Question About Shards

[Derekleigh]

I guess I am missing it somewhere, But Do the players get to hold onto the Shards, when they leave Shelia? Or does Shelia hold onto them? Giving one of my players a +2 to all Skills, seems pretty powerful. Also, does the Ioun Stone function, while its inside the Shard?

Thanks in advance.

[Enlight_Bystand]

They keep them, and get the ioun stone's bonus. (well except for Envy, where the two bonuses deliberately don't stack...)

[James Jacobs]

Yup; the entire point of the Adventure Path is to give the PCs a cool artifact, which means they keep the shards the whole time.