Shard

Shards are fragments of Entites that serve as the source of parahuman powers.

Overview

Trigger Events

After an Entity has finished preparing a Shard, it will loose it, plot for its arrival, the location it will arrive in and its future host. The Shard will lock on to the host, get a grasp on who the host is and summarily allow that portion of itself to die and burn out to form the Corona Pollentia. It will then sit dormant for a time, if the arrival of the Shard to host didn't coincide with the trigger time.

When the Trigger Event happens, the Shard recognizes the event from the state of the host and from context and the flood of stress responses. It then reads the host to find out who he is and how he respond to situations before reading the situation and what form the danger takes.

The Shard then discards everything it doesn't need, distills things down to one efficient task, suited to the host. Where the Shard isn't already programmed with inherent safeties and limitations it will use the host's stored knowledge to generate a grasp of what it needs to do.

If there are additional hosts present during the host's Trigger Event, and they are actively using their powers, then the Shard can "ping" off the others and exchange information. This generally allows the host to gain some kind of additional ability that they would not have had otherwise.

If multiple hosts undergo a Trigger Event at the same time, it will create a host(s) with a "grab-bag" of powers that are generally similar to other hosts' powers and complimentary to one another. They are meant for the end-game of the Cycle, serving to stress-test powers/compare and contrast the smaller powers.

Second Trigger

The Shard draws from context and explores and/or conceptualizes new uses for its powers. The Shard begins splitting off to find a new, but similar host - piggybacking off the original Shard's context and experience - but then a major event prompts to catalyze and consolidate in the current host instead.

If the Shard is in an adult before finding its way to the child, it can begin this splitting-off process (generally requiring time or a degree of stress to allow for the maturation).

Second Triggers are exceedingly rare, and generally do more harm than good.

Effects on Host

The effects that Shards have on their Hosts are dependent on several factors including but not limited to: age of the Host, the Host's personality, the Host's Trigger Event, how much the Host embraces the Shard's need for conflict and the Shard itself.