| “ | A term for people that the Alchemy Guild implanted with special crystal that binds with demonic power. The crystal infests the human body and, left unchecked, will corrupt it entirely. Johannes has found a way to temporarily halt Miriam's corruption, but he cannot reverse it. The Alchemy Guild sacrificed most of the Shardbinders, using their demonic connection to open the gates of Hell. | „ |
| ~ Terms description |
Shardbinder is the name given to the ability to harness power from Shards. Shardbinders are people afflicted with a curse by the Alchemists of the Alchemy Guild, by surgically embedding in their body a special crystal attuned with demonic power. Spearheaded by an unnamed member of the Guild, this procedure gives the test subjects the ability to absorb crystals from demons that turns into powers to use as their wish, but at a great cost as, as the curse progresses, it crystallizes their skin and organs, with their eventual fate being completely transformed into a crystalline statue.
While only briefly mentioned in both Curse of the Moon and Curse of the Moon 2, the Shardbinders take a central role in Ritual of the Night, where their whole backstory is revealed.
Appearances[]
Ritual of the Night[]
Most Shardbinders were used as a sacrifice by Alchemy Guild in a ritual to bring out the demon threat, in an attempt to scare their wealthy patrons and secure for themselves a position in the rapidly changing world. However, the ritual horribly got out of control, which resulted in a massacre of catastrophic proportions all over Europe. The last surviving Shardbinders were Miriam, who was put in a magically induced coma by the repenting alchemist Alfred in order to spare her from the ritual altogether, and Gebel, who miraculously survived the sacrifice thanks to his latent exorcist's blood, which further staved off the effects of the curse for the next ten years. Alfred had chosen to save Miriam in particular due to her immensely superior attunement to the implanted crystal. Unable to stop his colleagues from acting, and knowing that if all Shardbinders were to be sacrificed as fuel for the ritual, Miriam's power alone would supply half of it, Alfred chose to spare her in order to halve the potency of the ritual and thus minimize the resulting damage.
Still, the following carnage deeply affected Dominique Baldwin, who lost her entire family during the tragedy. Enraged, Dominique forsook God, who in her eyes stood still doing nothing, and began a ruthless quest to obtain the power to slay gods. Said plan came to its fruition a decade later when, after working with the demon Gremory to brainwash Gebel, summoning the demonic castle known as the Hellhold, and manipulating both the now awaken Miriam and the talented Johannes, Dominique learned of the process required to become a Shardbinder and used it on herself, confident that her exorcist blood as well as her use of the Enochian scripts would grant her total control over the crystal's curse. As her plan unfolded, Gebel succumbed to the curse, transforming into a crystal statue, but Dominique's deception was discovered, making Miriam pursue her.
Drunk with power, at the heart of the Hellhold, Dominique then used her newfound abilities to battle Miriam and summon the King of Demons, Bael, only to be defeated and cast into Limbo. Meanwhile, after studying Alfred's new research notes, Johannes informed Miriam of having pretty assuredly found a way to permanently stave off the effects of the Shardbinder curse on her.
Dominique's Curse[]
While in Limbo, the crystal curse began to show its effects on Dominique, who swore to escape the demonic dimension by obtaining Bael's power and enact vengeance upon Miriam.
Depending on the ending obtained, Dominique and her Shardbinder curse's fate is different: in the Bad Ending, after defeating Bael, she is unable to escape Limbo, and she uses her newfound power to rule it as its new queen for all eternity. In the Bitter Ending, she is able to escape Limbo, but to her horror she discovers that the demonic dimension was suppressing the negative effects of the curse, which virulently progresses anew, transforming her into a statue. And in the True Ending, Dominique flees from Limbo, only to seemingly having lost both all of her powers as well as all of her memories. Found by Miriam, the young girl, although unsure if the amnesia is real or just a deception, decides to take Dominique to safety with her, hoping for some sort of redemption for her.