The geode vein are found at and you can get from it.

Someone tell me how is it possible? =O I tough black soul gems were only crafted trough some necromancy bizarre rituals. :S
In oblivion you had to do something specific I can't remember to turn a soul gem to a black soul gem. What now? :s

Normal soul gems are considered "tainted" when turned black via magic as its an unnatural process. There still had to be normal black gems for the fact that in order to know that black soul gems existed and normal ones could be converted. That is to say if there were none in nature, then how would anyone know they could exist? Natural ones are extremely rare, so thats why most ones you find (in the lore) are magically changed ones.

Great to know that! Now it's easier to understand this.

But it's really sad you destroy a soul to recharge your weapons.

Tought souls were immortal.

Can someone help me figuring this out?

- soul trapped, soul used. Then that soul stop existing and.. the souls aren't immortal? arhg! o-o? -

The way to think on the gems breaking with usage is this;

When empty they are fine, when "charged" with a soul its now energised. When you use that charge to craft gear or recharge weapons the energy is transfered and the crystal shatters due to the strain of the transfer.

I mined a couple geode veins and I got some different kind of metal every time. Never got a soul gem mining ever, black or otherwise.

Blackreach?!

Yes, blackreach. Main quest.

Alduin can eat souls. And killing ghosts is trivial. So yeah, maybe you'd better just think of them as "durable".

Yup, it was a nice surprise when I found out what geode veins did. Luckily there are pickaxes down in blackreach since I don't carry any.

Where in Blackreach is a pickaxe? I don't carry them either and I couldn't find one down there...

As I understand it it's more like electricity. You don't "destroy" electricity when it's used, it passes through the wire and it performs "work" (In scientific terms) and it converts to a new form. When you enchant an item you are weaving an enchantment into the object like a mechanical device, with the initial soul gem used as an energy resevoir and the initial charge. When you use the device, it allows the soul to seep through and dissipate to produce an effect, like passing electricity through a circuit, eventually the soul escapes, and a new soul is transferred from a gem to keep the enchantment working.

...that's just my understanding. Not sure where I read that though.


Clothing though... http://prequeladventure.com/2011/05/amulet-overload/

Your answer is a mix of physics and skyrim. It made all sense to me, to be honest. And now it matches with the souls beeing immortal (People goes to sovngard. The souls live forever there, isn't? So.. they can't stop "existing")

No that is not true.
Black soul gems made their first appearance in Oblivion, where the only way to create them was with a ritual at the Shade of the Revenant.

The Shade of the Revenant is when Mannimarco eclipses Arkay.
The souls of the playable races cannot be soultrapped because they are under the protection of Arkay.
That is how it worked until Mannimarco the necromancer achieved Apotheosis and became a god during the events of Daggerfall.

Now the moon Mannimarco (his divine form) orbits the plane(t) of Arkay (the Aedra are planets in the sky) and that causes an eclipse every 8 days.
During the time of this eclipse black soul gems can be created via a ritual.
Mannimarco flaunting the edicts of Arkay.

That you can mine them in Blackreach must be an oversight.

Or, maybe, during the 250 ish years since Mannimarco's apotheosis his influence on Tamriel has gradually saturated it until black soul gems occured in geode veins.
But that is something I just made up to explain away this oversight.

There is no evidence to suggest a soul is destroyed when trapped and used for enchanting purposes.
We do know that a trapped daedra soul in Daggerfall was released when an item enchanted with one broke, and it would spawn behind you and attack.
I think that due to the lack of evidence that (white) souls get destroyed, youd think it would be mentioned somewhere as evil, they transfer to the Dreamsleeve when its charge is used up.

Oh, fair warning, there are minor spoilers in here, but I don't know how to make the spoiler box cause I'm new to this whole 'internet forum' thing....and no I'm not 80 years old.
Sorry.









Bummer for those guys then, cause I fill up my Black Azura's Star every chance I get. If I sneak up on a bunch of bandits, I capture every one of their souls and recharge all my weapons. Grand Souls don't grow on trees you know! (Although if they did I would harvest them all the time. Sell that [censored]! Also, their souls are awesome for enchanting good items)


It's not an oversight. It was a deliberate decision. You obviously have more Elder Scrolls knowledge than I do (I've only played Oblivion and Skyrim), but in the guide book it says that you can get the Black Soul gems from mining, so I'm pretty sure it was on purpose. I think they gave us the option to taint Azura's Star as compensation for not having the ability to corrupt grand soul gems. Plus, it's new and cool.

I dont mean game-wise, more lore-wise.
Black soul gems were introduced during Oblivion and its lore mechanics explained in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Necromancer%27s_Moon_%28book%29

Only now suddenly we can mine them, which technically goes against lore.
Unless you make up something lore-friendly to explain it away like I did in my previous post, I think thats more fun

I agree that it is more fun that way haha
Plus it adds a feeling of evolution to the game. The world changes more and more with every new discovery/change made in the ES universe.

Thanks for being a helpful and reasonable fan, and not a [censored] fan boy by the way.

I see thanks!