If you’ve spotted the bracketed ring of circles and wondered what it means, we’ll explain. The icon was born out of our conversations about Skala’s Council and the Privy Council within it. The Privy Council is composed of the Matriarch, a titular head of state, and eight members split between the affairs concerning Hellinar and those of Ayon. The brackets represent the outer council, the gap between them the Divide. The circle in the centre depicts a table made from a single slab of tree trunk which, according to legend, will be burned before the migration from Skala to the new city of Aya.

As you can see from this early sketch, the council is arranged in this way both physically and metaphorically. The icon is widely used in Skala, with a few variations. In Ayon Research, beneath which lies the ‘Vault’ - more of that to come – has the symbol emblazoned into the mosaic floor of its entrance hall, the Ayon bracket deliberately highlighted. The same is true for Hellinar Research, a sand blasted and slightly decrepit building in the Western District but with its bracket highlighted.