Kemel-Ze

Concept

After much deliberation, a general timeline/purpose of Kemel-Ze has been established:

• Originally, Kemel-Ze was a burial ground for Dwemer kings
• Over time, the fist Dwemer empire abandoned the idea of kingship in favor of a misinterpretation: “what is a king but somebody who speaks for all of us?”
• They built a radio tower/telepathy machine (a king-machine or consensus-machine) in Kemel-Ze, allowing every Dwemer in a connected freehold to speak for all of them
• When the Nords came and destroyed Dwemer freeholds, the machine suffered heavily and broke down
• Indoril Nerevar and Dumac proved to the Dwemer that there was more to kingship than speaking for all the people, marginalizing the Kingdom of Brass they had constructed
• Kemel-Ze was reconstructed, but only slowly: during the age of the First Council, it was easier for Dwemer to travel across the land to meet others and discuss than it had ever been before, and the Exodus of the Rourken clan had broken Dwemer unity
• When the Tonal architects discovered the Heart of Lorkhan (presumably 20-30 years before the War of the First Council), work on Kemel-Ze slowed down more.
• It was functional when the Dwemer disappeared
• The king-machine at the heart of Kemel-Ze is the source of the Dwemer Spectres, which are either echos of its users or hardlight holograms turned ghosts.

Implementation

• There needs to be a hard cut between the graves of the ancient kings (looted) and the Dwemer king-machine further down
• The descent into the depths of the king-machine should feel both like a reverse Mount Everest and a bug in the cogs of the Difference Engine
• A lot of looted camps (with journals and books) should be in the rooms closest to the looted king tombs
• Puzzles might involve getting the ancient machines back in working order; journals and notes found in the camps of previous expeditions could provide some useful tips for these puzzles.
• Yagrum should have something to say, but he will likely not know the whole story or remember it well.

Questline

• Exploring Kemel-Ze is an IAS questline. The player cannot join this faction, but they are the questgivers
• The first quest would involve finding out what happened to a previous expedition should start with a sense of urgency in trying to find survivors (maybe find one and get an easy escort quest done, afterwards there’s only corpses to be found)
• Find another expedition (all dead)
• Find an artifact mentioned by the other expedition, making the transmissions audible
• Further down the line (last quest?): Construct a Dwemer Barretter for the IAS to find out what the transmission of the king-machine say (they are all SOS calls from the freeholds)

Misc

Whoever ends up with the Kemel-Ze claim has the explicit permission to do away with or redo the existing implementation as they deem necessary.

Three more quests

Arvisrend raised the question of three more quest designs that have been left by the wayside. He has gone on to turn them into proper claims.