What the heck are aeon stones?

[spacetimc]

Getting ready to run “Into The Unknown” for some new Starfinder players. Reading through the modules, the players retrieve an aeon stone from a spacecraft wreck. I’ve been looking through the CRB, but I don’t find anything about aeon stones. Could someone please enlighten me?

[Umbra-Arcturus]

sourced from Archives of Nethys
https://aonsrd.com/MagicItems.aspx?ItemName=Amber%20Hyperboloid&Family= Aeon%20Stone

"Aeon stones are magic gemstones that orbit your head (or the nearest equivalent of a head, for species that lack heads) and grant you a constant magic effect. They do not count toward your worn magic item limit, and there’s no limit to the number you can have orbiting you. They are most common in the Azlanti Star Empire, which also has unique ways of using such stones, but the most common types of aeon stones can be found in magic shops in many major settlements. Aeon stones are categorized by their shape and color, with all stones of the same shape and color having the same magic abilities.

Placing an aeon stone in orbit around your head is a standard action, and removing it is a move action. An aeon stone must be in orbit for you to benefit from its abilities. The stone orbits at a distance of 3 inches to 3 feet, as you prefer, but always outside any armor or helmet you wear. An orbiting aeon stone has an Armor Class equal to 12 + your character level, and it can be attacked directly or even grappled (a successful grapple check plucks the stone out of its orbit and into the attacker’s hand). Most aeon stones (including all those presented here) are capable of glowing with a bright light. As a standard action, you can activate or deactivate the illumination of an aeon stone, which glows brightly enough to increase the light level in your square by one step (see Vision and Light on page 261).

Each aeon stone also has at least one other power that comes into effect when in orbit around you..."

[spacetimc]

Thank you so much!

[Alison-Cybe]

The only downside there is that it tells us more about what Aeon Stones DO rather than what they ARE. We know from Pathfinder that, even centuries ago, they were something of a mystery and ancient beyond reckoning. Nobody knows the true source of them as items.

[C4M3R0N]

I mean... They are "magic gemstones that orbit your head" and they're "categorized by shape and color"
That's fairly clear what they ARE lol.

Where they're from though... Probably the same place as spathinae or witchwyrds or something equally obscure and mysterious. But we certainly dont know that.

[David knott 242]

These items were called Ioun stones in D&D and in PF1, if that helps.

[Metaphysician]

I mean, where do any magic items come from? In almost all cases, the answer is some variation on "A person designed and crafted them using arcane skill". Somebody just happened to like the idea of "have a gemstone floating around you giving buffs" at some point in the past.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I think I heard somewhere that they come from Azlanti gallbladders? That it was like, a weird point of cultural pride for them. "YEAH, WE'RE SO SUPERIOR OUR GALLSTONES ARE MAGICAL! AND THEN WE EXTRACT THEM STICK THEM IN OUR FOREHEADS!"

[Garretmander]

I thought that in pathfinder they had been invented and popularized by the azlanti, and thassilon continued to make use of them? And that's why they're so common in the azlanti star empire.

[Ixal]

Garretmander wrote:

I thought that in pathfinder they had been invented and popularized by the azlanti, and thassilon continued to make use of them? And that's why they're so common in the azlanti star empire.

They should be common everywhere. Especially the Clear Spindle one. Cheap and of interest of even non-adventurers. Unless you sustain yourself with field rations you likely have recovered the costs within a year.

[Hanomir]

David knott 242 wrote:

These items were called Ioun stones in D&D and in PF1, if that helps.

Giving credit where it belongs, TSR lifted both the idea and the name from Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories as with so many other things. I'd recommend grabbing a copy of the short story "Morreion" (usually found in the compilation "Rhialto the Marvelous") which explains the origins of the stones (which I'm not spoiling, it's too good a read). While obviously not set in the Starfinder universe, you could and should adapt Vance's idea to SF games, it's an easy enough fit.