Shards are items used in the crafting of other items. There are six types of shards, each for the six primal aspects: Air (Aer), Fire (Ignis), Water (Aqua), Earth (Terra), Order (Ordo), and Entropy (Perditio).
These shards are key to many parts of Thaumcraft, namely the many Wand Foci and the Thaumometer itself.
Shard Ores[]
There are six infused stones, one for each shard type. Each type is more commonly found in a certain biome, but they can still be found at random. However, one can expect to find Aer shards more easily in a plains biome while it would be better to search for Aqua ones in the swamp, river or ocean biomes. They roughly match the essence of each biome, so a Fire shard would be more likely to be found in a desert, for example.
Crystal Clusters[]
Crystal clusters are created by putting together six shards, either six of the same shard for a specific crystal cluster, or one of EACH for a mixed crystal cluster. They are all weak light sources, and are great for decoration. However, if placed close to your Research Table, they provide a slow yet constant stream of research points of their respective Aspect. The Mixed Crystal Cluster gives a point to a random Aspect.
