Shard

Shard

Species: Shard
Home Planet: Orax

Shard
Shards were a silicon-based species native to the planet Orax, who took the form of irregularly faceted cylindrical crystals thirty to forty centimeters in length. Faint pulses of light—thought signals propagating through their "brains" could be seen inside their bodies. Shards were immobile in their natural state, but could be installed in specially modified droids.

Society & Culture:
Shards on Orax lived in large clusters of crystals which grew among the planet's many hot springs. These colonies consisted of hundreds or thousands of individual Shards, each connected in a group mind via their natural electromagnetic communication abilities. This electromagnetic sense was the only one the Shards possessed naturally. Shards reproduced by growing new Shards directly off an adult Shard, and could live for millennia before succumbing to natural erosion. As expected of a long-lived, unmoving species, Shards were patient, spending all of their time in slow, contemplative thought. Political decisions were made by mutual consensus, which sometimes took centuries to reach.

History:
Human colonists on Orax took a long time to discover that the Shards were sentient. When they did, they developed translator units which allowed the crystalline aliens to translate their electromagnetic pulses into audible speech (and vice-versa). Curious about other worlds, some Shards volunteered to be detached from their colonies and attached into specially modified droids. The Shards began to trade mineral rights for access to droids and computer technology, which their electromagnetic sense allowed them to understand instinctively. Shards in droid bodies, disconnected from their group-mind, became insatiably curious, and almost intoxicated by the new sensory experiences. Individual Shards began understanding the ideas of limited time, thinking and acting much faster than their counterparts in the group-minds. Some of the Shards remaining on Orax regarded this as a corruption of their traditional culture, while others welcomed the knowledge gained from Shards who eventually returned to their colonies.

When the Shards made contact with the Galactic Republic, it was in the last few decades of its existence. Many of the Shard ambassadors were murdered soon after the Galactic Empire arose. Orax became a mining center using slave labor, and many Shard colonies were destroyed. In order to keep surviving offworld Shards away from their home, all droids were banned on Orax. During the Galactic Civil War, the Shards allied themselves with the Alliance to Restore the Republic in order to free their homeworld. They often worked as droid and computer technicians for the Alliance.

Though inorganic, some Shards were Force-sensitives. These Shards, installed in droid bodies, formed the Iron Knights, an offshoot of the Jedi Order. Ilum, a survivor of the Jedi Purge, and Ilum's son Luxum, who fell to the dark side of the Force and was killed by the Yuuzhan Vong, were among them. Another knight named Firkrann was killed during the Clone Wars by General Grievous.

The Shards should not be confused with the Tsil, another crystalline sentient species similar in appearance and in certain other characteristics.

Attribute Dice: 12D
DEXTERITY 0D*
KNOWLEDGE 2D/5D
MECHANICAL 2D/4D
PERCEPTION 2D/4D
STRENGTH 0D*
TECHNICAL 3D/6D

Special Abilities:
Telecommunication: Shards can emit and receive eletromagnetic transmissions as a means of communication. This allows them to detect any operating technological device or droid within a 100 meters with an Easy Perception roll. Their signals can reach out to about one kilometer individually, but are enough to reach anywhere on their homeworld when the Shard is part of the group-mind. Shard transmissions can be picked up on standard comlinks and other devices turned to detect them. Shards can also affect droids equipped with restraining bolts as if they had a control wand by making a moderate Technical or droid programming roll.

Computer Mind: Shards have an instinctive understanding of computers and droid brains and gain +1D with the computer programming/repair and droid programming skills as well as any other skill that involves computer programming or operation such as astrogationor security (versus computerized locks and devices). Shards can interact directly with comlink-equipped computers using their telecommunication ability.

Story Factors:
Fragile: Shards have no Strength attribute dice and gain only 1D to resist damage in their natural state. A damage result that kills a Shard shatters its body into fragments. Normal medical treatment is ineffective on Shards, they must heal naturally unless they can be returned to Orax to receive treatment in the mineral hot-springs on the planet. Force abilities such as accelerate healing and transfer Force do affect Shards, as they are still living creatures.

Sessile: hards are incapabile of movements on their own. They have no natural Dexterity or Strength dice. They can learn Dexterity or Strength based skills and use them in conjuncture with a droid body, if the body is capable of performing that skill. They can only move inside a droid “vehicle” or by being carried by a droid or another creature. In their natural state, Shards also have no senses apart from their electromagnetic sense.

Gamemaster Notes:
Shard characters provide a way of including “droids that aren’t really droids” in the campaign, as well as providing “droid” characters that have a bit more free will and autonomy than ordinary droids. Gamemasters should work with the player of a Shard character to design an appropriate droid body using the droids given in the Starwars rulebook as a guideline. All of the skills of the droid are provided by the Shard “driving” it. Shard characters with more than one droid body should be quite rare, and the gamemaster will want to limit the abilities of any droid body so they are not too powerful. Shards, especially those operating during the period of the Rebellion, prefer to inhabit droids that are more common and likely to go unnoticed, like 3PO and R2 units. Their goal is to remain undetected by the Empire, so they avoid droid-bodies that were likely to get them in trouble, like assassin droids.

Move: 0, or the Move of the droid body the Shard controls
Size: 30-40 centimeters tall
Source: Alien Encounters (pages 134-135) & Wookieepedia (For the Shard Description)