Now that the Tomestone emote's been implemented in FFXIV...

-how does the 'tomephone' fit into XIV lore? What does this say about tomestones in general? And can we get an answer from the lore team about this?

I always figured they were something like a floppy disk. They don’t seem to have a screen on them, and must need a separate reader device.

So maybe it’s a portable reader? Something like a GameBoy (with the bulky ‘cartridge’ slot for tomestones) but with a touch screen like a smartphone.

I always thought it was some sort of memory stick.

Tomestones have been confirmed to be the Allagan version of USB drives. What Rowena is interested isn't the tomestones themselves, but the data stored on them. The Ironworks transcribes the data onto paper, translates it into modern Eorzean and sumarizes it for Rowena. She then sells the transcrips to collectors.You can find out more about this in the 60-70 SMN quests.

One amusing place you can see tomstones being used is in the Scavaen gear. The SMN/SCH books have Tomestones of Poetics, Creation, and Mendacity embeded in the inner cover. I don't know if they're functional acording to lore, but it makes a lot of sense for both those classes to keep all their math data close at hand.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

So maybe it’s a portable reader? Something like a GameBoy (with the bulky ‘cartridge’ slot for tomestones) but with a touch screen like a smartphone.

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So... a VMU?

The tomephone does not fit into XIV's lore. Tomestones are data storage devices, not communications devices. If you really insist on saying that it's a part of lore, then you should note that the emote in game specifically says that nothing happens when you activate it.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

One amusing place you can see tomstones being used is in the Scavaen gear. The SMN/SCH books have Tomestones of Poetics, Creation, and Mendacity embeded in the inner cover. I don't know if they're functional acording to lore, but it makes a lot of sense for both those classes to keep all their math data close at hand.

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*goes to check*

Ah, that's interesting! So we can see them 'at correct scale' with our characters.

They're smaller than I thought they'd be.

I also actually took a look at the /tomestone emote, and I'm quite sure it's not supposed to be taken as canon. It has the same design as a poetics tomestone but it's the wrong size (if the others are correct), and also is literally a smartphone. It's not a clever in-universe equivalent, it's a smartphone with a screen and a home button and a camera on the back.

I don't really take it as canon that now a bunch of adventurers have the eorzean equivelant of smartphones but people can RP that they made one I guess.

My headcanon is that the tomestone readers that Rowena and the Ironworks have (how else are they going to find out what is on the Tomestones) where found in/around Mor Dhona. Which was the Allagan capital and has been around a long time. So they're the equivalent of slightly old desktop computers that wouldn't have been considered "state-of-the-art" by the end of the Allagan empire, but function just fine for the purposes of reading data.

The WoL has been to Azys Lla, where all the Allagan tech developers were. The odds of the WoL coming across "next-gen" Allagan tech is pretty high. I just figure they found the Allagan equivalent of a Galaxy S10. Which is to say, it does much, much more then read data, but that's probably all the WoL does with it.

The 'smartphone' tomestone emote as an actual phone is kind of superflorous in the game's lore anyway as linkpearls already fill that role (they are literally phones in function, right down to using radio waves to transmit and recieve messages and having a phone-ringtone-like chirp in certain cutscenes when a npc is receiving a call.).

So I agree with Obsidian, the emote is basically just a tomestone reader and not an actual smartphone (I think we've kind of had enough smartphone placement in the FF series already with FFXV and it's ilk ;)), as linkpearls are already used for communication and serve the same purpose.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

They're smaller than I thought they'd be.

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I'm glad they're not large, considering we can theoretically hold EIGHT THOUSAND of them at a time...

Then again, we can also carry around more than a hundred Mansion Roofs with no apparent distress, so it may not be for the best to nitpick on that point.

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

I don't really see the tomephone as being 'lore.' Even if we take it at face value, the emote says 'nothing happens.'

I just see it there as a fun thing. Like, I don't see the shiva or megaflare emotes as being 'in lore.' They're just fun little things for players not something with a lore explanation.

That said if people RP with them I'm not going to yell about them being wrong or anything, but IMO I don't consider tomestone cell phones as 'canon' just a fun OOC addition to the app.

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Originally Posted by AurumWitch

-how does the 'tomephone' fit into XIV lore? What does this say about tomestones in general? And can we get an answer from the lore team about this?

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The question that has kept koji awake at night since hearing that it will be implemented...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The 'smartphone' tomestone emote as an actual phone is kind of superflorous in the game's lore anyway as linkpearls already fill that role (they are literally phones in function, right down to using radio waves to transmit and recieve messages and having a phone-ringtone-like chirp in certain cutscenes when a npc is receiving a call.).

So I agree with Obsidian, the emote is basically just a tomestone reader and not an actual smartphone (I think we've kind of had enough smartphone placement in the FF series already with FFXV and it's ilk ;)), as linkpearls are already used for communication and serve the same purpose.

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Linkpearls do already serve the place of regular telephones, true, but a smartphone with a touch screen would be something new. If one assumes these exist in lore, personally I don't they're meant to in the first place, just as I don't think the shiva/odin/bahamut emotes are meant as a lore thing.

Remember the emote's own text: nothing happens.

Huh, that is what the Emote states in the English version? Not a big hit to lore then, basically just our characters fiddling with one of the tomestones we collect for Rowena out of sheer boredom.

(The Emote in the german version actually is something like 'you swipe over your tomestone of communication and ignore yout surroundings', but the english version kind of takes the threat away from lore.)

The emote needs to be persistent.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

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Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)


But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)

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Well it is clear the Allagans had fallen so much into decadence and corruption, so utterly irredemably immoral, that their nation was pretty much little more than an Orwellian dystopia so no wonder their society became incapable of differentiating between government propaganda and 'culture', with everyone believing their own lies. Pride comes before the fall after all.

And what better way to disseminate that propaganda to their masses than by cheap, easy to produce tomestones? 'Truth lies in your pocket' pretty much. ;)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

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I'm also glad I'm not the only one that saw them more as floppy diskettes than thumb drives! ;) (I don't blame Ferne from using the 'USB thumb drive' analogy though, given those born after 2000 might not know what a floppy disk even is alas - hells I think we're getting to the stage people won't even know what a thumb drive is soon, an eventuality I'm trying not to think about :().

The 'Tron lines' on them do seem to also make them look like a printed circuit board though (something floppy disks generally didn't have, so maybe they're a RAM cart or something? (But then maybe this is overthinking the issue). :p

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

The emote needs to be persistent.

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THIS

I don't understand why it isn't persistent at all

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Originally Posted by Iscah

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)

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Because the Allagans were justifiably concerned about fake news, and were building records of the lies to teach self-learning bots how to recognise and destroy the falsehoods.

I could easily see these being canon. For one thing, the "tomestones" may not be actual Tomestones but a smartphone like device BASED on tomestones. Like, I know you can buy phone covers printed to look like a tomestone of poetics. I could imagine them taking Tomestone and the poetic design as inspiration. I always assumed the Tomestones themselves projected a holographic screen, which is why Rowena isn't constantly searching for various devices to play these on. The Ironworks is lead by a Garlean, and they've already breached basic monitor technology with touch screens and everything. The idea that we have a phone and linkpearls also isn't far fetched. Link Pearls are literally the tiny, near invisible, ear phones you see thieves and spies using in stuff and Tomestones like Smartphones. Link Pearls have one purpose and that's to relay voice. But Smartphones can do soooooo much more! I like to think our chat box, tells, etc, are or can be controlled via the tomestone. I could even imagine Link Pearls syncing up like bluetooth to them. For hand's free talking which is turned into text on the tomestone for later reading. Remember all the cute little minigames we can play with the toy chest? I betcha those are playable on a tomestone! And how do you think we can take our screenshots? I imagine it has some kind of holographic camera for getting those scrolled out shots. The reason it says nothing happens when we pull the tomestone out is because we're literally just scrolling down and tapping randomly on the screen. Just literally turning it on and scrolling down and tapping randomly! Of course nothing happens! XD You probably open and close the same app a few times over the course of the few seconds.