I have a problem with the heraldry as well, at least in Anuire. Since the purpose of heraldry is to identify someone clearly on a battlefield in dusty, confused, and hurried conditions, there is a need for clear, unambiguous blazons. But the PS do give us something interesting, its just figuring out what to do with it. I would figure that it either be the ancestory of the regent, or a geography of the realm, so its either a guide to families or places.
(yay, I kicked off another thread!)
Certainly, the covers of the player’s secrets books should probably be ignored. It’s hard for me to imagine a troop of soldiers in, say, Ilien’s heraldy - brown with half a dozen objects scattered across it. Bright colors are preferable, with two icons at most.
Since I’ve some free time, I’m going flip through my Ruins of Empire book to list known heraldries - sorry, I don’t know all the official terms, and recommend ways they can be brought in line with real life heraldry/common sense.
I did a bit of reading about heraldry. Heraldry probably originated on the battlefield, but soon evolved on its own. It was esspecially important in tournaments. Here, the conditions were less confusing than in battle and heraldry served an important social role, depicting rank and social status. As a result, heraldic arms could become quite elaborate and sophisticated, used to show off one’s splendour and magnificence.
Another important use was the depiction of heraldry on seals. Here too, the clarity and simplicity of the symbols used was not of particular importance.
I also think that the use of heraldry as a means to distinguish friend from foe in battle would be difficult at best. Simple bright colours would be more useful to clearly identify each side.
Generic pikeman #111: “How the heck was I supposed to know that Sir Whatever was on our side? I’ve never seen his coat of arms before!”
As a side note, before heraldry became strictly regulated, coats of arms were apparently assumed at will and this is what probably happened in the case of Tuornen.
So, based on Ruins of the Empire…
Roesone - Red field, black hart. Probably fine as is. spends a minute oogling Marlae
Aerenwe - Unknown - I think a tree on a white field would work nicely.
Diemed - Unknown. Yikes, we should get on this one. The lack of info on Diemed has always been vexing to me.
Ilien - Unknown - I’m going to pretend I never saw the cover of their book.
Medeore - Found on the cover of Player’s Secrets book… why not simplify it to purple with a crescent moon, as befitting a Ruornite scoiety?
Mieres - Unknown - Something to signify their naval power? And they are on Aduria…
Boeruine - Behind the Archduke on p 22 is two lions facing one another on a purple field.
Talinie - The picture in Ruins of Empire shows a woman that we could assume is Thurienne Donalls, who wears a white surcoat with a blue bear. http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/TSR/TSR3109_500.jpeg is the cover of the Secrets book. If we were to go with that, it would probably usually be simplified to a green field with a stylized tudor-like rose.
Brosengae - Unknown
Taeghas - Unknown
Avan - Hmm… red field, orange two-headed hawk, modeled by Prince Avan himself. I might be inclined to lighten the orange a bit for some attractive contrast, but it seems alright otherwise.
Ghoere - Assuming that guy is Gavin Tael, he’s got on a red surcoat with an orange… I think it’s a dragon. His armor has a green hue to it, but that’s less signficant. I don’t like that its so similar to Avan’s.
Mhoried - Quartered light blue/white, with swords and scales. I like it.
Tuornen - http://www.rpgnow.com/products/WOTC/tsr3107.jpg - needs a fix. We haven’t seen a lot of blue so far - and the women in Ruins is wearing a blue cloak. Blue field, White hart?
Alamie - Unknown
Elinie - Unknown - White with a sunbursts, befitting the ruling family’s faith?
Dhoesone - Unknown - The half-elven baroness seems to wearing a plain old hunting outfit. I like the idea of her heraldry(if we’re assuming ancestral-based heraldry) incorporating Tuarhievel’s hawk, though…
Cariele - Unknown
Coerayns - Unknown - a hammer and sickle? 
Osoerde - Unknown
So anyways - and correct me if I’m off base…
- The one-color fields indicate the less dominant parent’s heraldry probably isn’t reflected in one’s coat of arms.
- Strong preference for animals over objects(buildings, weapons, stars, gauntlets, and the like)
- Little in the way of Heraldic lines and ordinaries
I’d agree that many of the depicted arms are bad/silly/too naturalistic, but I wouldn’t oversimplify things.
With regard to Tuornen, IMO the symbols are okay, but the arrangement needs some work. Simply quartering the shield, with one symbol per quarter would probably look a lot better, but I would prefer moving the mug and the coins to the upper third of the shield (chief), dividing the rest of the shield horizontally (party per pale) and putting the stag’s head on the right side (sinister) and the wheat sheaf on the left (dexter).
I also wouldn’t ditch the tree trunk in Talinie’s coat of arms as this symbolizes, according to the heraldry article in Dragon Magazine 275, p.59, something “worthy of veneration”.
Would you leave Tuornen’s arms that olive drab color or make it more of a middle green color?
I would use a brighter, grassy green I guess.
Quoting from the already mentioned Dragon article (DR 275, p.52):
“Arms are represented by three main groups of tincture: colors, metals, and furs […]; however, the actual hue of tincture is up to the artist depicting the blazon. This is a tradition that has continued since the time of Medieval heralds, who had to hand mix paints, thus making it nearly impossible to match colors between heralds.”
Seems, the herald employed by TSR had a bad day when mixing this particular green;)
Btw, green (vert) can symbolize hope, quite fitting for a new realm, while black (sable), the color of the dividing bend, can symbolize grief, also fitting given the origin of Tuornen.
Black on Red or vice versa breaks most widely accepted rules of heraldry. Usually you have a metallic field (represented by white/silver and yellow/gold) and a colored charge, or the reverse.
The order is the field color and then the charge on it’s most basic level. This does not go into ordinaries, subordinaries, stains, etc…
The Blazon (written or spoken aloud by a herald) for Boeruine would be: purpure, two lions combatant (rampant and facing each other) or, honour point a crown or.
I think Roesone is: Or and stag’s head erased sable, or at least that’s the badge that they seem to wear on the clothing.
For my campaign, I’ve created heraldry tables to roll up unique coats of arms. Those in the BRCS that made sense, I kept. The rest like Medore, and Ilien, I chucked.
Ghoere’s would be gules (red) and wyvern/dragon or. See the metal on metal, color on color rule. While these do happen historically, they tend to be rare. The goal is to identify your adversary as well as your friends on the battlefield.
Historically a horrific gaff was made in the fog during the Barnet when Earl of Oxford’s star with streamers banner was mistaken for Edward IV’s Sunne in Splendour and the Lancastrians fell upon their own people. Ouch.
So it’s important that you know the coats of arms of friend and foe alike. Also if your characters have livery colors and badges that are associated with your character.
I agree with Beruin, I would select a more vibrant green. But the color really is up to the person creating the coat of arms. Green/Vert and Blue/Azure can range from light to dark.
So, following on after Prince Dios,
Roesone - gold field, black hart. fits the rules of blazon better, and is the imagin in Ruins.
Ilien - Pick the boat image, classical blazon for a trading city like Nantes. We need colors, though.
Aerenwe - I’d select the unicorn from the Ilien arms, as a symbol of the Erbannien, probably white charge blue field.
Medeore - Prince Dios proposes “purple with a crescent moon, as befitting a Ruornite scoiety,” but I think those are the arms of the Celestial Spell. Everyone needs arms, temples, guilds, so I’d go with the black and gold lozenges, or the gold and red bendy. I suspect that the second quadrant of the arms, are the three provinces of Medoere, suggesting that Medoere has no arms proper. I’m also keen on a field blue, a red chevron with a white border.
Mieres - See Ilien
Boeruine - I think the image on page 22 may be the same image mirrored, I’d go with a single lion rampant in gold on a purple field.
Talinie - white field with a blue bear
Avan - red field, gold two-headed eagle. The Imperial arms of both Germany and Russia is a two headed eagle.
Ghoere - red field with an gold dragon. Yes its similar to Avan, but with five colors and two metals to work with, you run out of original stuff pretty quickly.
Mhoried - The arms on page 38 are nice indeed, but what realm has quartered arms? I think those are his personal arms, representing the arms of Mhoried and the arms of the current ruling house. The arms shown on 22 may be the common form used, but I would hold that Mhoried proper is one of them.
Tuornen - Blue is a fine color for the field, I’ll second that. The hart is fine, and appears on the PS, but we have no geometric shapes yet either, and I’d suggest Tournen’s arms might be simply vair.
Alamie - I would suspect that Alamie and Tournen are very similar since both claim to be the true Archduchy of Alamie. Maybe Alamie is Vair and Tournen the white hart on blue as suggested.
Elinie - Unless the sunburst was a color, it violates the rules of blazon, and I’m inclined to reject white on gold or gold on white. Only the Papacy used those colors, and their arms are a bit special anyway. Aryia is a gold sunburst on blue (or green). Let’s employ a color for either the field or the charge.
Ilien - Azure, a carack or (Ilien being on the Straits, and a rich city)
Aerenwe - Vert(?) to represent the Erebannian, a unicorn armed or (need the attitude: Rampant, couchant, etc…
No problem with medore bearing a crescent moon, makes since for the moon god.
Boeruine: I’m gonna stick with combatant lions. 
I created my own for Alamie.
Sunburst isn’t a color. It is however a charge. Perhaps a red field with a rayed sun or. Might be a little too close to the symbol of Haelyn, so perhaps placing the sun on a green field?
Ariya seems to be a Turquois. So it’d be a varient of azure or vert.
If someone whipped up a couple nice full color pages of shields covering each realm’s heraldry, would there be a place for them in the Atlas? How’s the Atlas coming, by the way.
Until a week ago, I hadn’t visited this place for a year or so.
There’s also a number of furs (4 from memory)
Which five colours was this being restricted to? I thought there was more used - only the primaries and black / white? If we are planning an organised heraldry for an entire continent (and I can’t imagine it was too orgainised in RW history), perhaps we can use the secondaries as well, moving the range to eight colours?
Doyle.
Ermine (black fur on white), Ermines (white “tails” on black), Erminois (black tails on gold), Pean (gold tails on black), and Vair (6 different presentations) are furs.
Plumete (feathers)
Papellone
If a Sovereign has more than one territory, you can start partioning.
There are a ton of attributes, attitudes, ordinaries, sub-ordinaries, borders, marks of cadence, it’s not as limited as one might think.
Richard III gave the College of Heraldry their charter in 1483. It’s been organized and understood for a few centuries.
There are some differeing rules at times, but there is a formal language.
Per Stephan Friar’s “A Dictionary of Heraldry” pg. 30
tincture:
Metals:
Or Yellow Gold
Argent White Silver
Colors:
Gules Red
Azure Blue
Vert Green
Sable Black
Purpure Purple
Tenne (accented e) Orange
Sanguine Blood Red
Murrey Wine color
Ilien. A similar image can be seen on page 14 as a banner behind Rogr.
Avanil. I have another version of this with a slightly different eagle.
I’d move the charge to a more central location on Ilien, it looks a bit odd sitting that low on the shield.
The charge is centered a bit more. I brought this a little more into the standard colors I use. I have an awful lot of these, mostly historical.