Headcanon for soul crystals

[Astralia]

Hey guys,

I browsed a bit the forum but didn't seem to find any discussion on that topic yet so I'm opening it up (again?), and hopefully you would be kind to throw any in-game and lore explanations and/or your personal head canons to this:

Thing is I'm trying to head canon soul crystals for my Hyur, originating from Old Sharlayan, he's trained as a Sage, but mostly he came to be proficient with other magics too, such as black magic, and a bit of white magic and came to be a red mage in the end and eventually created my own spells. So it's like I created my new job, a bit like Graha is a "universal prodigy", or the sorcerer job of Y'shtola. It is destined to be transmitted in the event my character dies, so I was wondering: we all know that soul crystals emerge when wanting to impart knowledge and store techniques. Therefore, is it possible to "merge" existing soul crystals to do so, and if not or partially, would alchemists be able to help in this ?

It's up to you now ! Thanks in advance

[Cleretic]

I feel like you're in the 'sure, why not' field, where I can't definitively say the thing you're suggesting wouldn't work. You can probably run with it.

What you could also do is essentially take the Machinist or Blue Mage angle, where the soul crystal is new and being written to for the first time. Soul crystals are all about passing down knowledge, so who's to say that your guy isn't just the first of his skillset, and his soul crystal is blank outside of his own entries into it?

[Anonymoose]

Imho it depends on just how lore-bendy you want to get.

The hard canon is closer to the idea that they're just special crystals that, because you wore them so long, stored a lot of residual memory and personality and experience. When someone else wears it and they start to do what you did and know what you knew and think what you thought, they attune to that residue and create a connection with it through which that memory and personality and experience starts to emerge and harmonize with them. It helps them take a short-cut and absorb some of your experience - speed up their own training.

It's not guaranteed an individual will even "vibe" with the soul crystal if they aren't someone in the same headspace as previous owners. (The Warrior of Light is a bit of an exception here - very sensitive to aether, Echo bonus, inclined to be an open-minded self-sacrificing hero.) When you think about it that way, the idea that you can reliably isolate, extract, combine, and utilize the contents of soul crystals - especially combining multiple at once into something functional - seems like quite a feat.

There's more than nothing to lean on. Low-level Ascians in the summoner story planned on drawing forth memories from soul crystals and imparting them to others in order to restore forgotten primals. Also in the SMN story there was an ADS node that had a bunch of SMN crystals installed in it.

And like Cleretic said once you've got "invent your own job" far, how much farther of a leap is "soul crystal extraction" really? Maybe you know a very gifted aetherologist, lol.

I've also seen some roleplayers try to weave multiple soul crystals into a single outfit, infinity gauntlet style, where one the "primary" one they use for their current job and to use as a focus for abilities, and the others are more passive secondary gems for drawing forth memories and mindsets - trying to create new unified stone that way.

[Keichi]

Its possible to merge difference knowledge of magic or martial arts, into a own field.
But, its questionable to merge multiple soul stones.

First: The stones mostly only contain knowledge. How exactly they are created isnt clear, if i remember it correctly. But the common tzhing of the stones is, that the wielder is doing certain things again and again, infuse the stone with his knowlegde of ther certain craft. And if a new person has the stone, is the stone given the wielder part of that knowledge to. What help them than to learn the craft faster. Has the stone given all its knowledge, is it going into a phase, where its doing nothing, until the wielder obtain new knowledge to the craft. What is than absorbed by the stone again. And will be given to the next owner. At last based on a yt clip, i saw to the stones.

So, for merging your "new class", would you probably need a empty stone. Or on of the stones you allready has, would be needed to absorb the knowledge of all the other stones, by doing your craft.
But, even that option is verty hard/unlikely.
Its rare to find a job crystal. And its even more rare, that you are compatible to the stone. The lore stated, that most people would only be able to be compatible with only 1 stone. Where familiy member are more likely to have the ability to learn from the stone of the parents, as previous owner (like Alphinau is it doing).
So, to be compatible with multiple soul stones (and even having multiple ones), is very rare. Up to unlikely. What would make it harder to merge them.

It would be much more easy to say, that your chara simply sxtudied multiple craft fields and obtained so her "new job".
Whe dont even know, if Y'shtola or Graha even have job stones (or if they are truly using black magic, they can use spells like flare, but the most significant part of black and white magic is it, to obtain magical power from your surrounding).

[Astralia]

Thanks for these precisions !

I know crystal jobs are quite rare, and actually I was wondering (maybe I missed the information), if it was a randomly picked up stone in which we imbue our knowledges and techniques (seems like quite a feat in itself, as to what we've got on memories in Bozja for example), or is knowledges that crystallize themselves in a stone (whether it's out of the owner's volition or not) ? Which would be a feat indeed. In any case, soul crystals just make lost job resurface or said job easier to learn in the case the new owner attunes well with the stone, making it transmit the knowledges.

[Anonymoose]

I was wondering <...> if it was a randomly picked up stone in which we imbue our knowledges and techniques <...> or is knowledges that crystallize themselves in a stone (whether it's out of the owner's volition or not)

Soul crystals are purposely manufactured. They are a tool that was invented in the past. When a group of people shares a culture and school of thought around a highly specialized and demanding combat style, they sometimes create soul crystals to support that group. You wear it close to your skin and it passively "records" your memories and skills and experiences, but also you can use it as a focus to channel aether through if needed. This allows some schools of combat to develop extremely intricate, powerful abilities that the human body cannot otherwise handle. (For example, some advanced black magicks can burn the spellcaster alive if a focus is not used.)

It also allows them to pass down that knowledge and experience (which might otherwise take a lifetime to learn) much easier. If you wear a soul crystal that had previous owners, it's not only "recording" your experience, you can access the experience of its past owners, as well. (As long as you can attune to it; you have be able to "vibe" with its past owners.) The current owner of a soul crystal is potenitally capable of becoming the sum of all its past owners - hopefully catching up to them; ideally surpassing them.

FFXIV 1.0 did not have jobs, just classes - just basic schools of training around the use of specific weapons. There needed to be an excuse for why jobs were not within reach until then, and the excuse was that those little cultural groups who developed and trained people in those arts were either small/selective/far away, or have fallen out of use entirely. The whole story angle was that the Empire and the Calamity were such a big threats that we had to acquire these mysterious ancient arts if we hoped to fight back. That's why most of the job stones have previous owners.

But that's not necessary. Stephanivien is mass-producing blank Machinist job stones right now and we're the "first generation" in his tradition of combat.

[WhiteArchmage]

But that's not necessary. Stephanivien is mass-producing blank Machinist job stones right now and we're the "first generation" in his tradition of combat.

BLU also works the same way in that... Martin? (It's been too long and I never cared about BLU) just up and commissioned a bunch of soul crystals, but they are blank. Though... gosh I'd have to re-check it because I swear I remember the quest saying that the crystals are indeed the real thing but that the way Blue Magic works they had no spells in them for you to learn, they only allowed you to learn post hoc; but something I remember some players saying a ways back was that the crystals were fake, but the WoL basically manifested theirs into being a real one, and now I don't know if that was just creative writing on their part or I completely misread the starting quest.

[SannaR]

BLU also works the same way in that... Martin? (It's been too long and I never cared about BLU) just up and commissioned a bunch of soul crystals, but they are blank. Though... gosh I'd have to re-check it because I swear I remember the quest saying that the crystals are indeed the real thing but that the way Blue Magic works they had no spells in them for you to learn, they only allowed you to learn post hoc; but something I remember some players saying a ways back was that the crystals were fake, but the WoL basically manifested theirs into being a real one, and now I don't know if that was just creative writing on their part or I completely misread the starting quest.

It's not that the soul crystals are fake it was more of showing off of the Blue magic Martin did in order to gain people's interest was a sham. Due to the two mamool ja who attack him are in on the act. The WoL then with a small group watching gets pummeled by a kraken until they see it use hydro shot. Then after defeating the kraken successfully demonstrates their ability to use said spell. That and I think some people expected the soul crystals to act like other job crystals and not be the same as mch.

[Astralia]

(For example, some advanced black magicks can burn the spellcaster alive if a focus is not used.)

In that sense, it can be used to cast powerful magicks we couldn't hope to use ourselves unless we had a huge quantity of aether or centuries of training to do so ?
I'll be drifting of the topic a bit, but regarding Azem's crystal and its ability to make us invoke people from elsewhere in the same world or from otherworlds as well, it seems to function the same way ? (though crystals made by the concile seems only serve the purpose of storing memories)
And by extension, could we imagine implanting the forbidden teleportation spell in a crystal so that we do not end up lost in the aether flow unlike Y'shtola ?

[Anonymoose]

In that sense, it can be used to cast powerful magicks we couldn't hope to use ourselves unless we had a huge quantity of aether or centuries of training to do so?

I think the "you can use it as an aetherial focus" capability of the crystal is vague enough that different jobs can use it in different ways, but, yeah, that's more or less what we've been told, if I remember right.

regarding Azem's crystal and its ability to make us invoke people from elsewhere in the same world or from otherworlds as well, it seems to function the same way?
(though crystals made by the concile seems only serve the purpose of storing memories)

This is purely speculation on my part, but there have been a few conflicting-ish references that seem to suggest that (behind the scenes) perhaps either (A) lore on what the Convocation stones actually are changed a bit over time or (B) different people on the team had different assumptions about them. A few lines do seem to suggest that at some point someone believed that the Convocation actually possessed their stones and/or they acted not unlike job soul crystals.

However, the primary - most stable - most supported lore we have is that the stones were created after the sundering by Elidibus, Emet-Selch, and Lahabrea and that they contain only the memories those three had of everyone at that time. As a group, the three agreed that Azem, who left the Convocation, should not be remembered. Emet-Selch secretly made the Azem stone, alone, out of sentimentality.

Among those memories of Azem is a magick that he invented and used to summon his allies in times of need and we're somehow able to tap into that.

There's one voiced line by Hydaelyn where she says, "These were the words of the crystal's original bearer." instead of "These were the words of the one who invented that magick." and I think that one especially adds to the confusion.

And by extension, could we imagine implanting the forbidden teleportation spell in a crystal so that we do not end up lost in the aether flow unlike Y'shtola ?

That's an interesting idea. "Flow" is a dangerous spell on its own and I think part of the reason Y'shtola was trapped was that since her mind and body were in aetherial form she couldn't cast anything or re-direct herself at a beacon she'd attuned to.

Could we put the Azem spell in a crystal to teach others to retrieve us if need be? Maybe. It doesn't sound impossible. I don't know how likely it would be that the spell could be understood and communicated in a way that it would be possible to replicate the stone, and that the Warrior of Light could and would choose to do so. But it doesn't sound impossible.