The Numidium: Elder Scrolls Character Analysis

Race: Dwemer Construct

Sex: None

Faction: Dwemer / Third Empire

Among the most enigmatic and destructive forces in The Elder Scrolls mythos, the Numidium stands as both a symbol of divine ambition and mortal hubris. Created by the Dwemer, the vanished Deep Elves of Nirn, this thousand-foot-tall golem was built to house godhood within brass—a metaphysical weapon meant to rewrite the laws of the world. Its shadow stretches across ages, from the First Era’s cataclysm at Red Mountain to the Third Era’s Warp in the West, where it shattered reality itself. Every time the Numidium walks, the world bends.

The Numidium

What Is the Numidium? The Dwemer’s Divine Machine

In the most literal sense, the Numidium is a colossal humanoid construct, a god made manifest through tonal architecture—the Dwemer art of manipulating the fabric of reality through sound and mathematics. Its design came from High Engineer Kagrenac, the Dwemer’s Tonal Architect, who intended to harness the Heart of Lorkhan—the divine heart of the trickster-god who created the mortal plane. Kagrenac’s goal was nothing less than to transcend mortality itself, binding the Dwemer race into divinity through the brass colossus.

The Dwemer never lived to see their god completed. When they attempted to activate the Numidium during the Battle of Red Mountain, they vanished from Nirn entirely. Some claim they ascended, others that they were erased by tonal miscalculation. What remained was the empty god, inert, vast, and waiting.

The Numidium’s first recorded reawakening came centuries later when Tiber Septim, warlord and eventual Emperor of Tamriel, was gifted the machine by the Tribunal of Morrowind. The price for this gift was autonomy—Morrowind’s semi-independence in exchange for imperial conquest. Yet the Tribunal withheld the Heart of Lorkhan, forcing Septim’s battlemage, Zurin Arctus, to create a substitute: the Mantella, a vessel powered by Arctus’s own life force. “It is the heart of Tiber Septim’s battlemage. It is my heart. It is my Mantella. It is my Totem. It belongs to me, and to none other,” the Underking would later lament, speaking from beyond death.

The Numidium’s Role in Tiber Septim’s Conquest

Once activated, the Numidium’s might proved unstoppable. Cities fell in hours, nations in days. It was said to move across Tamriel like a god of war, its feet crushing fortresses, its brass body shining like the sun. Many historians describe it as the reason the Septim Empire unified the continent. Yet the Numidium’s existence was not conquest alone—it was metaphysical warfare. Its very presence altered the flow of time and reality. Accounts of its battles read like the collapse of natural law: soldiers blinking from existence, geography shifting between heartbeats, entire armies turned to ash by divine resonance.

But power of such magnitude always consumes its wielder. The relationship between Septim and Arctus deteriorated as the Emperor grew increasingly obsessed with total dominion. Arctus rebelled, trying to stop the machine’s endless march. The confrontation destroyed them both—the Numidium shattered, the Mantella lost to the Aetherius, and the Underking (Arctus’s undead form) cursed to wander the ages searching for his stolen heart. The Brass God was thought destroyed forever.

The Numidium and the Warp in the West

Centuries later, in the events of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, the Numidium returned to the mortal world, heralding one of the most bizarre and defining moments in Elder Scrolls cosmology—the Warp in the West. The Blades, acting under Imperial directive, recovered the Mantella. When it was reactivated, time itself fractured. The Numidium was unleashed once more, and what followed cannot be understood through mortal chronology.

Each potential outcome of the conflict surrounding the Numidium became true simultaneously—a phenomenon known as a Dragon Break, where linear time splits and recombines. The kings of Iliac Bay were all victorious. The Orcs gained recognition as a legitimate people. The necromancer Mannimarco ascended to godhood. The Underking finally found rest. The Empire unified the region. All these events occurred and did not occur. When the world stabilized, history simply accepted all results as fact.

This paradox cemented the Numidium’s reputation as not merely a weapon, but a reality-altering entity, capable of reshaping causality itself. Its destruction at the end of the Warp left ripples across time and space, many of which still define the metaphysical underpinnings of the Elder Scrolls multiverse.

What Was Akulakhan? The Second Numidium

Though the original Numidium was destroyed, its concept persisted. During the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the mad god Dagoth Ur attempted to rebuild it beneath Red Mountain. His creation, Akulakhan, often called the Second Numidium, was a grotesque echo of the Dwemer design. It too drew power from the Heart of Lorkhan, though its purpose differed—Dagoth Ur sought not conquest, but the corruption of all life. He envisioned a world where every being would share in the Heart’s divine essence, bound together in eternal unity under his will.

The Nerevarine, the reincarnation of the ancient hero Indoril Nerevar, confronted Dagoth Ur in 3E 427. Guided by the living god Vivec, the Nerevarine wielded Kagrenac’s Tools—Sunder, Keening, and Wraithguard—to sever the Heart’s power. When the Heart was destroyed, Akulakhan collapsed, and Dagoth Ur perished with it. The destruction of Akulakhan not only ended Dagoth Ur’s reign but symbolically closed the long, tragic arc of the Numidium’s existence.

What Did the Numidium Represent in Elder Scrolls Lore?

The Numidium is not simply a weapon or construct; it is a metaphysical expression of the Dwemer’s rebellion against divinity itself. In Elder Scrolls metaphysics, the universe is shaped by the interplay of gods and mortals, with Lorkhan’s act of creation defining the mortal plane as a place of limitation. The Dwemer rejected this design, seeking to become gods without worship, creation without dependence. The Numidium was their answer—a god without soul, a perfect machine free from the chaos of emotion and belief.

This ambition echoes through history. For Tiber Septim, it was a symbol of absolute control. For Dagoth Ur, a vehicle for transcendence. For scholars of the Fourth Era, it stands as a cautionary myth—every attempt to use it ends with the same result: reality breaking. “The Brass God walks, and the world trembles,” an old Dwemer proverb says. Whether as the instrument of empire or the seed of apocalypse, the Numidium is proof that mortals cannot wield the tools of creation without consequence.

The Numidium’s Place in the Towers of Nirn

In the Tower Metaphysics that underpins Elder Scrolls cosmology, the Numidium is often identified as the Brass Tower, one of the mythic pillars anchoring the fabric of reality. Each Tower represents a different aspect of the divine architecture of the world, and each has a “Stone”—a focus that sustains it. The Heart of Lorkhan was the Stone of the Brass Tower. When it was removed or replaced, the Tower became unstable. The activation of the Numidium—powered first by the Heart, later by the Mantella—can thus be seen as the moment when the Brass Tower attempted to assert its own divinity apart from the rest of creation, an act that tore at the seams of time.

The Numidium’s repeated returns—its summoning, destruction, and resurrection—mirror the cyclical nature of the Elder Scrolls themselves, which record and rewrite history in infinite recursion. In this way, the Numidium embodies not just the Dwemer’s failure, but the endless recurrence of mortal ambition across eras.

The Numidium in Games and Appearances

The Numidium’s legacy runs through multiple games in The Elder Scrolls series. It plays a central role in The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996), where the player’s actions in recovering the Mantella trigger the Warp in the West. In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002), its echo returns in the form of Akulakhan. Lorebooks and in-game texts such as The Arcturian Heresy, The Truth of the Numidium, and Vivec’s Sermons continue to explore its meaning. Even later entries, like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, reference the Brass God through metaphors in the Elder Scrolls cosmology, alluding to the Towers and their Stones.

Across these works, the Numidium remains an unseen but omnipresent force—a reminder that in Tamriel, creation and destruction are often the same act viewed from opposite sides of eternity.

Legacy of the Brass God

The Numidium’s story is, at its core, the story of mortals who tried to make gods in their own image. Whether through Dwemer ingenuity, Imperial ambition, or Dagoth Ur’s twisted faith, every incarnation of the Brass God ends the same way: collapse, transcendence, or erasure. Yet its existence continues to define the metaphysical landscape of the Elder Scrolls universe, linking together the mythic and the mechanical, the divine and the doomed.

The Numidium's Raw Power

Within the framework of pure destructive capability, The Numidium stands at the pinnacle of what can be understood as Raw Power across fantasy universes. This 10 out of 10 score reflects its unparalleled combination of physical magnitude, reality-altering force, and metaphysical potency. The category evaluates physical strength, magical ability, and combat prowess alone, excluding strategic thinking or influence, and under those strict definitions the Brass God reaches a level that only the most cosmically engineered entities can approach. Its actions in both mythic and recorded eras demonstrate that it is not merely powerful within its own setting, but operates on a tier where the boundaries of space, time, and matter fail to impose meaningful limits. The Numidium’s raw output is civilization-breaking, continent-shaping, and in at least one historical instance, universe-altering.

Strength

The Numidium’s physical strength exists on a scale beyond conventional measurement. Described as a thousand-foot-tall construct forged entirely from enchanted brass, its very mass places it far beyond terrestrial limits. Its footfalls shatter fortifications that would require armies to breach. When it marched under the command of Tiber Septim, it did not simply defeat opposing factions; it erased them from the field. Accounts depict cities collapsing under the pressure waves generated by its movement.

There is no documented instance of the Numidium exerting its full physical strength, because in every recorded event it did not need to. Its presence alone caused structural disintegration on such a scale that defensive architecture designed to withstand sieges lasting months fell in moments. The physical strength demonstrated is not derivative of muscles or natural anatomy, but of a divine-grade power source capable of shifting a metal colossus the size of a mountain as though it were an extension of thought. It is impossible to quantify its upper limit, because even the lower limits exceed what most universes would classify as planetary-level force.

Magical Ability

The Numidium’s magical capacity represents the true core of its raw power. Its first incarnation drew energy directly from the Heart of Lorkhan, a mythic organ whose divine presence sustains the mortal plane. Its second incarnation, powered by the Mantella, likewise wielded metaphysical energy of incomparable potency. The Numidium does not cast spells in a traditional sense; instead, its activation alters the fundamental structure of reality.

During the Warp in the West, the Numidium’s reawakening fractured linear time and produced a Dragon Break—an event in which mutually exclusive timelines all occurred simultaneously. This is not magic in the ordinary sense, but world-editing authority. It demonstrates the ability to rewrite causality, override chronology, and impose multiple outcomes on a single moment. Such power is not merely offensive but cosmic. It places the Brass God beyond traditional magical classification, functioning instead as a metaphysical instrument capable of altering the laws by which magic exists.

The Numidium’s natural magical presence destabilizes chronology around it, a phenomenon that suggests it occupies a metaphysical bandwidth incompatible with the mortal world. In the strictest definition of Raw Power, this elevates it to the highest possible tier.

Combat Prowess

Unlike a trained warrior or spellcaster, The Numidium does not possess technique, finesse, or individualized combat skill. It does not need them. Its combat prowess derives from the union of absolute physical strength and limitless magical output. When deployed during Tiber Septim’s campaigns, it defeated armies without performing actions recognizable as battle. Its engagement with opposing forces is closer to an environmental event than a fight.

The Numidium’s combat impact is defined by inevitability. When it enters a battlefield, the battle ends. Even in its fragmentary Akulakhan form, the construct’s presence posed an existential threat not only to armies and cities but to the ecosystem of an entire province. Its ability to exert world-scale destruction without engaging in targeted strikes or deliberate tactics speaks to a level of combat dominance unparalleled by most entities.

Even its destruction requires divine intervention, artifact-level tools, or metaphysical paradoxes. No conventional force has ever defeated the Brass God. When it falls, it falls to the collapse of its own power source, not to the actions of an opponent overpowering it physically or magically. That distinction matters, because it demonstrates total supremacy in the parameters defined by this category. In combat scenarios, The Numidium does not fight in the traditional sense; it unmakes. This is why its combat prowess rating reaches the top end of the scale.

The Numidium's Tactical Ability

The Numidium receives a low tactical ability score (3.5 out of 10) because its operation does not resemble strategy, adaptation, or decision-making in any meaningful sense. It is a weapon, not a thinker. Even though it can end wars in moments and reshape reality through sheer metaphysical presence, these effects belong to its raw power, not its tactical mind. Tactical Ability evaluates deliberate planning, resource deployment, and strategic execution rather than the consequences of overwhelming force. Judged by this narrower definition, the Brass Tower functions more like an instrument of its user’s strategy rather than a strategic agent in its own right. The Numidium has no demonstrated capacity for independent battlefield reasoning, no evidence of improvisation, and no awareness of a resource arsenal. Its limited score reflects that distinction: unparalleled destructive potential combined with almost nonexistent autonomous tactical performance.

Strategic Mind

Strategic Mind measures a character’s ability to formulate coherent plans, understand battlefield dynamics, and alter tactics based on new information. The Numidium exhibits none of these traits. There is no record of it assessing terrain, reacting to shifting engagements, or executing maneuvers with intention. When activated by Tiber Septim, the Numidium marched forward with unrelenting inevitability, not with tactical nuance. Its devastation was absolute, but not directed with finesse.

During the Warp in the West, the Numidium triggered a Dragon Break by virtue of its metaphysical incompatibility with mortal reality, not because it devised a strategy to do so. The event illustrates the catastrophic consequences of its presence, but those consequences emerged from its power source and tonal architecture rather than any conscious decision. The construct’s behavior reads as programmed motion, not deliberate adaptation.

Its lack of a strategic mind stands in sharp contrast to the brilliant tacticians who control or oppose it. The Numidium’s role is execution, not planning. For that reason, it scores extremely low in this subcategory.

Resourcefulness

Resourcefulness addresses how well a character can adapt when conditions change or when resources are scarce. The Numidium cannot adapt in this way. Its function is binary: activated or inactive, moving or inert. There is no evidence of it improvising, solving emergent problems, or altering its behavior when hindered.

Even when confronted with extreme resistance, its behavior does not shift. When the Blades recovered the Mantella and the construct awakened once more, it followed a deterministic pattern of action detached from the circumstances unfolding around it. The Numidium does not retreat, regroup, or attempt alternative approaches. It does not diagnose issues or compensate for failures. It simply proceeds until it is destroyed, powered down, or its core artifact is removed. This rigidness places it at the very bottom of the scale for resourcefulness. Its design allows no freedom for ingenuity, and its operation shows none.

Resource Arsenal

Resource Arsenal measures the tools, alliances, or assets a character can leverage in strategic contexts. The Numidium itself is the asset, not a commander of assets. It does not coordinate allies, deploy troops, or utilize resources in combat scenarios. Every strategic action associated with the Numidium originates from an external party, whether that is Kagrenac during its creation, Tiber Septim during its deployment, or Dagoth Ur reconstructing its partial form as Akulakhan.

The Numidium does not access knowledge, weapons, or support structures. It does not direct other constructs or entities. Its “arsenal” is its own body, a monolithic war instrument with no secondary tools or subordinate units. This is significant, because the metric does not reward the mere possession of power but the intelligent application of a suite of varied resources. Because the Brass Tower uses no supporting assets and forms no alliances, it ranks poorly in this category as well. Its value rests entirely in what others do with it, not what it does with what it has.

The Numidium's Influence

The Numidium’s influence is unlike that of ordinary characters because it does not persuade, inspire, or command through intention. Instead, its influence emerges from the profound metaphysical and political effects that radiate from its existence. Influence/Persuasion measures how effectively a being can sway others through charisma, reverence, or sheer force of will, and the Numidium’s unusual nature requires evaluating these metrics through the consequences of its presence rather than through active interpersonal engagement. It exerts almost no persuasive capacity, has no personality to deploy, and cannot engage in dialogue. However, the awe, fear, and existential weight it imposes are unmatched by many entities across fantasy universes, resulting in a total Influence rating of 7.0 out of 10. The Numidium’s influence stems from legend, from the terror it inspires in rulers and gods alike, and from its demonstrated ability to change the shape of history. These indirect but immense effects justify a score approaching the upper tiers, even though its interpersonal capacities remain effectively nonexistent.

Persuasion

Persuasion evaluates the capacity to influence others through dialogue or interpersonal charisma. Because the Numidium has no voice, personality, or will of its own, its persuasive influence is effectively zero in the conventional sense. It does not negotiate terms, forge alliances, or manipulate adversaries. Its only communicative act is presence, and that presence conveys nothing intentional beyond its own activation.

Where the Numidium’s persuasive footprint becomes interesting is in how others behave in anticipation of it. Entire nations and factions scramble, negotiate, betray, or reform their political alignments because of what the Numidium represents. During the years surrounding the events of Daggerfall, the mere possibility that the construct might be activated forces rulers to adopt positions they might otherwise never consider. Such indirect influence does not meet the definition of persuasion, because the Numidium is not actively engaging them. Its effect is atmospheric, a pressure exerted by potential.

For that reason, its score in persuasion remains extremely low, but not absolute zero. Only a handful of entities in the Elder Scrolls universe can provoke such monumental behavioral shifts without a single spoken word, and this residual atmospheric power merits minimal acknowledgement rather than a total void.

Reverence

Reverence measures awe, fear, or inherent respect commanded by a character. This is the Numidium’s strongest influence subcategory by a wide margin. For many cultures across Tamriel, the Numidium occupies a mythic place in collective memory. Childhood tales describe it as a giant capable of knocking moons from the sky. Scholars refer to it as the Brass Tower, the Big Walker, or the False Construct. Its names alone convey the mixture of dread and cosmic significance that surrounds it.

Historical accounts reinforce that reverence. The first Numidium facilitated the conquests of Tiber Septim, enabling him to unify Tamriel under a single banner. Cities capitulated at its approach. Armies dissolved before it. Even gods were unsettled by its activation. The very metaphysics of the world warped around it, culminating in the Dragon Break produced by the Mantella’s restoration during the events of Daggerfall.

Reverence does not require affection or loyalty. Fear is its own form of reverence, and the Numidium commands it universally. No king, no nation, no divine shard of Tamriel’s cosmology can ignore the implications of its arrival. In this respect, its influence is exceptional, not for inspiring devotion, but for reshaping the emotional and political landscape of entire eras.

Willpower

Willpower measures the ability to maintain agency against external influence, whether through resisting persuasion, maintaining internal autonomy, or resisting mental domination. The Numidium stands in an unusual position in this subcategory. In one sense, it possesses perfect resistance, because it cannot be persuaded, intimidated, or mentally altered. Without a mind, it cannot be swayed. No illusion, compulsion, or manipulation can alter its course.

However, this same absence of mind means it has no agency to defend. It does not assert itself, cannot choose alternatives, and exercises no will of its own. Instead, its function hinges entirely on its operators. Tiber Septim commanded it through the Totem of Tiber Septim. Dagoth Ur built Akulakhan as a subordinate expression of his own will. Others have attempted to claim it through manipulation of the Mantella or ancient Dwemer tonal principles.

Thus, its willpower is paradoxical: absolute resistance paired with absolute emptiness. The Numidium does not break under external pressure because it has nothing to break. At the same time, it cannot exert will, resist a controller, or assert its independence. It is an instrument through which others express their will, not a being that maintains its own. For this reason, its score is moderate rather than maximal. It is immune to influence but also incapable of exhibiting the positive side of willpower.

The Numidium's Resilience

The Numidium’s resilience exists on a level that stretches the definition of durability, destruction, and persistence. Resilience measures the ability to endure physical damage, resist supernatural influence, and survive existential threats, and by these standards the Numidium stands among the highest tiers of endurance across all fictional universes. It cannot be meaningfully injured by conventional means, it resists metaphysical interference that would destroy or unmake lesser beings, and it persists even after catastrophic events that would annihilate any mortal construct. The Numidium’s 9.5 out of 10 score reflects its near-unparalleled capacity to withstand both material and cosmic harm, tempered only by the existence of specific vulnerabilities tied to its power source and tonal architecture.

Physical Resistance

Physical resistance concerns the ability to withstand damage, endure assaults, and maintain structural integrity in hostile conditions. The Numidium’s construction places it near the apex of this metric. Built of Dwemer brass, tonal-reinforced metals, and metaphysically aligned components designed to withstand the Heart of Lorkhan’s impossible output, the Numidium exists in a category beyond ordinary durability. Accounts from early Third Era records describe it as a giant whose hands could “knock the moons from the sky,” imagery that illustrates the scale of force it could generate, and by extension the force it could endure. No recorded military action in Tamriel has ever damaged the Numidium through conventional siege weaponry, magical assault, or physical confrontation.

Its destruction in the First Era did not come from battle, but from the sabotage of its power source following a confrontation between Tiber Septim and Zurin Arctus. This distinction is critical, because it demonstrates that the Numidium was not destroyed by assault upon its body, but by interference with its metaphysical fuel. When reactivated during the Daggerfall crisis, the Numidium again operated without evidence of physical degradation. Its destruction during the Warp in the West was the result of Dragon Break phenomena and power-source instability, not structural vulnerability. As a physical object, it ranks at the extreme upper limits of resilience, capable of withstanding world-altering forces and continuing function until its heart or tonal alignment is disrupted.

Magical Resistance

Magical resistance concerns the ability to resist spells, supernatural interference, and metaphysical assaults. The Numidium’s relationship to magic is complex because it was created through tonal architecture, a discipline that predates and supersedes the arcane systems most mortals use. Its existence is intrinsically magical, yet simultaneously distinct from magic in a way that makes conventional spellcraft almost irrelevant.

During its first activation, neither the Tribunal nor the Chimer armies attempted to disable the Numidium through magical means, indicating implicit recognition that traditional destructive spells would prove meaningless against it. Its operation during the Warp in the West showed the same pattern: no individual sorcerer, lich, or godlike figure was able to harm it directly through magical force. Even the King of Worms, at the moment of his apotheosis, did not attempt to confront the Numidium magically, choosing instead to harness the Dragon Break to achieve his aims through temporal and divine manipulation.

Magical resistance in the Numidium’s case is less an active deflection and more a byproduct of scale. It is powered by the Heart of Lorkhan or a Mantella that replicates its divine properties. Only artifacts or energies of equivalent cosmic magnitude can affect it. This situates its magical resistance firmly within the highest echelons of fantasy beings capable of resisting supernatural forces.

Longevity

Longevity measures the capacity to endure destruction, survive existential threats, and return after apparent annihilation. Few entities in fantasy exhibit longevity in the same manner as the Numidium. Its body has been destroyed multiple times, yet the Numidium persists conceptually, metaphysically, and historically.

The original Numidium vanished at the Battle of Red Mountain when the Dwemer disappeared, but the construct itself did not cease to exist as a concept. It re-entered the world when gifted to Tiber Septim and activated by the Mantella. Its second destruction, at the hands of Zurin Arctus and Tiber Septim, did not erase its potential. During Daggerfall, the Mantella’s recovery allowed the Numidium to be fully reconstituted, suggesting that the destruction of its physical form is irrelevant as long as its heart and control mechanisms remain intact.

Specifically relevant to longevity is the Numidium’s behavior during the Dragon Break. When multiple realities occurred simultaneously, the Numidium was destroyed in each of them in different ways, yet its existence continued through the superposition of outcomes. Destruction did not represent an absolute end, but instead a state of multiplicity from which history later reconverged. This positions the Numidium uniquely within the parameters of this subcategory.

The second Numidium, Akulakhan, was destroyed when the Nerevarine severed its connection to the Heart of Lorkhan. Yet even this destruction does not rule out future reconstructions. Because the Numidium is a formula, a principle, and an architectural reality rather than merely a machine, its existence is functionally renewable.

The Numidium's Versatility

The Numidium’s versatility is limited by its nature as a fixed-purpose, reality-altering golem whose functions do not resemble the broad adaptability or varied skill sets of characters capable of responding dynamically to changing conditions. Versatility measures the capacity to adjust to new environments, utilize a range of abilities, exploit unexpected shifts, and retain hidden advantages. Though godlike in raw output, the Numidium is not a flexible entity; it is an engine built for domination through overwhelming force, not improvisation or creative adaptation. Its 3.5 out of 10 score reflects this narrow specialization, acknowledging the immense magnitude of its abilities while recognizing the lack of breadth in their application.

Adaptability

Adaptability refers to the ability to adjust to new challenges, environments, or circumstances. The Numidium does not meaningfully adapt to anything. It does not change tactics when confronted with resistance, nor does it exhibit decision-making informed by environment, enemy, or evolving battlefield dynamics. Its operations are predetermined by tonal programming and its connection to its power source, either the Heart of Lorkhan or the Mantella.

During the events surrounding its deployment by Tiber Septim, the Numidium demonstrated overwhelming force but not adaptive strategy. It swept across Tamriel through brute application of its capabilities rather than shifting its approach based on the nature of resistance. Its purpose is absolute imposition of control rather than flexible response. Even during the Dragon Break, when multiple timelines cycled simultaneously, the Numidium did not behave differently in any recorded outcome; the variance existed in the world around it, not in the construct itself.

Additionally, the Numidium’s existence is heavily dependent on external alignment to tonal architecture. Any disruption to its power source results not in adaptation but in complete collapse. It cannot compensate for tonal destabilization or reorient itself around new metaphysical conditions. These limitations place it far below characters who can navigate fluid situations with creativity or instinct.

Luck

Luck measures the tendency for improbable or advantageous outcomes to occur around a character. The Numidium operates in a way that renders luck irrelevant. It does not rely on fortune, coincidence, or narrow escapes; its actions produce effects through sheer metaphysical magnitude. Nothing about its history suggests events “break in its favor” by chance.

Even the Dragon Break, which created the simultaneous outcomes that define the end of Daggerfall, was not a product of luck from the Numidium’s perspective. Instead, the Dragon Break was caused by its activation, not a boon granted to it by chance. The Numidium is the source of improbability, not a beneficiary of it.

Its defeats, in contrast, come not from unlucky turns but from specific vulnerabilities exploited by powerful individuals: tonal collapse at Red Mountain, the Mantella’s loss after the confrontation between Tiber Septim and Zurin Arctus, and its destruction within the converging timelines of the Warp in the West. None of these hinge on fortune or misfortune. They are consequences of the Numidium’s rigid operational design. Its score remains low here because the construct neither relies on nor generates luck, except as a byproduct of catastrophic reality distortion that is not directed toward its benefit.

Shaved Knuckle in the Hole

This subcategory measures hidden advantages, secret powers, or final contingency skills a character can deploy under extreme circumstances. The Numidium’s existence is the opposite of hidden. Its abilities are monumental, openly telegraphed, and fully tied to its construction and power source. It possesses no concealed abilities beyond those documented in tonal lore.

The closest analogue to a last-resort asset is its effect on spacetime when activated, but even this is not a tactical fallback or a secret technique. It is simply the unavoidable consequence of its operation, and it is neither deliberately controlled nor selectively deployed. The Numidium cannot choose to create a Dragon Break; the Dragon Break is an unintended side effect of its metaphysical incompatibility with linear time.

Moreover, unlike entities that carry hidden training, a buried reserve of power, or a concealed identity, the Numidium is exactly what it appears to be: a giant world-ending construct built to express the will of the Dwemer or whoever commands the Totem. It has no improvisational secret ace, no shift in form, no emergent ability triggered by near-defeat. When its power source fails, it dies; when it functions, it operates at maximum output.

The Numidium's Alignment

The Numidium is best understood through a lens that separates function from intention, because intention simply does not apply. As a Dwemer-built brass colossus, a metaphysical engine rather than a thinking being, it lacks desire, emotion, and moral agency of any kind. Where living characters can be judged by the motivations behind their choices, the Numidium can only be judged by the rigid nature of its construction and the outcomes produced by those who attempt to wield it. With this framing, its alignment is most accurately defined as True Neutral, not because it seeks balance or impartiality, but because it exists outside the axis of moral judgment entirely. It performs exactly the task that its tonal architecture commands, no more and no less, and its role in the world reflects the purpose of its operators rather than any interior morality of its own.

The Numidium is a Brass God/Tonal Construct, a race category unique within the Elder Scrolls cosmology. It is neither sentient nor divine in the traditional sense, yet it was designed to function as a kind of artificial god, a Dwemer attempt to impose their interpretation of transcendence upon the mortal plane. There is no subrace, but two major iterations exist: Kagrenac’s original Numidium and the Second Numidium, or Akulakhan, built under Dagoth Ur’s deranged stewardship during the Third Era.

Factional alignment is complex only because the Numidium has been repeatedly claimed by vastly different powers. At various points it has served Dwemer architects seeking metaphysical elevation, Tiber Septim’s Empire in its drive for continental domination, and Dagoth Ur in his attempt to blanket Nirn in Blight. Yet in none of these scenarios does the Numidium belong meaningfully to the faction it serves. It is a tool. Its allegiance is not ideological, emotional, or even programmed beyond its control schema. Its factional identity is therefore best described as instrumental, rather than loyal.

The Neutral aspect of the Numidium is most clearly understood in the absence of motivation. It does not desire conquest. It does not choose sides. It does not prefer destruction over preservation. The devastation left in its wake comes not from moral inclination but from sheer scale and the uncompromising fidelity with which it executes instructions. If a city is flattened, it is because its path lies between the Numidium and its target. If timelines fracture, it is the unavoidable consequence of an object whose metaphysical weight is too great to be contained by ordinary causality.

The Numidium operates with perfect indifference. Neutrality in this context is neither compassionate nor cruel. It is a state of absence, a void where morality cannot meaningfully attach. The good or evil that follows depends entirely on the hands directing the construct. Tiber Septim’s use turned it into an instrument of unification through fear. Dagoth Ur’s ambition would have weaponized it into a vector for universal subjugation. The Blades’ reactivation of it during the events of Daggerfall triggered the Warp in the West, but again the chaos arose from misuse, not from the Numidium’s own agency.

This distinction is essential. The Numidium does not impose order or chaos. It imposes function. It is a perfectly neutral force, its morality borrowed from its wielder and its consequences determined by circumstance rather than any internal compass. Its alignment as True Neutral reflects the only category that does not require intention, emotion, or philosophy, because the Numidium contains none. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated character alignment matrix across all planes of existence.

The Numidium's Trophy Case

Arena Results

Titles & Postseason Results

Halls of Legend Records

Overall Conclusion on The Numidium and Position Across Planes of Existence

Assigning the Numidium an overall rating of 6.7 inevitably creates the impression that this brass colossus is merely “above average” across the spectrum of fantasy power. In practice the number obscures a far more complex truth. The Numidium exists at the intersection of raw metaphysical force, tonal engineering, and narrative consequence, creating a being that can influence not just landscapes or cities but history itself. Yet when evaluated across the broader, multi-universal criteria that govern this system, the machine’s unusual asymmetry becomes clear. It is overwhelmingly powerful in certain dimensions and strikingly limited in others, creating a profile that is impossible to summarize with a single number but essential to contextualize for the sake of comparative ranking.

The Numidium's crushing magnitude stems first from its physical presence. A brass titan capable of flattening armies, unraveling magic, and in specific cases destabilizing time, it demonstrates a magnitude of force unmatched by most beings with corporeal form. The events surrounding the Mantella and the ensuing Dragon Break illustrate a being that, when activated, extends beyond the boundaries of simple destruction and becomes a pivot point for entire timelines. In universes where overwhelming physical and metaphysical power is the central metric, the Numidium ranks among the most dangerous constructs ever conceived.

However, the very characteristics that elevate its highest scores also create the structural weaknesses that pull its average down. The Numidium has no tactical mind, no will, no improvisational capacity, and no conceptual understanding of the worlds it reshapes. It does not choose. It does not adapt. It does not learn. It simply executes. Its astonishing power is completely dependent on the intent, clarity, and skill of the operator controlling it. Remove the Mantella, disrupt the totemic instructions, or interfere with its heart-source and the entire machine collapses. In a system where independent agency, versatility, and influence weigh heavily alongside destructive capacity, this lack of self-directed function limits its standing. A character who cannot strategize or respond to unforeseen conditions cannot dominate power rankings that rely on competence across multiple axes.

This absence of agency is especially important when considering cross-universal comparisons. Many entities in other settings possess not only overwhelming power but also the will and intelligence to deploy it autonomously. The Numidium’s power is always mediated. Even its most dramatic effects, including the Warp in the West, occurred because a mortal activated it, not because the construct sought any particular outcome. The engine carries infinite momentum but zero direction of its own. This is why its total score stabilizes where it does: extremely high in categories tied to force and metaphysics, but inevitably tempered by categories that require autonomy or adaptability.

Even so, the Numidium’s position across the planes remains formidable. It is a being whose invocation can tilt worlds, disrupt eras, and alter the nature of reality itself. Its rating reflects the whole of the framework, not the ceiling of its destructive potential, which remains one of the highest among all manufactured beings in fantasy. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated power ranking across all planes of existence. This will only be sortable on desktop viewing. The below table shows a summary within the same plane of existence of this article.