"We are the shards of gods — and the fractures of ourselves."
Each Shardborn lineage descends from mortals who first touched or were struck by a divine fragment after the Shattering. Their blood carries both the power of creation and the curse of entropy — their abilities burn bright but consume their sanity, body, or soul.
1. The Veilshard Line
Domain: Illusion, Memory, and Sight
Power: Can weave memories into visible form, crafting illusions so real they can wound the mind.
Curse: Each time they use their gift, they lose a fragment of their own memory — forgetting names, faces, even their identity. Elder Veilshards wander as living ghosts, surrounded by phantoms of lives they no longer remember.
Symbol: A cracked mirror or an eye divided by light.
Legacy: Most Veilshards were scholars, historians, and spies. The Church erased nearly all records of them — ironically fitting for a lineage built on memory.
2. The Emberline
Domain: Flame and Vital Force
Power: Ignite their lifeblood to produce searing fire that can burn through magic and metal alike.
Curse: Every flame costs a heartbeat. The more they burn, the faster their hearts fail — some combust entirely, leaving behind only ash-shaped silhouettes.
Symbol: A burning heart, or a hand of cinders.
Legacy: Once warriors and smiths who forged divine weapons. Their extinction marked the end of true god-forged steel.
3. The Duskborn
Domain: Shadow and Emotion
Power: Manipulate darkness not as absence of light but as substance — a living force that feeds on fear and sorrow.
Curse: Each use drains emotion from the wielder until they become empty husks — perfect assassins with no empathy left.
Symbol: A circle devouring its own center.
Legacy: Used by kings as spies and executioners until they turned on their masters and vanished into the night.
4. The Stoneblood Line
Domain: Earth, Endurance, and Flesh
Power: Can harden their bodies like living stone or shape the ground with their will.
Curse: The transformation never fully reverses — over years, they petrify completely, becoming statues that still whisper in dreams.
Symbol: A spiral of stone around a heart.
Legacy: Once protectors of the holy shrines — now reduced to monuments, their voices carried in the wind.
5. The Stormvein Line
Domain: Sky, Sound, and Storm
Power: Channel thunder and control air currents, moving with inhuman speed.
Curse: The storm infects their minds — paranoia, violent impulses, and eventually dissociation into pure lightning.
Symbol: A forked bolt through a wing.
Legacy: Sailors and messengers of the old world. Their return would herald a new Shattering, according to prophecy.
6. The Graveshade Line
Domain: Death, Decay, and Memory of the Dead
Power: Speak with and command remnants of the dead — but only those who died unnaturally.
Curse: Each summoning binds part of the Shardborn's own soul to the spirit world. When they die, their ghosts are forever trapped, neither alive nor gone.
Symbol: A bone shard wrapped in shadow.
Legacy: The Church calls them necromancers, but they see themselves as stewards — keepers of unfinished souls.
7. The Luminarch Line (Extinct… allegedly)
Domain: Light, Healing, and Divine Will
Power: Can purify corruption, mend wounds, and even briefly halt death itself.
Curse: Their light consumes them from within — their bodies turn to radiant crystal upon death.
Symbol: A sun fracturing into shards.
Legacy: The first Shardborn, said to have led others to rebellion against the gods. Their surviving shards are kept under Church control, used to anoint the faithful.