What are the crystals you collect in the main story from primals?

Spoilers Ahead!

So, I'm sure this must get asked a lot but I'd still like to know... what are the crystals that the player character collects through the course of ARR? You get several from defeating Primals, although in Garuda's case you extract it from her while she's still incarnate (although it weakens her).

Is this ever revealed in the game? If it is I missed it (completed the 2.0 main story, haven't gone far in raids).

To the best of my knowledge this was never explicitly explained. The Crystals from the story are just highly concentrated forms of Aether, (which makes sense why you'd receive one upon defeating the Primals since this is what the beastmen tribes offer up to them in order to bring them to our Plane) but they seem to have a higher purpose as they're shown being placed in Hydaelyn's domain. I'm not exactly sure, but I think these same crystals were the ones whose power was expended to enhance your abilities and give you the shielding to survive the Ultima attack unleashed by Ultima Weapon.

I'd have to double check the cutscenes again as well but there were spots for 6 Crystals in that circle (one for each Primal I assume) but we only defeated three Primals and received a Dark Crystal from the first Ascian that was defeated. (and it wasn't shown going to the "Circle") There's still three other known Primals (Leviathan, Ramuh and the up-until-now unshown Shiva) so I wonder what bearing defeating them and receiving their crystals will have.

Maybe some of the other Loremongers will have some further insight on this, or maybe the story hasn't progressed enough yet to reveal what's going on with them.

Edit: Through a strange coincidence I just watched the promo video on Steam and Y'shtola referred to one of the crystals we had as a "Crystal of Light". Why would the Primals' essence convert over to one of these?

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Originally Posted by Orophin

I'd have to double check the cutscenes again as well but there were spots for 6 Crystals in that circle (one for each Primal I assume) but we only defeated three Primals and received a Dark Crystal from the first Ascian that was defeated. (and it wasn't shown going to the "Circle") There's still three other known Primals (Leviathan, Ramuh and the up-until-now unshown Shiva) so I wonder what bearing defeating them and receiving their crystals will have.

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Hi,
If I recall correctly, we do receive all 6 elemntal crystals during the story, even though 3 Primals remain. I think for instance we receive the ice crystal at the end of Stone Vigil. However, I don't remember how we received water and thunder crystals. Maybe we will know more in 2.2 quests with Leviathan...

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Originally Posted by Yasminou

Hi,
If I recall correctly, we do receive all 6 elemntal crystals during the story, even though 3 Primals remain. I think for instance we receive the ice crystal at the end of Stone Vigil. However, I don't remember how we received water and thunder crystals. Maybe we will know more in 2.2 quests with Leviathan...

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You could be right. It's been a long time since I've played through the story and I haven't watched cutscenes since then, so I can't really remember much outside of the three Primals.

I think the ligntning crystal we got via helping the sylph out.
The water crystal was given after fighting siren the 1st time.

Well, based on the Mothercrystal's dialogue early in the storyline, and the events in the ending, it's apparent the Crystals of Light are

effectively manifestations of Hydaelyn's 'will', hence the name - with the Ascians using Dark Crystals to further their plan to rebirth Zodiark, it forces Hydaelyn to employ the same methods with her agents, ala, the player. Although it wasn't obvious upon gathering all of them, their true purpose only became known when facing Lahabrea - the six crystals formed 'the Blade of Light' eluded to by Louisoix in his journal, which the player used to free Thancred from Lahabrea's control (and thus making that lauded synthetic 'dark crystal' Minfilia ordered from the Students of Baldesion nothing but a red herring). Hydaelyn knew a show down with the Ascians was inevitable, and thus had to ensure her champion had the tools to do that - the Echo itself wasn't enough. Those tools are the Crystals of Light.

Or at least, that's what it seems to me.

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Originally Posted by Yasminou

Hi,
If I recall correctly, we do receive all 6 elemntal crystals during the story, even though 3 Primals remain. I think for instance we receive the ice crystal at the end of Stone Vigil. However, I don't remember how we received water and thunder crystals. Maybe we will know more in 2.2 quests with Leviathan...

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We in fact do - four are in fact gained from the Primals (three after defeating Ifrit, Titan and Garuda, the fourth is Ramuh's one that was handed over by the sylphs), with the remaining two left over from pseudo-summonings of random monsters by the Ascians (ala, the dragon at the end of Stone Vigil and the very first one after defeating the golem early in the story). Another crystal is briefly seen on the ground after defeating the 'masked mage' and his gargoyle pet during the starting nation's storyline, although it soon disintegrates. But the elements are definitely represented by the Crystals of Light, even if not all of them are gained from Primals. It's obvious that a Crystal of Light just requires significant aether concentration, and is not necessarily just from a Primal.

Man, everyone thus far has gotten the location of Water wrong. At least in Gridania, the Water Crystal of Light is gained after defeating the Treants at Lifemend Stump a little past level 5, which is a full Ascian encounter before the Golem, which itself is an Ascian encounter before the end of the city-specific storyline ends.

Anyway, I started a thread trying to work out what's going on with these things last month. While a lot of questions are left to speculation, what can be said almost for certain is that these are the Crystals of Light; claiming the Crystals of Light gives us strength; and Hydaelyn wishes us to use this strength to conquer the Darkness.

Forgive me if this is stupid and/or painfully obvious.

It's pure conjecture, but the pattern the crystals make in the cutscene (as well as the glowy columns of light) is awfully reminiscent of Louisoix's spell that *almost* worked in the log-in screen movie. Looked like containment for the big fire-screaming superbad from the center of the not-a-moon whose name escapes me Dalamund. Maybe a 6 Billion Gil Man deal? We can rebuild it. Better. Faster. Stronger. With sparkles.

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Originally Posted by JelloMold

Forgive me if this is stupid and/or painfully obvious.

It's pure conjecture, but the pattern the crystals make in the cutscene (as well as the glowy columns of light) is awfully reminiscent of Louisoix's spell that *almost* worked in the log-in screen movie.

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I think it's more that circles are a mainstay in magic in general, I'd say. I mean, it could be that it's meant to be a reference to that, but I think it's more that there are only so many "fundamental" shapes, and the one most closely associated with magic seems to be the circle.

And honestly, the first time I saw it I was more reminded of Cardcaptors >_>

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Originally Posted by Orophin

Edit: Through a strange coincidence I just watched the promo video on Steam and Y'shtola referred to one of the crystals we had as a "Crystal of Light". Why would the Primals' essence convert over to one of these?

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Maybe there are "Crystals of Darkness" // 'Dark' Primals associated with Zodiark? ^_^; that could be quite cool.