Fahlbtharz is one of the three Dwemer ruins on Solstheim, tucked into the mountainous north of the island, northeast of the Water Stone. It arrived with the Dragonborn expansion and is a proper puzzle dungeon: a room full of mystery buttons, a cavern of giant rotating gears over water, a steam boiler that punishes bad arithmetic and a Grand Hall guarded by Centurions. The prize at the end is the Visage of Mzund.
What you’ll find
- A button room with ten buttons in two rows – some open doors (one hides a chest and Solid Dwemer Metal), others release Dwarven Spiders, a Spider Guardian or set off flame traps and spinning blades.
- A huge cavern of spinning Dwemer gears over water, with pipes where spiders emerge and a rotating bridge.
- Webbed corridors with Oil Spiders, albino spiders and Tonal Resonators that open gates.
- Leveled Dwarven Spheres and Spiders, Dwarven Ballistas, Animunculi, rieklings and two leveled Dwarven Centurions (up to Masters).
- The bodies of the adventurers Eydis and Ulyn, whose journals explain the hunt for the Visage and how the boiler works.
- An expert-locked chest on a rock outcrop below the bridge to the Grand Hall, and a skeleton with a leveled bow behind the second ballista.
Notable items
- Visage of Mzund and piles of gold in the Grand Hall.
- A respawning Kagrumez Resonance Gem on a plate (one of five, used at Kagrumez).
- Dynamo Cores from the Centurions.
- Eydis’ Journal and Ulyn’s Journal.
Tips
For the boiler, you need exactly twenty lights. Shoot the far-left (3), middle-left (4) and middle-right (13) valves – arrows or a spell like Incinerate or Icy Spear work. Overshoot and you get steam plus angry automatons; fail repeatedly and spinning blades join the party. The last valve before the Grand Hall must be hit from the rotating bridge, not from its own platform. Whirlwind Sprint along the bridge edges can skip most of this. Leave via the lift in the Grand Hall: it is not on the world map, but the Abandoned Lodge lies just south of the exit.
Good to know
The Dynamo Cores are valuable for crafting at the Atronach Forge. Some players grab the cores and simply walk back out the way they came, which is easier than the forward route.
Nearby
Closest places on Solstheim covered on TamrielSaga: Water Stone, White Ridge Barrow, Damphall Mine, Mount Moesring, Hvitkald Peak.
Map position and editor ID read from the Dragonborn game files; details checked against community wiki articles and summarised in our own words.
