Shardbearer

Shardbearers refer to the beings that have been merged with a fragment with the cosmic force known as The Silence.

History
Shardbearers were among the first beings that appeared after the initial encounter the Weave had with the Silence. While at first they were novelties, disaster struck when they were in the presence of more mortal beings. Without control of their abilities, the Shardbearers accidently killed everything in their vicinity that did not have the necessary protections to weather their power. With the effects of such fusions readily became apparent, the first Shardbearers within the Weave were quarantined off by Transcends until more information could be obtained.

During this initial period, the Shardbearers were studied and their powers catalogued. Over several years was observed by researchers that growth in power and control of a Shardbearer's abilities were correlated with their amount of usage. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that such growth could be accelerated if these abilities were actively used on live targets. An experiment was set up, with mindless vat grown life and synthetically forms used as targets. The results of the experiment did not support the hypothesis. There were no differences in growth rates observed between those who did annihilate the provided life forms and those who did not.

Nonetheless, a method to empower Shardbearers was realised through more questionable circumstances. In a far less developed Bound civilisation under observation by those of the Weave, multiple Shardbearers had appeared after The Silence had been repelled in a nearby universe. After the these Shardbearers appeared and the disasters that followed, the people of that civilisation attempted to kill them with ranged weapons that utilised the concept of death. Observers noted that the Shardbearers that these weapons were used on gained a slight amount of power, before spiriting them away from their now hostile home.

After this incident and the information gained from research, a full doctrine on the Shardbearer occurrences was put into place to contain them and allow them to gain a measure of control over their abilities before once again allowing them to return to society. In most circumstances, Weave diplomats would negotiate with a Shardbearer's immediate family and/or civilisation for them to be trained within numerous centres the multiversal network hosted. Shardbearers would also often be taken wholesale from their homes in the event that their people were both Bound and an incident with their powers occurred. The latter cases were usually rejected outright from their native societies, often permanently or for extended periods of time. Such individuals usually found work within the Weave as part of its armed forces or as metaphysical researchers and engineers.

This state of affairs continued until the Tor Crisis. With most Transcends vanquished by the Tor threat, it fell to the Shardbearers and Old Brethren to perform the bulk amount of combat against Tor. Post-Tor, the situation for Shardbearers has changed. Shardbearers, with the absence of the Outer Gods, have become among the most important parts of the Weave Remnant's armed forces in subduing existential threats, alongside gaining greater importance as metaphysical researchers.

Creation and Growth
A Shardbearer is created when a fragment of the Silence fuses with a being. Most often, free shards will be inactive and relatively inert until they sense a host, though some may react with hostility to other entities in their presence. Such confrontations with others do not usually last long, with either the entity being able to resist or avoid the shard's abilities before subduing the fragment, or instantly succumbing to its powers.

A newly formed Shardbearer usually has poor control of their abilities, and the range of their controlled powers are restricted to personal ranges; usually requiring physical contact to work. The former often introduces grave consequences for newly formed Shardbearers, as their abilities often discharge unintentionally and accidently annihilates anything (without the right conceptual protections) in proximity. These consequences can be offset with the right metaphysical augmentation, however, allowing a relatively new Shardbearer to live safely with mortal beings. A Shardbearer can grow in power and control via regular usage of their abilities, and by being fed with abilities that utilise the concept of death.

A relatively developed Shardbearer gains greater range on their abilities and cognition, being roughly comparable to second stage Transcends and relatively developed Old Brethren. Their abilities gain greater range up to several AU.

A fully developed Shardbearer's magnitude of powers grows to a range of several hundred light years, above that of most fully fledged Transcends and Old Brethren.

Abilities
A Shardbearer's abilities are derived from the Silence, and as such have much to do with erasing and annihilating entities from existence.

A nascent Shardbearer's abilities are usually performed through physical contact, with only basic abilities available, such as erasing physical entities from existence. Shardbearers at all stages of development are noted to have a greatly muted metaphysical presence, granting some degree of stealth against the senses of Transcends and other beings. Silence derived abilities are extremely difficult to defend against by nature; most protections and defenses are destroyed outright if not bypassed, with only very specific defenses targeting the concept of death that work against such powers, such as Elixir Immortal and Transcended immortality.

Once a target has been destroyed by Shardbearer abilities, there are very limited numbers of ways to bring them back, usually restricted to only specific Transcended Exaltations and Old Brethren Laws. The mechanics of most Shardbearer powers work through forcing the concept of death on an entity while enacting the same concept to erase them from existence. The same happens to most defenses that are in the way of such abilities.

Relatively well developed Shardbearers are able to imbue their other abilities with the same properties of the Silence, granting the same quality of ignoring or destroying defenses that their powers come across. They also gain a sense for entities and objects that are susceptible to their abilities, and an intuitive sense for how best to utilise their powers given the situation.

Fully fledged Shardbearers have regained most of the abilities available to a complete instance of the Silence. They become capable of erasing concepts and physical laws from existence within the range of their abilities. Such an ability is used in the Taking Way, a Silence based martial art that allows its practitioner to eliminate malign concepts in their vicinity to remove both mental and physical ailments around them. A fully fledged Shardbearer is also able to imbue objects and other entities with their power, allowing the creation of various potent items and tools such as the Unmaker Weapons and Poems of Ending.

Shardbearers are notable for being able to hit above their weight class due to an ability known as Resonance. Resonance is the name given to the amplification of range and power of Shard derived abilities gained from having multiple Shardbearer's in close proximity to another. This amplification is very minute and negligible in smaller numbers, but the effect is exponential and thus can result in extremely powerful choirs when Shardbearers gather in large numbers. As a result, some powers within the Weave and its remnants utilise massed formations of Shardbearers numbering upwards of nonillions as superweapons against particularly powerful entities. Some Shardbearers learn to apply the effect to non-Shard powers as well, allowing other beings such as Transcended Exalts and Old Brethren to complement such choirs.