Lore:Dragonfires

Drake of Blades, immortal guardian of the Dragonfires

The Temple of the One during the Oblivion Crisis, with the Dragonfires lying dormant

The Dragonfire Cathedral and the Sublime Brazier.

The Dragonfires were mystical fires that powered the liminal barrier between the Planes of Oblivion and Nirn, created from the blood of Akatosh and given to Saint Alessia. This barrier protected against invasion by the Daedra. The fires were relit whenever an heir ascended to the Ruby Throne. They were kept burning throughout his or her lifetime and represented the Covenant between the Cyrodilic Empire and Akatosh.

The pedestal that served as a pyre may be found in the Temple of the One in the Imperial City, though there seems to have been no apparent connection between the ritual and the Alessian teachings. A Dragonborn Emperor had to use the Amulet of Kings to light the Dragonfires in the Sublime Brazier, a sacred cauldron located in the Dragonfire Cathedral deep beneath the Imperial Sewers, said to stretch to the very heart of Nirn, and described as Akatosh's "first light". Once the Sublime Brazier was kindled, it would light the Dragonfires in the Temple of the One. The Dragonfires could also be lit directly from the Temple of the One.

The darkening of the Dragonfires played an essential role in two Daedric invasions of Tamriel. The first occurred in 2E 579, when Emperor Varen Aquilarios of the Empire of Cyrodiil misused the Amulet of Kings in a ritual that Varen's advisor Mannimarco had convinced him would curry Akatosh's favor and make Varen a Dragonborn. Instead, the ritual violated the Covenant with Akatosh and caused the Soulburst, which set Nirn adrift in Mundus and made it come "unmoored from the fabric of the multiverse". Molag Bal took the opportunity to begin rending the souls of Nirn's mortals from their hosts to use as fuel for the Planemeld, the process of merging Nirn with Coldharbour using devices called Dark Anchors. Fortunately, a Vestige who had been a victim of Mannimarco and Molag Bal's schemes arose to unite the warring nations of Tamriel against Molag Bal, invading Coldharbour and halting the Planemeld in 2E 582.

Molag Bal sought to destroy the Sublime Brazier to prevent the Dragonfires from ever being relit, sending a Xivkyn General known as Malivus to spearhead an attack on the temple. This attack was repelled by the Vestige, the Drake of Blades and Captain Anatolius Caudex using siege weapons. While the attack was repelled, Father Egnatius, a priest of Akatosh, performed a ritual on the Brazier. Once this ritual was complete the Drake of Blades became the immortal guardian of the Brazier and the Dragonfire Cathedral, blessed with the power of Akatosh himself and forever bound to the temple. The Vestige also later stopped an alternate form of the Planemeld ritual called the Planemeld Obverse from being carried out by the Xivkyn Molag Kena at White-Gold Tower.

With the ascension of Tiber Septim as Emperor of the Third Empire at the end of the Second Era, the Dragonfire ritual was resumed while the Septim Dynasty reigned, but in 3E 433 that dynasty was broken and Mehrunes Dagon threatened Tamriel with an invasion of his own. With the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII and all of his legitimate heirs by the Mythic Dawn cult, no known Dragonborn heir remained to relight the Dragonfires. The barriers between Oblivion and Mundus were broken, allowing stable portals to the Deadlands to be created. With each Gate that opened, the barriers between Nirn and Oblivion weakened further. This phenomenon, likened to cracks gradually developing in the Firmament, would have eventually resulted in the barriers between worlds collapsing completely and Nirn and Oblivion becoming joined. When Martin Septim, the illegitimate son of the late Emperor, smashed the Amulet of Kings to summon an avatar of Akatosh, the barriers were resealed permanently, thus ending the long but now obsolete tradition. The new barrier created by Martin's sacrifice was noted to be too powerful for even a Sigil Stone, an object in the presence of which it was said even "a thousand soul gems would likely dissolve", to breach for more than fleeting moments.

Notes

• Some sources also speak of the aurora or "Kyne's lights", and the Lunar Lattice, also serving as boundaries that protect Nirn from harmful influence from beyond. Some sources describe the Lunar Lattice as burning spirits that touch it with moonlight fire, causing even Molag Bal to be set aflame and fall into the darkness below when pressed against it. It is said by those sources that no spirit had ever managed to damage it until Merrunz, released to serve as a weapon against the Lattice, cracked it with his axe. This might suggest the influence of the Dragonfires was potentially not the sole protection of Mundus.