So these tomestones..

I hear they are like, information devices, like, floppy discs in our world?
But there must be billions in circulation right now, what kind of information would it contain? How much data would be on such a stone?

Anyone care to enlighten me what they are and why there are so insanely much of them?

Uhn... Well, the Allagan Tomestones are ancient allangan storage devices, yes. Right now nobody can actually read them, exception given to the Garlond Ironworks and perhaps the likes of Nero's research team.

And here we have a mysterious arms dealer trading relics of great power of the as many of those tomestones as we can unearth from ancient allagan ruins.

One has to wonder, what is she doing with those.

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Originally Posted by Skies

One has to wonder, what is she doing with those.

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Suddenly.. Omega Weapon!

The French name for the item gives you a better idea what's up with them: Memoquartz.

Using quartz crystal as a storage medium has been a concept in science fiction for a long time, but it actually is possible to laser-etch crystal and keep the information for millions of years without degradation. The thing is, our current techniques don't allow you to fit all that much data on one. That would go a long way to explaining why there are so many and why they vary so much, but so might the idea that the Allag just really liked using them while they had them. Think about how many discs you've had laying around over the past decade. I had a few hundred just in AOL trial disks.

The other thing to recall is that you are the only significant adventurer in the known world. You are the only person out looking for them and you are the only person held in such high esteem to be able to trade with Rowena.

Of course, this is an MMO, so we have to bend the rules of space-time a bit...

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Originally Posted by Catapult

The other thing to recall is that you are the only significant adventurer in the known world. You are the only person out looking for them and you are the only person held in such high esteem to be able to trade with Rowena.

Of course, this is an MMO, so we have to bend the rules of space-time a bit...

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I feel special now. ;0

Like others have said they are memory storage devices. I believe Rowena is collecting them because she is trying to unearth the secrets to the Allagan race that came before us. My theory is that when we are done with Eorzea the story will "uncover" some sort of hidden land no one knew about that the Allagans populated. Either that or Square could do another time-travel expansion like Wings of the Goddess in 11 and the tomestones could have given us the key to being able to travel back in time and see the world before Dalamud was launched into orbit.

I kept misreading these as "tombstones" for the first like 2 weeks. lol

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Originally Posted by Dyne_Fellpool

I kept misreading these as "tombstones" for the first like 2 weeks. lol

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You're not the only one. I hear this on Mumble all the time. Not only that, from what I can tell even the German client used the word for gravestone in Version 1.0 (grabsteine) whereas now it calls them Allagan Stones (Allagischer Stein).

As for the item icon, I notice a little difference between the Philosophy ones and the Mythology ones. Perhaps the "number of blue stripes" would indicate the "either the subject or importance" of what would be on the tomestone [Philosophy ones have 1 stripe and Mythology ones have 2 stripes].

I also note that the way the icon looks like, it's possible for one to have up to 4 stripes, so there may two more varieties in the future, more if they come out with ones with different color stripes on them.