This sounds like a lot of semantics to me. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as "having a shard". A shard isn't something you have. And I think what people mean by "having a shard" varies with the situation; it's an imprecisely defined phrase and thus causes confusion by being shorthand for entirely different things in different contexts.

Sometimes it just means "somewhere in your ancestry is an Elder God/Soulless God" and in that case, yes, a faeling "has a shard". But in some contexts maybe it means "you have enough connection in your ancestry to have enough connection to the Divine (to the immanidivinus/excorperditia, perhaps) to become a demigod", in which case... oops, faelings have that too, no matter what some Elder Goddess once said. (It's now canon, after all, that they are sometimes wrong about canon.) Maybe in other situations it is used to mean something else, and maybe even something that could have been right when that Elder Goddess said it.

But in no case, it seems to me, is a shard something you "have".

I think it'd be more interesting to pursue the implications (what lets some of us reach demigodhood and not others? why can some of us breed with each other and not others? how does it tie back to the real differences between Elders and Soulless, between Dynara and Magnora?) rather than thrashing around with the semantics of an undefined phrase.

Well in any case, it all really doesn't matter. I just hope Estarra reconsiders it is all. Agree to disagree then.

Luna is somewhat of a subordinate to Mother Moon from what I could tell during my brief time with the Moondancers. She is basically a concentrate representation of a moonphase.(Lisaera and her Mother, Maiden, Crone personalities.)

Hm. I actually think that the shard debate is tied to those others, and would make things a lot more interesting-- I mean, if you *are* a shard of a Divine, what happens if you're a mix of Aslaran, Human, and Trill? Are you shards of all three? Or just one, the one that you 'most resemble' (the race on Honours). If you *have* a shard, there are similar questions-- including "do you have more than one?" and "What happens when you combine them?" I do think it's something one has, though, a single shard, the essence of the Divine the person is built around.

Yes, I'm quite aware that the new canon is Admins can say things that are wrong, which I've also said a few times myself (and which is why I'm not presenting it as fact that they do not have a shard).

It's like having Japanese fighting fish! Only without the water! And on a forum!

I agree with everything you've said.
Shard immediately implicates that you are literally a shard of said God.
But this clashes with breeding.(Adam & Eve anyone?)
It's probably more of an expression than anything, just like Soulless might not actually just mean Soulless.
Then again, that could be totally wrong too. We just assume these things because of the fantasy scenario.

I feel obligated to point out that nobody really knows what shard the viscanti have either.

If ICly some divine can "sense the shard" of someone, I imagine that they could easily be wrong about the shard of a viscanti.

Personally, I don't take the Shard stories literally. I find them much more likely to be metaphorical shards. Like saying that the Greeks are the shards of Socrates and Plato.

Mhm, but unfortunately when you throw Demigod and divine sparks into the mix, prerequisites are invented and reasonings justified. AKA shards.

Viscanti also is a wierd exception in that it can be really...any shard. You could probably argue that the taint changes your shard to that of Kethuru's but thats highly unlikely as well.

You don't need a shard to have your flames of divinity fanned. Obviously.

It would appear there is something else which allows that to happen.

Potential inconsistencies aside, I believe it's canon that you have a shard and, as a consequence, are a race. I suppose, if you wanted to distinguish between shard and divine spark, you could say that the physical forms of the races are the shards and all such races are imbued with a sliver of divine energy, but I don't think that distinction is actually made anywhere. Anyways, random unsupported speculation aside, crossbreeding and non-splintered races make it hairy, but the philosophic underpinnings of Lusternia are vaguely Platonic, which allows for all sorts of variations in the concrete as bastardized, degraded reflections of the original ideal, which would be the splintered Elder in the case of most races, without actually taking away from the original or making the pure form of the original less knowable or less incorruptable.

Why, because the hard-coding told you so?

I believe empircal facts over faith based teaching.

I'm just surprised at the amount of people who idly accept this. Gah.

I always just thought that faelings had an Elfenehoala shard along with the Elfen. And don't viscanti just have the shard that their ancestors' races were prior to tainting? This seems too minor a topic for such frustration. The devil is in the details, it seems.

The viscanti are a mixture of races, which were allowed to interbreed because of the taint. i.e normally only a human can interbreed, but the taint allowed everybody to, and so they created this new race of all the known races at the time.

They don't have a shard persay either.

Thats my stance. Unfortunately, because someone stated otherwise its easier to just accept it than dispute.

Based on how I see the divine talking about shards and the gods related to the shards, it doesn't make sense to me that you would "see Elfenehoala in the faelings."

They are too different from elves in my opinion. (especially the Glomdoring variety)

I've read this whole thread, and still have no information, What are you all arguing about?

On the contrary, that adds to the RP.
And faelings really look just like tiny elfen with wings..
IMO they are too similar to eachother not to be.

Eflen:
They are a lithe, beautiful people, with delicate pointed ears and almond-shaped
eyes. Their skin tone ranges from alabaster white to some varying hues of
green.

Glomdoring Faeling:
with a dark complexion that seems to churn with shadows, more bat-like
wings, and eyes that glow with a somber red fire.