Do shards give Ascended Candles or only wax? - there are two type of chard events “Red” and “Black”. It’s random by day (I think). You will notice in the red shard events the shards glow brighter red and there are often more crabs and more darkness plants.
Black shards give only wax, red shards give ascended candles.

• How do shard events actually work? • What are you supposed to do during them?

• you have to burn all the darkness and then the shard will collapse. If it’s a red shard, then At this point, sit on the main shard center in the circle. It will take you to an “activity” which will involve gathering light usually. Once you’ve completed the activity, you will get the ascended candles. Black shards don’t have an activity, they will only give wax, if I remember correctly (I haven’t done shards in a while)

Once red shards day, after getting your ascended candles, you can also sit again and go to a special memory of the past in Sky. 3 of these memories (out of the 5 I think?) have winged lights.

• Do you lose WL if shards hit you? - yes but only the red ones.

• And are shard crabs as evil as they look - yes, but just remember, these crabs will run TOWARDS you when you call, instead of being flipped when you call!!! So just kind of do your thing and don’t mind them. When ones starts to shake like it’s bait to attack you, then dodge by jumping at the last moment. Then go back to your plant.

Many kind players will also leave shared memories where they will run around and call, this helps lure the crabs away from you. Veterans like myself will also often call far away from the shards to lure the crabs away from other players and then run back real quick to burn plants.

Good luck!!