Enchanting is the act of endowing objects with magical properties through the use of various ingredients and tools, and a soul, almost always with the use of a soul gem. An enchanted item's power diminishes with use, in which case additional souls may be used to replenish it. The strength of an enchanted item and the amount by which it can be recharged is directly related to the magnitude of the souls used. The enchanting discipline concerns imbuing physical items with magical properties called enchantments. The simplest enchantments are magical scrolls with a single enchantment that are destroyed with one use. The most complex enchantments are enchanted artifacts, objects with one or more magical effects powered by built-in soul gems. Skilled enchanters also use enchanted items more efficiently, with less waste of the magicka trapped in the soul gems, and even make greater use out of the enchantments. It is said that a skilled enchanter is also a catalyst, and that a ring that can generate warmth for a novice, on the hand of a talented enchanter could "bake a forest black".
It is said that Raven Direnni created the art of enchantment in the First Era, though grand enchanters such as Ahzidal of Merethic Era predated her discoveries. According to other sources, the enchantress merely improved an existing process by developing the Rules of Eldritch Binding. Before her work, the process failed nine times out of ten.
Prior to Vanus Galerion's foundation of Mages Guild magical services, including enchanted items were not available to the general public in the Summerset Isles. The art of magic, including enchantment, was primarily limited to the aristocracy or intelligentsia. The creation and use of magical items were generally kept within the confines of magical institutions such as the Psijic Order, and the general public had limited access to them.
It is possible to utilize alchemical reagents for enchantments.
Some materials are prized by enchanters for their properties in the forging of enchanted weapons and armors, such as Meteoric Iron. Cold Iron is known for holding enchantments very well.
Sigil Stones can be used to enchant gear, and can even surpass the strength of enchantments made with bigger soul gems.
UsageEdit
According to the College of Winterhold, before a weapon or bit of armor can be enchanted, a wizard must first learn the enchantment. This is considered a personal task, as enchantments cannot easily be passed from one mage to another, and must be understood at a primal level that can only be achieved by destroying an enchanted item and absorbing its nature. However, it was also possible for a mage to enchant items using spells they knew, without having to disenchant items first. This might be due to some of the nuances of this skill being lost when the Imperial City was sacked.
The Arcane Enchanter is specifically designed for disenchanting. Merely placing an enchanted item in the device and willing it to relent causes the magic to flow into the mage, imbuing them with the knowledge of how the enchantment is formed. The utter destruction of the enchanted item is considered the unavoidable consequence of this process.
Before beginning an enchantment, a filled soul gem is needed. The enchantment uses the soul as a source of power. Placing the item and the soul gem on the Arcane Enchanter and concentrating on the enchantment allows the device to meld the two together, enchanting the weapon or armor. Enchantments created by lesser skilled mages require a lot of the soul energy. More skilled mages, however, can achieve the same effects with less soul energy.
Once enchanted, an item will not enchant again. It is called the Law of Firsts. The first enchantment is the only one that takes. However, a mage named Brarilu Theran discovered the secrets of imbuing an item with two enchantments. According to the mage, a Dragon shared the secret that a skillful enchanter can weave two enchantments simultaneously into an item. For men and elves, the limit is two. The dragon said that men and elves have two arms, two legs, two eyes and two ears. When asked why that mattered, the Dragon simply laughed. The enchanter must weave one enchantment with the left hand while weaving the other with the right. The eyes must focus on one and only one enchantment, while the ears only pay attention to the other. When asked about legs, the Dragon laughed again. Brarilu spent two years mastering the technique, and managed to make a sword with both fire and fear enchantments.
Types of EnchantmentsEdit
Armor EnchantmentsEdit
Enchantments that enhance health, magick, and stamina are the most commonly used for armor and other clothing. Improving health is a popular choice among warriors as it makes the wearer more resilient to attacks by binding their life force closer to their body. Fortifying magicka, on the other hand, is typically used in clothing as wizards prefer lighter, more flexible attire. It allows them to cast more spells before becoming magically exhausted. Fortifying stamina is a secondary choice for fighters as it helps them avoid becoming tired quickly, but does not increase their chances of survival.
Enchantments can fortify a wide range of physical and mental attributes or skills, with as many options as the imaginations of wizards. Some popular examples include archery, sneaking, conjuration, and carrying strength, with the focus often being narrow. Some enchanters even create gauntlets specifically designed to improve the wearer's ability to enchant items.
Another prevalent type of armor enchantment is the resistance enchantment. Elemental resistance enchantments are relatively more common and easier to create. They can make the wearer less vulnerable to fire, ice, and shock damage. There are also poison resistance enchantments and those that provide resistance to all forms of magic.
A rare pair of enchantments include waterbreathing and muffle. The former allows the wearer to breathe underwater without limit, while the latter completely suppresses the noise produced by the armor, allowing for quieter movement. Some have speculated that muffle is a wizard's simplistic solution to a problem that could be solved more easily with cloth and wrappings.
Enchantments that increase the recovery rate of health, magicka, or stamina are among the rarest of the enchantments. With these enchantments, the wearer can heal from their wounds even in the midst of battle. Wizards, who normally recover their magical energy at a moderate pace, can recover much faster with enchanted armor. The same is true for stamina recovery enchantments - the wearer still tires as quickly as usual, but they recover their energy faster.
Certain armor enchantments are regarded as permanent and do not require charging or powering. The reasons behind this phenomenon remain unknown, but some members of the College of Winterhold speculate that the wearer contributes a small amount of their own energy to keep the armor enchanted. Others believe that it is simply the result of the will of Magnus.
Weapon EnchantmentsEdit
Enchantments that enhance a weapon's offensive capability are common and varied. The most popular include fire, frost, and lightning enchantments, which imbue the weapon with a magical strike upon impact.
Less common, but still widely used, are enchantments that drain magicka, and stamina, cause fear, or turn undead. These enchantments cause their victims to lose magicka or stamina without actively using it, make opponents lose their courage and flee, or cause undead to turn away in fear.
Rare and coveted are absorb enchantments, also known as vampiric enchantments, which drain the victim's health, magicka, or stamina, restoring the wielder in turn. These enchantments act as a conduit between the wielder and their opponent, allowing the wielder to steal the opponent's attributes.
Enchantments that inflict banishment and paralyzation are among the rarest. Banishment can sever the link between a summoned Daedra or undead creature and its summoner, resulting in the Daedra returning to Oblivion or the raised undead being released from service. However, self-willed undead are unaffected by banishment. Paralyzation renders the victim immobile and defenseless, making it easy to attack and defeat them.
An enchantment that serves a more utilitarian purpose is a soul trap, which allows the wielder to capture the soul of a slain creature. This enchantment does not directly increase the weapon's offensive capability, but rather provides a means of obtaining powerful souls for use in enchanting or recharging other enchanted items.
Enchantments on weapons gradually consume the soul energy within them until they are exhausted. Although the enchantment remains, a filled soul gem is needed to recharge the weapon. Some speculate that the reason for this is the destructive nature of the weapon enchantment. Others suggest that the soul gradually leaks out into the victims that the weapon harms.
Staves can also be enchanted, both with the usage of traditional methods and with glyphs. Azra Nightwielder was a pioneer in the field of enchanting staves. His methods grew to be considered rudimentary by the standards of the Fourth Era, but he was still conisdered genius in his field. Neloth of Telvanni studied Azra's creations.
Miscellaneous EnchantmentsEdit
A variety of utilitarian and vanity enchantments exist, bringing a touch of magic and aiding in the every day of Tamriel's people.
A variety of enchanted items exist to make busy-work easier, such as brooms that can sweep room by themselves, hands-free use quills, pails that magically and autonomously milk cows, tools that determine the quality of farming soil, hooks that detect when a crocheter misses a stitch, life-like bait to assist in fishing, magic soil that helps plants grow, and even at least one-thousand and one guar related enchantments.
The fields of medicine and hygiene are also benefited by enchantment due to devices such as ensorcelled prosthetics which bend and flex like natural tissue, bands which indicate the reproductive chances of a pair, vision-enhancing lenses, and air-purifying bits.
In certain cases, enchantments on objects can be used to facilitate interaction with spirits to some degree, such as wind flutes that were enchanted to summon benevolent spirits, or staves that housed pacifying spirits.
Enchanting can be used to transcend death in form of the undead. Arch-Mage Shalidor put a powerful enchantment on his final resting place that allowed him to return from Aetherius whenever their legacy is threatened. Enchantments that ensured the reanimation of a person's corpse as a skeleton after death were available for purchase.
Runestones and GlyphsEdit
A form of enchanting common in the Second Era was utilizing Runestones and using special instruments to assemble them into Glyphs. There were three types of Runestones, called Aspect, Potency, and Essence. Potency runes determined the glyph's strength. Aspect affected the glyph's quality. Finally, the Essence rune decided the glyph's effect. These three types of runestones were understood to be mystically complementary, for only by combining one of each category could an enchanter create a "glyph," the term used for the magical substance used to endow an item with sorcerous power. A glyph was just a simple gem that anyone could attach to the pommel of a sword or on a piece of armor. Once attached the magic in the glyph would flow into the item.
Some claimed the utilization of glyphs caused a collapse of the enchanting market. Instead of the price for an enchantment being set on a city-by-city basis, all of the enchanters of Tamriel had to compete with each other. A hedge enchanter in Daggerfall could make ten fire glyphs and sell them to a traveling merchant, who could bring them to the Imperial City and sells them in the marketplace, at a price much below the price set by the Cyrodilic enchanters. Due to these reasons, some enchanters requested for a ban on the importation of foreign manufactured glyphs. Certain enchanted tools were developed to improve the process of rune extraction.
The Antiquarian Circle discovered and rebuilt a Daedric enchantment table which also harnessed this same form of runic magic.
Notable EnchantersEdit
- Ahzidal — Ancient Nordic enchanter of great renown.
- Almion Celmo — The enchanter of Ice Blade of the Monarch.
- Azra Nightwielder — The original Shadowmage and master of staff enchanting.
- Carni Asron — The enchanter of Mentor's Ring.
- Dorach Gusal — The enchanter of Skull Crusher.
- Malyn Varen — The master enchanter who experimented on the Azura's Star.
- Naenra Waerr — The ancient witch credited with creation of Umbra.
- Raven Direnni — A Member of Clan Direnni credited with creating the Rules of Eldritch Binding, considered by some sources to be the first enchanter.
- Zurin Arctus — Imperial Battlemage of Tamriel and enchanter of the legendary Dragonbone Mail.
GalleryEdit
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A sigil representing Enchanting
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A constellation representing Enchanting
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An enchanted battleaxe (Skyrim)
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An enchanted sword (Legends)
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An enchanted battlemace (Legends)
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An enchanted ring (Legends)
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An enchanted scroll (Legends)
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An enchanter (Online)
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An enchanter (Blades)
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Soul gems used for enchanting
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Runic text
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A Sigil Stone, that can be used for enchanting
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An enchanting glyph
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A potency runestone
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An essence runestone
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An aspect runestone
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Enchanted tool designed for rune extraction (ESO)
NotesEdit
- For obscure reasons, the Telvanni prefer to use tantos, as opposed to standard daggers, as a matrix for their enchantments.
- Binding words can be used to destroy enchanted items.
See alsoEdit
For game specific information, see the Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Online, and Blades articles.
BooksEdit
- A Request for Relief by Defessus Magister — An enchanter's plea regarding manufactured glyphs and the collapse of the enchanting market
- Ahzidal's Descent by Halund Greycloak — The tale of a powerful enchanter's descent into madness
- Catalogue of Armor Enchantments by Yvonne Bienne, Synod researcher — An incomplete list of all the spells and armor used in enchanting
- Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments by Yvonne Bienne, Synod researcher — An incomplete list of all the spells and weapons used in enchanting
- Enchanter's Primer by Sergius Turrianus — A guide for novices in enchanting issued by the College of Winterhold
- Enchanting Made Easy by Fishes-for-Runes — A beginner's guidebook to enchanting with runestones
- Enigma of the Runestones by Telenger the Artificer — On the runestones of Tamriel
- Feyfolken by Waughin Jarth — The Great Sage tells a story of Artaeum, Psijics, and Robotic Enchanters
- Glyphs and Enchantment by Sanessalmo of Glister Vale — A brief overview of enchanting glyphs and runestones
- Malham's Annotated Compendium of Arcane Contrivances of the Second Age, Volume IV by Malham
- Malyn Varen's Grimoire by Malyn Varen, Master Enchanter — A proud mage boasts of altering a Daedric artifact
- Palla by Vojne Mierstyyd — A conjurer's tragic infatuation with a dead woman
- Twin Secrets by Brarilu Theran — A tale of an enchanter's path to discovering how to weave two enchantments onto one item
- Words and Power by Telenger the Artificer — A scholar presents his radical theory regarding language