So how exactly are soul stones made?

[Random0]

I had a discussion with a friend on this subject and she brought up an interesting analogy.

A soul crystal is like a well trained warhorse that you just inherited. The original owner/trainer might have spent considerable time and effort to raise the horse and teach it how to obey commands, leap obstacles, and charge fearlessly into battle without throwing its rider. The horse and rider might have fought dozens or hundreds of battles, the two of them learning and gaining experience together.

The original owner might have fallen in battle or has retired from the frontlines and this horse is yours now. You still need to know the basics of riding a horse and what commands/signals to give, but the horse is already a veteran and knows what to do when you tell it to do so in the right way. You don’t need to teach the horse how to fight - the horse teaches you how to use it.

[Seraphor]

I had a discussion with a friend on this subject and she brought up an interesting analogy.

A soul crystal is like a well trained warhorse that you just inherited. The original owner/trainer might have spent considerable time and effort to raise the horse and teach it how to obey commands, leap obstacles, and charge fearlessly into battle without throwing its rider. The horse and rider might have fought dozens or hundreds of battles, the two of them learning and gaining experience together.

The original owner might have fallen in battle or has retired from the frontlines and this horse is yours now. You still need to know the basics of riding a horse and what commands/signals to give, but the horse is already a veteran and knows what to do when you tell it to do so in the right way. You don’t need to teach the horse how to fight - the horse teaches you how to use it.

And at the same time, you need to form a relationship with the horse, get it to trust you as it did its former master.

Brilliant analogy.

[The_NPC]

I have had 1 question since Alexander: what if u meet someone using ur exact soul stone, like just the stone somehow time traveled? (be it stone sent to past after u "passed" it on & someone else is using it or someone from the future coming back with it to meet one of its user's as they have "Question's/problem's"). Time Paradox duplicate theory aside I'm wondering if it could be used as a future Job Quest line & what would happen to both stones (& user's) as a result... I know stupid thought but understanding possible Time Travel shenanigans is entertaining to me

srry for the derail question, plz continue &/or ignore

[Iscah]

what if u meet someone using ur exact soul stone, like just the stone somehow time traveled?

Probable-but-boring answer: not much, as long as you don't directly cause a paradox by destroying the 'first' version of the stone or something. Which you probably can't if a stable time loop is in effect (as it is in the Alexander plotline) because the 'second' stone exists, therefore you can't have successfully destroyed it prior to that point in its existence.

Probably the worst thing you can do is manage to record a technique that you learned from the stone onto a time-traveller-from-the-past's earlier version of the stone (which will 'later' be used by past-you to learn that technique in the first place). Which is still stable, if paradoxical, so even then it probably won't break anything.


Of course it depends on a lot of magical variables too, but....

- multiple people CAN use the same stone over time

- how 'bonded' is the user to the stone? It seems they can be passed on quite simply without any dramatic effect on either the old or new owner.

- are the two versions of the stone still able to be considered the "same" stone? Or would they behave just like any two separate stones?

- do people's soulstones actually affect each other? (Paladin Lv50-60 plot had some weird thing with stones reacting to each other but it was never really made clear what the effect of it was. That whole plot was really badly explained.)

[The_NPC]

yah thats about what I figured u'd eather learn a "future skill" from the future stone (which is the reason said stone even knows the skill) or absolutily nothing, just figured the idea of meeting someone using the future version of ur actual stone would be fun plot wise.. even if the only reason the user was there in the 1st place is they damaged/having-trouble with theirs & there was no way to solve the problem in the future (lazy, knowladge of crating that "older" stone type lost, etc.)

to be fair the mear finding out that one of the past user's of ur soul stone is the fricking WoL would be mind blowing enouf

[zuzu-bq]

Soul Stones are basically magic SSHD.

[Asiragan]

Soul Stones are basically magic SSHD.

I wonder about that?

If we take the text from the game (here for WHM) :

Upon the surface of this multi-aspected crystal are carved the myriad deeds of white mages from eras past.

Does this mean that it take the memory of every WHM who possessed this crystal?
Or does this mean that all of the white mages memories are in it, without care if they possessed or not said crystal?

In the first case, that would mean that the soul crystal from a legendary white mage is actually holding much more value than that random mage that died falling from his stairs back in Adampor.
In the second case, every crystal would have the same value and be somehow linked together. But then that would raise further questions.

[Yuriane]

I believe it is actually on an ownership basis, as there is importance placed on the owners of the Soul Crystals for Black and White Mages, the Scholar Soul Crystal is unique enough that it produces a specific fairy per Scholar, and in the Summoner Questline the machine is powered by many Soul Crystals to increase it's summoning power. Overall it appears to be on a single stone basis.

[hunterx767]

is it possible (( for the sake of role playing )) to fake a soul stone?

[Enkidoh]

is it possible (( for the sake of role playing )) to fake a soul stone?

Yes, because that is technically how you actually unlock BLU - Martyn was a con artist peddling apparently fake BLU soul crystals to unsuspecting adventurers which the Limsan authorities soon hear about and quickly dispatch the WoL to investigate the reports of adventurers with fake soul crystals of a Job no one has yet heard of. Martyn promptly gives you one simply to save his own hide as well as give his scam a little credibility, which comes back to bite him hard when the WoL's powers actually make that 'fake' Job real.

It's somewhat softened though that what he thought was fake crystals really weren't (and were based on a legitimate Job from the Far Western continent), but just 'empty' ones that needed someone with a potent enough aetheric signature to 'awaken' - which of course the WoL satisfied (it's worth noting that the description in the Character screen for the BLU soul crystal is identical to the MCH one, that it is "yet to be filled with the records of past deeds").