Lore:Sotha Sil

"In the smoky catacombs beneath the city where Sotha Sil forged the future with his arcane clockwork apparatus, something unforeseen happened. An oily bubble seeped from a long trusted gear and popped. Immediately, the wizard's attention was drawn to it and to the chain that tiny action triggered. A pipe shifted half an inch to the left. A tread skipped. A coil rewound itself and began spinning in a counter direction. A piston that had been thrusting left-right, left-right, for millennia suddenly began shifting right-left. Nothing broke, but everything changed.

'It cannot be fixed now,' said the sorcerer quietly." — 2920, Evening Star

Sotha Sil in death

Sotha Sil's home in his Clockwork City

Sotha Sil, or Seht, wizard-mystic god of the Dunmer, is the least known of the divine Tribunal. He is said to be reshaping the world from his hidden Clockwork City. Once the last survivor of a minor Dunmer House, Sotha Sil became a great wizard in life and later discovered how to use Kagrenac's Tools on the Heart of Lorkhan to steal its divine powers and become a god.

After Nerevar's death, the councilors of Nerevar and the Tribunal of Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil came to power among the Dunmer. They then went against Nerevar's dying wish by using the profane Tools of Kagrenac on the Heart of Lorkhan in order to steal its divine essence for themselves. They achieved great heroism with their divinity, but it was also their undoing; because they worked deeds of good against the evil of the Heart they were weakened even before the return of Dagoth Ur. Dagoth Ur, who had also stolen power from the Heart, acted in accordance with its evil and grew stronger.

During the end of First Era, around 1E 2920, Sotha Sil spent some time on the Isle of Artaeum, where he taught some of the new mages of the Psijic Order.

After a Daedric disaster in the village of Gilverdale, Sotha Sil journeyed into Oblivion via the Dreaming Cavern and made a pact with eight of the more prominent Daedric Princes: Azura, Boethiah, Hermaeus Mora, Hircine, Malacath, Mehrunes Dagon, Molag Bal, and Sheogorath. The exact terms of the pact are unknown to most inhabitants of Tamriel. At the time of the pact, the Princes agreed not to answer any summoning by amateurs until the war between Morrowind and Cyrodiil ended; only the Psijics, along with sorcerers and witches, could counsel with the Daedra.

Sotha Sil's pact failed to prevent the destruction of Mournhold. A Dunmer witch managed to summon Mehrunes Dagon to seek vengeance on the Duke of Mournhold following the death of her child. Although Sotha Sil and Almalexia were too late to prevent the devastation, they managed to banish the Prince of Destruction back to Oblivion.

In 2E 882, when the Tribunal visited the Red Mountain for a ritual to replenish their divine power, the reawakened Dagoth Ur and his minions ambushed them and drove them away, cutting off access to the Heart of Lorkhan. In 3E 417, after centuries of becoming weaker and more desperate, Sotha Sil and Almalexia lost two of Kagrenac's Tools, Keening and Sunder, to Dagoth Ur's forces. Vivec rescued them, but they could not recover the stolen Tools and had to flee Red Mountain.

In time, Sotha Sil became almost completely detached from the real world. He gradually lost touch with the affairs of the Dunmer, the rest of the Tribunal, and eventually all of Tamriel. Losing Keening and Sunder was his last known participation in mortal affairs. He was killed in 3E 427 by his long-time friend and fellow Tribune, Almalexia, who had been driven mad by the decline of her power due to being deprived of the Heart of Lorkhan.

The only noticeable effect that Sotha Sil's Clockwork City had on the world was when Almalexia unleashed its mechanical inhabitants on Mournhold. This brutal but brief reign of terror was brought to an end by the Nerevarine.