Crenshinibon Crenshinibon , also called " The Crystal Shard " , was a unique , magical artifact . Powers and personality . Crenshinibon was a vile relic of immense power , a crystal shard that drew its magical energy from the light of the sun . Crenshinibon was a sentient artifact , and it possessed a never - ending hunger for power and glory at whatever cost ; therefore , Crenshinibon was not a reasonable being . It always desired a powerful wielder , usually a corruptible magic - user of some sort , and greatly enhanced that wielder ' s powers . The Crystal Shard also insidiously manipulated its wielder and would readily abandon him or her for someone more capable of furthering its goals of ultimate conquest . The relic could lure in thousands of evil - intentioned beings with its magical call , creating a grand army for its wielder and so - called master . Perhaps Crenshinibon ' s most magnificent ability was its power to create an enormous crystalline tower , known as Cryshal - Tirith ( meaning " crystal tower " in Elven ) . In order to create the tower , Crenshinibon first created an exact duplicate of itself , a square - sided crystal that sometimes glowed with a green light . The wielder then placed the copy of the shard on the ground and recited the words " ibssum dal abdur " . The duplicate crystal expanded , growing into the crystalline tower , still an exact image of Crenshinibon , only now of mammoth proportions . The tower itself absorbed the sun ' s light , giving it more strength during the daytime . The tower was impervious ; it absorbed all attacks against its mirrored walls and reflected them back on their source . The only vulnerable part of the tower was its heart , the pulsating crystal of strength that was used to construct the tower , and that became hidden away within Cryshal - Tirith . The tower ' s very door was invisible and undetectable to any beings inherent to the present plane the tower rested upon . The goal of the artifact was to acquire power to its greatest level . This desire transcended the normally established boundaries of what was right and what was wrong . The Shard ' s primary attack was on the ego , collecting slaves with promises of greatness and riches . It had little hold on paladin s and goodly priest s , on righteous kings and noble peasants , but one who desired more and was not above deception and destruction to further his or her ends would inevitably sink into Crenshinibon ' s grasp . History . Creation . Crenshinibon was originally created by seven lich es who deemed to fashion an item of the very greatest power . As an insult to the races these undead wizard - kings planned to conquer , they designed the artifact to draw its strength from the sun itself , the giver of life . Upon the artifact ’ s completion , the liches were consumed by the overwhelming power of their joining magic . The conscious aspects of these evil creatures were obliterated by the relic ’ s sunlike properties and the shattered pieces of their spirits were absorbed by the artifact . Crenshinibon first came to the material world millennia ago in the distant land of Zakhara . At the time , the artifact was merely a wizard ’ s tool , though a great and powerful one . It could throw fireballs and create great blazing walls of light so intense they could burn flesh from bone . Little was known about the Crystal Shard ’ s dark and sinister past until it fell into the hands of a . This great leader learned the truth about Crenshinibon , and with the help of his many court wizard s , decided that the work of the liches was incomplete . This sultan , however , had no dreams of domination ; he only wanted peaceful existence with his many warlike neighbors . Using the newest power of the artifact , the sultan created a line of crystalline towers that stretched from his capital across the empty desert to his kingdom ’ s second city , an oft - raided frontier city about a day ’ s travel away in intervals . He raised as many as a hundred of these towers , nearly completing the defensive line . However , the sultan had overestimated the powers of Crenshinibon . He believed that the creation of the towers would strengthen the artifact , and normally they would if not so many had been created , but he was pulling the manifestations of Crenshinibon too thin . Soon after the sultan ’ s raising of the towers , a great manifested and swept across the desert , shattering the weakened crystalline towers . This sandstorm served as a precursor to an invasion by a neighboring sheikdom . The hordes overran the sultan ’ s kingdom , and the merciless forced the sultan to watch as his family was murdered . Crenshinibon absorbed a piece of the sultan ’ s spirit . Finally , with this " second creation " Crenshinibon was complete . The artifact , imbued with the twisted aspects of seven dead liches and with the wounded and tormented spirit of the sultan , would now begin its desperate quest to attain and maintain its greatest level of power , whatever the cost . The sentient shard is thus a tragic ' character ' ; it is driven to pursue evil or amoral ends because it was scarred by traumatic , tragic events during its formative years ; this part of the shard ' s history was revealed in " Servant of the Shard " , whose primary characters , Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri , are also amoral individuals willing to commit unethical acts because they were scarred by tragedy and betrayal during their formative years . The artifact crossed the trails of the psionic race known as Illithid s on many occasions , who since then studied this unique item that could sometimes defeat their attacks of mindpower . Illithids or psionics of any race alone are beyond the reach of the Crystal Shard . Wielders . A powerful demon , Errtu , had been serving the seven liches who created Crenshinibon . When Crenshinibon stole the magical strength that preserved the liches ’ undead state , the ensuing bursts of energy had hurled Errtu back to the Abyss , and the demon had thought the relic destroyed . Centuries later , Errtu discovered Cryshal - Tirith , a crystal tower with a pulsating heart the exact image of the Crystal Shard . Before Errtu could obtain Crenshinibon , an angelic deva named Al Dimeneira arrived , and with a single word , he banished Errtu back to the Abyss . Al Dimeneira then tried to destroy Crenshinibon , but the powerful relic burned his hands , so instead he hurled it across the very planes of existence , and it came to rest in the snow of a bowl - shaped dell in the Spine of the World Mountains on the material plane . Crenshinibon has had six owners since that time . In the non - canon computer game " Icewind Dale " , the first was a devil named Belhifet who , in a feud with his rival Yxunomei , was banished to the Material Plane . He stumbled upon the shard and formed an army using its powers of suggestion . He erected Cryshal - Tirith in the town of Easthaven , until a wandering group of adventurers ( who had also killed Yxunomei ) sent him back to Baator . In the novel " The Crystal Shard " , the next wielder of Crenshinibon was a fumbling wizard - in - training named Akar Kessel . He stumbled upon the artifact at the Spine of the World Mountains . Though he could barely cast cantrips himself , with the power of Crenshinibon , he was almost unstoppable . Kessel tried to use Crenshinibon ' s power to enslave the whole region and even summoned the demon Errtu to help him with that task . But this supposed ally finally brought about the demise of Akar Kessel , having his own designs for the Crystal Shard . In the end , Kessel was killed by an avalanche caused by Crenshinibon ' s own heat in a battle with the famed drow ranger Drizzt Do ' Urden atop Kelvin ' s Cairn . In " Passage to Dawn " Stumpet Rakingclaw , a female dwarven cleric in the employ of Clan Battlehammer , came across Crenshinibon while hiking on Kelvin ' s Cairn . The shard quickly escaped her , as her moral code made it too difficult for the artifact to insinuate itself into her mind , by calling to Errtu . Errtu had finally gotten what he wanted and was the next wielder of the shard . Drizzt , with the help of Wulfgar ( whom the goddess Lolth had given to Errtu as a prisoner and was subsequently used as a bargaining chip with Drizzt and his friends ) , once again managed to banish him to the Abyss . In " The Silent Blade , " the drow Jarlaxle tricked Drizzt into giving the shard to him by hiring a doppleganger and disguising him as Cadderly Bonaduce and used it to carve himself a place in the city of Calimport . His lieutenant Rai - guy believed he could control the shard better than his leader and tried to take it . It was stolen by Jarlaxle ' s companion Artemis Entreri , who had managed to ignore the Crystal Shard ' s manipulative magic through sheer willpower . Entreri rescued Jarlaxle from his two lieutenants , Kimmuriel Oblodra and Rai - guy , and convinced him to come along with him to take the shard to Cadderly and find from him a way to destroy the dangerous artifact . Rai - guy eventually succeeded in capturing the shard , though his possession of it was short - lived . Crenshinibon was eventually destroyed by the red dragon Hephaestus when Jarlaxle tricked him into breathing fire on it ( and its wielder , Rai - guy ) whilst it was inside of a globe of magical darkness , the only known way to end the Crystal Shard ' s evil existence , as discovered by Cadderly . However , powerful necromantic energy still lingered around the shard . When the Spellplague began to affect Erlkazar and thus Hephaestus ' lair , it turned the dragon into a dracolich and the nearby corpse of an illithid , Yharaskrik , into a ghost who compelled Hephaestus to smash the shard into his forehead before fusing itself and the shard with the remains of Hephaestus ' body . The three combined became a sentient conduit between the realm of the living and that of the dead . Yharaskrik ' s conciousness dubbed the trio the " Ghost King " .