Shard

Introduced in World of Darkness: Mirrors, a shard is a radically different alternate setting for an existing chronicle. Many of these shards make use of rules hacks to the game system, altering character creation on levels that are sometimes minor (replacing the modern-day Drive and Firearms skills with the more period-appropriate skills Ride and Archery) or sometimes radical (as in Burn Legend, which completely overhauls Exalted's character creation systems).

Chronicles of Darkness shards
From World of Darkness: Mirrors:


 * The World of Darkness Revealed: the supernatural world exists openly alongside the mortal world
 * The World of Darkness Destroyed: a post-apocalyptic world where most of the human race is dead and survival is the name of the game
 * The World of Dark Fantasy: a high-fantasy take on the dark mystery of the World of Darkness, with variants ranging from medieval sword-and-sorcery to modern fantasy

Two additional shards that were cut from Mirrors due to its page count were featured in their own supplements to the book: World of Darkness: Mirrors - Bleeding Edge presented a cyberpunk take on the Chronicles of Darkness, and World of Darkness: Mirrors - The Infinite Macabre a dark space-opera version of the setting.

While the term "shards" was introduced in World of Darkness: Mirrors, similarly divergent takes on the Chronicles of Darkness were introduced in other books published in the same time frame: Danse Macabre, the Mage Chronicler's Guide, and the Forsaken Chronicler's Guide. Additionally, the different tiers of organizations presented in Danse Macabre and the Mage Chronicler's Guide can radically alter the assumptions at the core of the game.

Exalted shards
From Shards of the Exalted Dream:


 * Gunstar Autochthonia: a futuristic science-fiction thriller inspired by Battlestar Galactica, in which the Exalted flee from the victorious Primordials in the far-traveling starship Autochthonia
 * Heaven's Reach: a far-future space-opera setting ruled by a galaxy-spanning Exalted dynasty
 * Burn Legend: a fusion of Exalted into a modern-day manga-inspired cinematic martial arts setting, not unlike Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game
 * Exalted: The Modern Age: a version of Creation reimagined with modern-day sociocultural and technological achievements