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.

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Originally Posted by myahele

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

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I find this confusing because I did get the lightning crystal as you've described, and I got the ice crystal from Stone Vigil as described, but I'm fairly certain I've had the water crystal since my first contact with Hydaelyn - and there are only two bluish-colored crystals, correct? I've only just recently beaten the story and I don't believe I got any crystal from beating Siren. I didn't really get anything out of visiting the Isles of Umbra that I can recall.

Yeah, we get no crystal from Siren if I remember.

Water - First
Fire - Ifrit
Lightning - Sylphs
Earth - Titan
Ice - Stone Vigil
Wind - Garuda

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Originally Posted by Effie_Bigglesworth

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

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It's entirely possible given the nature of the Ascians. In FFXII they explored the whole "Dark Summons" concept. All the Espers in FFXII were "Scions of Darkness", who rose up against the Gods and were trapped in Glyphs. The two exceptions were Ultima and Zodiark (who were both Dark and Light Scions.)

Even more interesting is that Lahabrea is the name of one of the Scions of Light in FFXII (Lahabrea, Abyssal Celebrant), and existed as the opposite of Mateus, the Corrupt.

The other Ascians in the game that have been named also share names with the "Scions of Light" from FFXII:
Pashtarot (Pashtarot, Knight-Star, opposite of Zeromus, the Condemner)
Igeyorhm (Igeyorhm, the Martyr, opposite of Shemhazai, the Whisperer)
and Nabriales (Nabriales, the Majestic, opposite of Cúchulainn, the Impure)

It could be possible that the Espers from XII could be utilized as "dark primals" and used as a way to help revive Zodiark.

There are in fact 'Crystals of Darkness' in ARR - you first see one on the ground briefly after defeating the 'Masked Mage' and his gargoyle during the level 15 story quest (it soon disintegrates), and Minfilia directly confirms their existence much later just prior to

Operation Archon being undertaken, where she shows the synthetic one the Students of Baldesion gave her to free Thancred from Lahabrea's control.

So they definitely exist.

EDIT: I just looked through my screenshots and Minfilia mentioned in that above scene that the Crystals of Darkness are the specific means the

Ascians use to take host bodies, like what Lahabrea did to Thancred

- there's no mention of them being used as part of a summoning process, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was also the case. In any event, this is the dialogue from the scene in question (spoilered for those who haven't yet reached this part):

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Originally Posted by ARR main scenario quest 'The Black Wolf's Ultimatum'

Minfilia: "Thancred's fate weighs heavily on my mind. I cannot bear to think of him in thrall to an Ascian."
Minfilia: "Mayhap you know this already, but the Ascians are immortal beings without physical form. Since time immemorial, they have fanned the flames of chaos from the shadows."
Minfilia: "That they might work unseen, the Ascians entrap and possess mortal men by means of malign artifacts known as Crystals of Darkness."
Minfilia: "One such Crystal may yet be the key to saving Thancred." (she hands over a purple crystal)
Alphinaud: "This is a Crystal of Darkness?"
Y'shtola: "A mere replica, created using data obtained from anomalous crystals found across Eorzea."

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So yeah, this showed the Crystals of Darkness pretty much do exist, but are used in ways by the Ascians different to how the player makes use of the Crystals of Light.