Do they do anything? I have a bunch of them...I guess they are just broken soul gems that can't hold souls, I pick them up anyways because they are pretty...and I don't know any better.

They just seem to be useless junk items, chuck them.

Yup I can confirm that they are fairly useless unless you just like more shinies laying around since they are very gemlike.

Would be a nice addition: take a given number of shards, use some sort of magic or smithing or whatever to make a low-level soul stone....

Agreed.

Or the more shards you collect, the greater the gem.

Yep. As you craft more, you get better ones, but they take more shards....

inuyasha is looking for them