Shards

The Shards were the twelve prototype assassins created by a league of evil groups. Genetically engineered to resemble Tagreth Cormaeril in his youth, they were programmed killing machines tattooed with geis after geis to bind their wills to their masters.

Naturally, something went wrong.

The Shards were a part of the Mists of Cormyr campaign; some of the after-effects rippled into The Chronicles of Amn.

First Attempts
The Shard project began five hundred years ago in Thay, during an ill-advised attempt to create new subservient forms of life. Using demonspawn as a source of seed and using the entropy-wracked body of the original Miranda duLaras, the wizards conjured up a prototype tiefling named Mordeth.

Mordeth, though, proved too willful to be subservient; he was subsequently discarded. This would prove problematic, five hundred years later.

While Miranda was kept alive through magical means, she gave quickened birth to three hundred specimens; none of them ever worked. The project was subsequently abandoned; one specimen, a direct clone of Miranda, escaped the lab.

Alias
Four hundred eighty years later, a group of upstart sorcerors, working together with Finder Wyvernspur, the Fire Knives and a beholder named Phalse, created a young woman named Alias. The project went awry; Alias eventually slaughtered most of the perpetrators, including Moander (formerly god of decay).

Talis
The Fire Knives, smarting from their experience with Alias but not one to let a good idea go to waste, eventually contacted the Red Wizards and several other interested parties. Eventually, twelve Shards were created successfully. Eleven of them obeyed commands and worked as functional assassins.

The twelfth was Talis Cormaeril, who became a problem.

List of known Shards:

  Talis Cormaeril: codenamed Talon. Talis was the prototype Shard; he did not have many of the specialized enhancements of those who'd follow. He was dispatched to assist Devin Lithengaar in the slaughter of Alustair Obarskyr and the overthrowing of the Cormyrian government.  2  3  4  5 

Appearance
All of them resemble Talis -- and, by rote, Tagreth: an unscarred and unassuming man in his early twenties with neutral hair and neutral eyes ... in other words, men so ordinary that they would not be given a second glance by anyone.

All of them bore green tattoos on one forearm (this varied from Shard to Shard). Occasionally, their eyes would glow during moments where abilities were activated

Abilities
Their abilities were never fully catalogued. However, speculation suggests that they had some, if not all, of the following abilities:
 * Enhanced senses (+2 bonuses on Spot, Search, Listen);
 * Enhanced reflexes and fortitude, but weakened willpower;
 * A permanent state of Nondetection;
 * An immunity to spell effects;
 * Resistance to elemental damage;
 * A 'Last Gasp' attack, whereupon dropping below 0 hit points would grant them a full round action (usually as something of a surprise);
 * A self-destruct mechanism which could do upwards of 80 points of fire damage to anyone within a 10-foot radius. (See also: Ulfgar Ironwill).

Decay
The Shards were not meant to live long. Spending time out in the world (as Alias and Talis did) would only give them personalities, memories, histories -- and a sense of independence. Their bodies began to break down after a year; they eventually disintegrated. The last to die was Talis, who lived a full two years; he was mercy-killed by Melfaren Bauduril, during a trip to Phlan.