Heraldry

Looks better. :slight_smile:

I have a SL of Heraldry books sitting on my shelf, English and International. I just happened to have Friar’s book by my computer last night.

I believe there was a very good sourcebook someplace, Kalamar or Greyhawk maybe, that included a whole bunch of coats of arms and symbols already done up. I’m sure you could find some great examples to use in there.

Sorry, can’t remember the exact title, but maybe someone else will :wink:

I have arms from Kalamar and someplace in the Realms, but I don’t think we need those. They are basically identical to historical arms, except the proportion of fantastic creatures was higher and the number of cadence marks was lessor.

I was able to distribute both historical and player-requested arms for an on-line role playing community of nearly a hundred players in a 14th century game, each blazon of standard size and color scheme.

As someone noted, there are more animals and naturalistic symbols in Anuire (and I think throughout Cerilia) so it will take me some time to offer examples of some of the other realms. I do have arms with fantastic beasts, like griffons, dragons, and others I cannot recall off hand.

Looking good.

So… at this point we can whip up some coats-of-arms for the rest of the ‘unknown’ nations and add the compiled list to the Downloads section?(clearly marking the non-canon ones as such)

I was looking at the Sword and the Crown, Boeruine’s CoA is definitely Lions combatant. The only error I made was placement of the crown. Though I think it makes more sense at the point of honor than at the base.


Here is Boeruine, though I am not clear where the crown belongs. I can make tounge and claws Or if that is more accurate.

This is a version of a hart I had available. Scanning the Ruins and going from there would be a little more photoshop intensive. I do like it.

If you depicted the Crown at the point of honour, that would place the crown above the fighting lions.

If you placed the crown as it appears in The Sword and Crown, it would appear below the lions. I think it makes more sense above. It doesn’t appear in the Ruins of Empire, only the lions do.

So you could probably leave it as is.

You could arm (claws) and langue (tongue) argent too or make them gold. They don’t have to be a different color.

I used the arms of O’Carroll, Sable, two lions rampant, combatant Argent, armed and langued, Gules, Supporting a sword paleways, point upwards, Or. It was only after I posted the arms did I realize I left them armed and langued gules.

Not sure what people would think, but here’s what we came up with for Diemed in our campaign, though I suspect that people will want to keep their own.

Parti per Fess murray and azure, a lion rampant guardant argent, armed and langued gules.

we created this before the PS of Diemed was released in PDF format. I found it surprising how close we envisioned the “official” Diemed to our version.

The shield is split horizontally. Wine on the top represents wine country and is also representative of a stain of honour from the past; the blue represents the port city of Ariele, and the white lion represents the wild white lions of the Bliene province.

Work done to order! OK, not rampant guardant, but I need to find one in my library first. Drawing from scratch takes a long time.

Stjordvik

Very nice.

OT: What are you using for your design app? Are these heraldic devices you picked up from a art collection?

Mostly photoshop. Once I’ve added a charge to my library its just a question of cutting and coloring it. I like the idea that these are three dimentional objects so I try and make the center a little lighter than the edges. I’ve found some clipart charges, but I often end up re-working them because, other than the crosses and geometry, I’m not neccesarily satisfied. I currently have a library of about 1500 arms, weighted heavily towards members of the royal families of France and England, and those who took an active part in the hundred years war.

If you can lay your hands on the facsimile of the Grand Armorial of the Toison d’Or, volume two has the armorial bearings of the Kings and Princes who were members of the Order of the Golden Fleece and the associated heraldry of their kinsmen. Very cool two book set. It’s in French, but the second book is fantastic.

I’ve seen images of the equestrians and there are many armorials on the web that convert the arms to their own style (as I would do) as well. I have a nice little picture book of heraldry that includes Charles VII, Jean de Créquy, the Archbishop of Rheims (the only way you can tell its an AB, other than the index is that where in other pages angels hold the noble’s helmet for them, on his page it’s a cardinal’s miter), King of Poland, Guy of Pontalier, Duke of Brittany, Tibaud de Neufchâtel, Philippe de Ternant, Charles the Bold, and a piece on embarking for the crusades. I have other images of the duc de Brabant and the duc de Normandie from the Armoriaux Equestre de la Toison d’Or.

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?

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.

Only problem I see with Medeore as this—Purple with crescent moon is the exact symbol of Ruornil himself, might need to be modified a bit from that or there would be confusion.

Avan—his birthmark is the dragon. If you have the original BR box set one of the cards in there has pictures of different soldiers of the various sub continents, the soldier for anuire is an Avanese elite footman, it has Avanils crest on his talbred.

Ghoere and Mhoried… their respective symbols are the reason for the name “the falcon and the wolf” Falcon is Mhoried and Wolf is Ghoere.

The soldiers livery and badge would not necessarily match the Soverign’s heraldry. Just look at the English Wars of the Roses. Edward the IV had the White rose of York, the Sunne in Splendour, the White Lion of March, etc… The Yorkist livery colors were murray and blue.

Charles the Bold was mentioned in an earlier post. Before he became Duke, he was the Count of Charolais. His livery colors were black and purple with a silver st. andrew’s cross and fire strykers in gold. His personal heraldry had nothing to do with his livery colors. When he became duke, he adopted the blue and white with the red st. andrews cross. He adopted the badge of his father, which was the fire steel in the shape of a B for Bourgogne. Livery colors tended to change based on the noble’s desires.

Avan’s badge could be a dragon, but his personal heraldry is an imperial two headed eagle. However, Anuire does not = Avanil. So the war cards might not be a good way to determine anything.

Medore might well have a unicorn instead of a Crescent moon, or it may have both symbols. In the PS of Medore, Suiris has walked in the company of a unicorn. Perhaps the flag’s field isn’t purple but rather a cobalt blue.(?) Mabye it has a border of silver.

The Mhor’s heraldry seems to defy the accepted rules of heraldry. At a distance the light colors would be almost indistinguishable, making ID nearly impossible. This tends to be the same reason that you very rarely find metal on metal. The gold scales on blue work, the silver sword on white doesn’t. Not only is it a metal on metal, it’s technically the same metal.


Possible arms of Danigau, with battlements and sword to evoke the fighting spirit and the colors and wand to evoke the magic using dynasty.