C'tan - C'tan Shards: A C'tan Shard is all that remains of the once mighty Star Gods of Necron antiquity. They are now only echoes of their former selves, splinters of energy that survived their Necron servants' ancient betrayal and were enslaved in turn. Most now languish in unbreakable servitude to their former vassals, utterly incapable of acting without commission.Should a C'tan Shard rebel, or a fault develop in its control relays, then fail-safe mechanisms automatically activate, whisking the creature back to its tomb, there to languish for long Terran centuries until times are dire enough that the Necrons must call upon its services again.Even with these precautions, the Necrons are wary of employing C'tan Shards in battle. Though the chance of escape is remote, the possibility remains, so the day must be dark indeed for the Necron cause before the Tesseract Labyrinths are opened and the C'tan unleashed upon the galaxy once again. In the 41st Millennium, the foes of the Necrons have so far only encountered two types of C'tan Shard, those of Aza'gorod the Nightbringer and Mephet'ran the Deceiver.Even now in their reduced and wholly fettered state, C'tan Shards are beings of near-unlimited power. They can manifest energy blasts, control the minds of lesser beings, manipulate the flow of time, and banish foes to alternate dimensions. Indeed, a C'tan Shard's abilities are limited only by two things: its imagination -- which is immense -- and glimmering memories of the being from which it was severed.Whilst no individual C'tan Shard has full recall of the omnipotent being it once was, each carries the personality and hubris of that vaster and more puissant being. Though a C'tan Shard has the power to reduce a tank to molten slag with but a gesture, it might simply not occur to it to do so, as its gestalt primogenitor would have tackled the situation through other means, such as by devolving the crew into primordial ooze, or deceiving them into attacking their own allies.The only hope of defeating a C'tan is to breach its necrodermis shell -- the living metal form that cages its energetic essence. If the necrodermis is compromised, the C'tan Shard explodes in a pulse of blinding energy, its being scattered to the galactic solar winds.Whilst it is true that many C'tan Shards are now indentured to Necron service, this by no means accounts for the entire pantheon of C'tan. Rumours of C'tan-like beings can be found across the galaxy, though many are merely entities that exhibit inexplicable, reality-warping powers.Indeed, any such being -- whether Warp-spawned Daemon, energy-based life form or an alien with advanced technology -- can be mistaken for a C'tan if the observer is primitive, credulous or simply ill-informed enough. This discrepant information causes great confusion concerning the exact number and nature of the surviving C'tan, even among the Aeldari.Records held in the Black Library contradict those maintained on Ulthwé, which are again at odds with the archives held on Alaitoc. There might be four C'tan at present in the galaxy, four thousand or any number in between.However, all Aeldari agree that the splinters of knowledge held by the Imperium of Man are so flawed and confused that they, if anything, move further from the truth with each fresh discovery made. Any who go looking for proof of a C'tan's existence can easily uncover it, but this speaks more to the mindset of the searcher than it does to any value of the "evidence."