> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Circle of the Scales > [![[Circle_of_the_Scales_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Circle_of_the_Scales.webp) > ###### Faction Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Faction | > Category | Governing Circle | > Allegiance | Independent | > Leader | [[Justiciar Naivara Siannodel]] | > Base | Judicant's Canton, [[Sumara, The Shining City\|Sumara]] | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Circle of the Scales** is one of the seven governing Circles of [[Sumara, The Shining City]], the lawkeepers of elven society. They are the city's judges, lawmakers, and diplomats — the source of Sumara's internal order, who set the rules its people live by, arbitrate every dispute within the walls, and hold the legal framework on which the whole council ultimately rests. ## Purpose & Goals The Circle of the Scales are first and foremost the keepers of elven law. They do not merely adjudicate disputes; they set the rules and statutes by which Sumara lives, regulate the fair distribution of the city's resources, and maintain the Accords — the body of law that governs even the Confluence of the Seven itself. In a council otherwise prone to long debate, the Scales are the voice that asks what the law permits, and their rulings are final. Through a century of isolation this internal work has kept them fully occupied: with the city sealed away, every dispute within the walls has come before them. Their second charge — diplomacy with the independent Fey courts — is a function that has had little to do in a hundred years, an office kept ready against a day when Sumara might once again treat with powers beyond its mountains. ## Structure & Leadership The Circle is led by its Meridian, **[[Justiciar Naivara Siannodel]]** — sharp-tongued and fiercely pragmatic, a jurist whose rulings are absolute and final. She sits on the [[Sumara, The Shining City#The Confluence of the Seven|Confluence of the Seven]] as the Circle's voice, and brings to it a strict, letter-of-the-law temperament that makes the Scales a decisive force when the council turns to questions of right and precedent. ## The Judicant's Canton The Circle seats itself in the **Judicant's Canton**, a centrally placed mid-elevation canton of balanced, symmetric architecture with a formal welcome hall — its layout a statement of the order's values. Its Nexus is the **[[Justicium]]**, perfectly bisected into gleaming white marble and polished black stone, with a great set of scales adorning its roofline: a building that is itself an argument for balance and impartial judgement. ## History The Circle of the Scales is as old as Sumara itself, one of the seven ancient orders through which the elven people have always governed their works. Across the Century of Silence, with the city shut away from the world, the Scales held its internal order unbroken — arbitrating every quarrel within the walls and keeping the Accords that have governed Sumara's council in the absence of the [[Silmara Family|Silmara]] royal line. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 47 - Confluence of the Seven]] When [[Ryo]] presented his claim before the [[Sumara, The Shining City#The Confluence of the Seven|Confluence of the Seven]], it was Justiciar Naivara Siannodel who made the case against him — invoking Article 7 of the Accords: no living witness, no documentation, no legal standing. [[Illythia Voss]] countered with Article 12, naming the [[Vault of Memories]] a binding verification mechanism within the same Accords; Naivara went pale, could not refute it, and conceded. In the end she raised her hand among the five who voted to open the Vault.