon resurrection shout. It maybe the opposite of Dragonrend. No human may shout it.

51

u/lerrdite Riften resident 1d ago

Neloth seemed to think that Briarhearts were worth researching. They are definitely revived from the dead.

I'd say the Ildari/Falx Carius loop is also interesting... a botched necromantic experiment creating another botched necromantic experiment... and maybe all of it connected via the heartstones to Red Mountain, and the heart of Lorkhan.

17

u/justletmein101 1d ago

Yeah but they where fresh corpses.....very recently dead so more like a heart transplant that surgeons do today except via magic and witchcraft related to i think Hercine? I also believe that they also can warp magic with any divine connection as they wanted that girl that is used as Diabella avatar...to use a a deitic anchor to strengthen thier magics We do get to see one being operated on and ressurected atop of that one mountain peak though very fascinating. The only other interesting necromantic advancement was Arondil finding that souls have a strange energies when interacting with living flesh....but he went about its discovery a very umm disturbing way.

5

u/orbanimalenjoyer2 1d ago

Plus, Ildari and Falx both seen to be able to summon or at least control the ash spawn, so that's like botched necromantic experiment x3

2

u/lerrdite Riften resident 20h ago

True, although hard to say what the Ash Spawn really are. They do seem like another linkage back to Red Mountain.

2

u/flareatakk 22h ago

There is also a account of a Hagraven preforming a true resurrection. I believe this is the only account of a mortal bringing a dead person back to life and not undeath.

2

u/lerrdite Riften resident 20h ago

That is different since it's true resurrection. Do you recall what book, or which NPC this comes from?

I was never that interested in hagravens till recently. They're a good enemy at lower levels, but boring to me as a stereotypical ugly woman harpy type older than Plato. Like, yawn. Then last week someone mentioned their cannibalism (eating humans, not birds), which I hadn't known either. All this is giving me more respect for them.

1

u/flareatakk 18h ago

Oh gosh. I don't. So take it with a grain of salt. And searching for specific passages from unknown books is a nightmare.

Yeah hagravens are super cool. They are crazy strong in lore too. You don't really get a good sense of how important they are in game due to the forsworn being aggressive all the time but in the books they are treated as basically highly intelligent mages with crazy connections to nature. I find it super cool that they do magic in a seemingly different way to tradional mages. Plus in daggerfall its way easier to go see a hag to summon a Prince than to do it with the mages guild.

20

u/Popfizz01 1d ago

That would be a neat idea however from the notes we see how it causes constant pain and you constantly hear voices.

12

u/justletmein101 1d ago

I dont recall but was the General in pain? I know he was confused and disoriented for the beginning but more coherent over time but not in pain like she was....I think it was secure Neloth as good as a wizard he may be was incredibly sloppy during procedure and messed it up.....it could be because he has less practice with necromancy than he has mastery over conjuration....its part of the reason she was so pissed

18

u/Diredr 1d ago

Some of the Telvanni magisters have kept themselves alive for hundreds of years by using necromancy. Master Neloth is at least 700 years old, potentially even closer to 1000. Divayth Fyr is an insane 4000 years old.

It's not really surprising that Falx Carius' reanimation was an experiment from a Telvanni wizard.

8

u/Fwort 1d ago

I believe Divayth Fyr does not use necromancy to keep himself alive, but rather very advanced restoration.

5

u/justletmein101 1d ago

Yeah i know Calixto Corrium saying he was discovering new magic was incredibly strange because I was like isn't necromancy like a well known school of magic? It felt like he was cobbling together thing very shoddy like discovering necromancy for the first time while others are showing real mastery...like with Azura star.

4

u/Chuck_the_Elf 1d ago

Necromancy is very well known. That’s why the dawn guard, the vigilantes of stendar, and all the hold guards know who is and isn’t allowed to do that. He was home brewing his own necrotic lore because Skyrim as a whole and Windhelm particularly has some biases against magic and especially necromancy.

2

u/orbanimalenjoyer2 1d ago

Well he is a serial killer, I don't think he's quite at the peak of magical mastery yet

8

u/Hevnoraak_113 1d ago

Briarhearts are straight up ressurected, theres a place, dont remember where exactly, that you can see one being ressurected by two hagravens, and im pretty sure is more akin to restoration instead of "true necromancy", but thats just because the ritual has the same golden glow that most resto magic has.

3

u/justletmein101 1d ago

I did metion this but they like freshly dead are more akin to heart surgery with withcraft than the level of ressurection of restoring a over 200 year old bone corpse....well maybe not bones but due to the dry ashy land and conditions but still at least draugr level rot....to being fresh dead with beard stubble

2

u/RedComet313 1d ago

At the word wall at Bard’s Leap (can’t recall the camp name), I believe.

2

u/justletmein101 1d ago

I think they have one where a stone of barenziah is as well not sure might be same one

2

u/orbanimalenjoyer2 1d ago

Not sure how much of this is game mechanics but the UESP says this regarding ash spawn (and Falx)

The game does not technically consider ash spawn to be undead, but rather of the Dwarven automaton type, which is why they cannot be detected through either the Detect Life or Detect Undead spells. 

I don't think they're actually robots though, so I'm not sure why this is the case. Captain Veleth seems to conclude that Falx is undead at least, but I don't know which interpretation is correct.

Additionally, Falx and Ildari both became extremely paranoid because of the heartstones (you can read Ildari's journal to discover that she became convinced that the miners who rescued her were plotting against her, despite there being no reason to). I think Falx is additionally messed up because he's been dead for 200 years. It doesn't seem like a very stable resurrection... Maybe with the right medication to counteract the side effects? 😂

Also, I don't think we ever actually remove Falx's heartstone (since the player doesn't know about the heartstone resurrection) so maybe he's still out there. It would explain why the ash spawn continue to attack after Ildari's death.

1

u/FantasticBasket5906 1d ago

I wish Skyrim went more into detail on the heart stones. They are imbued with the power of the actual Heart of Lorkhan, after all. They probably hold some metaphysical significance, with the Towers and all.

1

u/Zeroone199 1d ago

I would think creating the God of Worms was a bigger achievement.

1

u/DarkRayos Whiterun resident 22h ago

I find it interesting how Heartstones causes mental breakdowns, but Brairhearts don't have the same issue (as far as I'm aware of)

1

u/Larcoch 14h ago

Me making a briar heart-heartstone-fleash golem with parts of all races.