Iconic shards are used to power house icons. When a House receives an icon, that icon is placed on Nishnatoba. House members travel to the plane with iconic shards and use them to power the icon for their house. Iconic shards sometimes spontaneously appear and fall to the ground when a creature or denizen is slain.
There are three sorts of shards, listed in order of weight: jagged (giving off a white glow), chipped (blue glow), and smooth (purple glow). The heavier ones provide larger amounts of power to an icon.