Shards effectively have quality levels. Instead of adding more ingredients like Alchemy and Blacksmithing, increasing one's Sagecrafting skill allows for the use of more advanced shards.
Sagecraft by the Numbers
Three quality levels:
Seven shard types:
- Fire
- Ice
- Lightning
- Magic
- Physical
- Poison
- Protection
Four gem categories:
- Weapon
- Armor
- Utility
- Epic
Skill Progression
All characters can combine Cloudy Shards into gems innately. At level 2, you can combine Lambent Shards into gems. At level 6, you can use Pristine Shards.
Reaching level 3 in Sagecrafting lets you fuse identical shards into a higher tier, much like Diablo II's Horadric Cube, or Torchlight's Transmuter.
Reaching level 8 unlocks the epic gems recipe category.
Reaching Level 10 allows a master Sagecrafter to extract gems from equipment, with no harm to either gem or armament.
Every time you increase your Sagecrafting skill you also increase the chance of finding shards in the first place.
Gem Recipes
Like Alchemy, there are set combinations to create certain effects. Unlike Alchemy, you get a preview of the results of the transmutation before performing it, so you're never sagecrafting blindly.
There are 196 different combinations (7 shard types, 2 shards per gem, 4 categories), but there is some overlap; For instance, Fire + Protection and Ice + Protection both give + Physical Damage when used as a weapon gem.
Liquid Seduction is a potion that you can find/create/buy that temporarily increases your Persuasion skill, but ONLY with NPCs of the opposite sex.
Besides that one item, the only differences I've noticed are all flavor in regards to how people speak to you and the context of certain quests (him vs. her, King vs. Queen, etc.).
Best Answer
There is no flat elemental resistance stat; all elemental resistances reduce a percentage of the incoming damage. Your gem is useful, don't worry!
As a side note, a Dokkalfar starting with the Earth deity, Gaea, starts out with 5% elemental resistance. If that effect required something else to make it work, it would uniquely be the only race/deity choice that doesn't affect you at the start of the game.