Heraldic Primer
Overview
This article is not intended as a comprehensive guide to heraldry. Since Western Alusian heraldry follows the same general rules and principles as the heraldry of Western Europe in the middle ages there are any number of excellent heraldic guides available on-line if people wish to learn more about heraldry. Some of these are linked below.
This guide is intended as a very brief introduction to Western Alusian heraldry for those players or GMs who want to design arms for characters but don't want to further research the subject.
Note: Western Alusian heraldry is considered the default throughout this guide. The differences for Elven and Dwarven heraldry are touched upon in the main Heraldry page. Information for non-Western areas may be added as needed.
The Basics
The basic requirements of heraldic design can be summed up as: highly visible and easily identifiable, and all of the other rules about colours and metals, positions and postures derive from these simple principles.
In brief:
- Put light coloured objects on dark backgrounds, or put dark coloured objects on light backgrounds;
- putting dark on dark or light on light makes them hard to see.
- Keep the number of different objects or shapes small;
- several of the same thing is more normal (and easier to identify) than several different things
- Use solid colours (there is a standard set);
- (described below)
- Make designs bold;
- designs with subtle shading will tend to have lower visibility
- Use available space;
- makes the objects bigger / easier to see
- Show objects in a position/pose that makes them easy to identify;
- a lion curled up asleep is much harder to identify than one rampant (rampaging)
- Arms should be visibily distinct.
- rule of thumb: put two shield sized coats of arms 30 feet away. Can you see the differences?
Heraldic Design
Shield
Arms get displayed on a variety of surfaces: banners and flags, draperies, clothes, horse barding, etc, but the most common representation of arms in on a sheild, or a shield shaped background.
Shields of any shape can be used for heraldry, but the Knight's Shield, or heater is by far the most common.
Some non-military persons may choose to display their arms on a different shape. Lozenge shapes are used by some armigerous women, and clergy (though many others prefer a shield shape).
Badges are something of a special case; bades granted to Guilds and the like are almost always displayed on a circular background, although the badges of military units may be shown on a shield.
Tinctures
| Tincture | Heraldic name | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Metals | ||
| Gold/Yellow | Or | |
| Silver/White | Argent | |
| Colours | ||
| Blue | Azure | |
| Red | Gules | |
| Black | Sable | |
| Purple | Purpure | |
| Green | Vert | |
| Furs | ||
| Ermine | 
| |
| Ermines or Counter-ermine | 
| |
| Erminois | 
| |
| Pean | 
| |
| Vair | 
| |
| Rare Colours | ||
| Amaranth | Amaranth | |
| Sky-blue | Bleu céleste | |
| Brown | Brunâtre | |
| Ash / Grey | Cendré | |
| Mulberry | Mûre or Murrey | |
| Tawny/Orange | Tenné | |
Common
Five colours and two metals (collectively called tinctures) are used for the vast majority of Western Alusia coats of arms. Some coats make use of a few other much rarer colours, or furs.
Heraldic textbooks never fail to spell out the "Tincture Rule", namely that metal should not be placed on metal, nor colour on colour (though there are many counter-examples) available, but the basic principle remains: don't put light on light or dark on dark.
The most common colours in Alusian heraldy are black, red, and blue, followed by purple and then green. The College of Heralds refers to these by their names in Lalange: sable, gules, azure, purpure, and vert, respectively. All of these colours may be considered dark for the purposes of what they may be placed upon.
The metals are silver (argent), and gold (Or -- usually capitalised to minimize confusion). These may be actual silver and gold leaf or plate, depending on the way the armorial design is being used, but for most purposes they are represented by white and yellow. The metals are considered light for visibility.
Furs
Less common, but still seen in many Alusian arms are the furs: Ermine, and it's variants: Ermines (also, and less ambiguosly called Counter-Ermine), Erminois, and Pean, as well as Vair (and a number of its variants).
Some guides refer to the furs as amphibious -- able to be placed on either colour or metal, but again they should generally be treated as light or dark and handled accoringly. It might be technically valid to place a sable charge on a counter-ermine field, but the design would fail to be clearly visible.
Rare Colours
There are a few other colours that do appear but rarely in Western Alusian heraldry, and almost exclusively in arms within Bowcourt. These colours also appear in Elven heraldry which probably explains their use in that Marquisate.
- amaranth, a dark red/purple
- bleu céleste, a sky-blue
- this rare colour sometimes appears as a very light blue in Elven heraldry and is treated in that case as a metal.
- brunâtre, brown.
- cendré, ash-colored / dark grey
- mûre (or murrey), the deep red almost black of the mulberry
- tenné, a tawny orange through to a solid orange colour
The other tincture that sometimes appears is proper -- the oject or animal is displayed in its actual colours. This designation is not very common, and only makes sense when the charge has an actual colour. There are a number of heraldic conventions for how proper is represented:
- stone (grey)
- arms and armour (steely grey)
- trees (green foliage, brown trunks)
The Field
The field is always mentioned first in the blazon, describing its tinctures and divisions (if any). The field may be divided up is a number of ways, some are very common, others less so. Some of the common divisions (and a few not so common) are shown below.
| Per fess | Per pale | Per bend | Per saltire | Per chevron | Gyronny | Quarterly | Bendy | Lozengy | Barry Wavy |
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Lines of Partition
The lines that divide the areas of the field need not be straight, (though they are assumed straight unless otherwise described). Common partition lines include:
- (A) Embattled
- (B) Indented
- (C) Dancette
- (D) Wavy
- (E) Nebuly
- (F) Raguly
- (G) Potenty
- (H) Dovetailed
- (I) Engrailed
- (J) Flory & Counter-Flory
- (K) Invected
Ordinaries
These are primarily geometric shapes, some of which are derived historically from shield bracing. They are usually mentioned in the blazon after the field, and occupy 1/3rd or more of the shield. The lines of Ordinaires can also use the partition line shapes. A very few of the many Ordinaries are shown below.
| Fess | Pale | Bend | Saltire | Chevron | Pall |
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| Fess Wavy | Cross Raguly | Bend Dancette | Saltire Engrailed | Bordure Embattled | Bend Fusily |
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Charges
Almost any animal, monster, or inanimate object can be used as charges on a shield.
Animals
Animals common in heraldry include: Lions, Eagles, Deer, Bears, Boars, Wolves, Foxes, Goats, and Horses, but Rabbits, Mice, Badgers, Hedgehogs (generally called Urcheons, Snakes, and almost any other identifiable animal may be used. There are numberour rules on the positioning of animals, here is one concise guide.
People too appear in armory, humans and other species may be used, as may body parts (heads of men of Arabie, skulls, arms, and legs). Parts of animals are also used, heads, claws, and wings.
Monsters
Some of the monsters used in heraldry are: Dragons, Wyverns, Cockatrice, Unicorns, Pegasi, and Centaurs, but there are also monsters really known only to the heralds such as the Sealion (like the one in the arms of Eltrandor, and similarly the Sea-Wolf, Sea-Bull, and Sea-Dog. In fact, almost any terrestrial animal or monster can be given a fish tail and termed a Sea-whatever. Animals also get wings added by the heralds becoming Winged Bulls, Winged Deer, and the like. It is even possible to add both, resulting in odd monsters such as the Winged Sea-Bull.
Flora
Trees and other flora are not used overly much in Alusian heraldry, though there are no restrictions on selecting them; they just appear not to be favoured over creatures or objects. Elven heraldry is a different matter with any number of trees, flowers, berries and plants appearing.
Objects and Other Inanimates
Many objects are added to arms either to allude or pun on the armiger's name, or to allude to their trade in the case of Guilds and armigerous commoners. Basically put, any identifiable object that is known of on Alusia may be found in some coat of arms. Objects type charges range from simple geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, stars) through everyday items such as water bags, anchors, towers, swords, axes, wool packs, ships, buckles, horns, and keys.
Blazonry
The blazon is the verbal or written description of a coat of arms, while the emblazon is a visual representation of the arms themselves. In most cases the blazon is taken as the authoritative description, but during some periods (perhaps co-inciding with rather poorer heraldic training) the emblazons have been used as the definitive guide.
Links
- Heraldry for Scribes
- How to draw arms and make them look good.
- Heraldic Blazon/Emblazon Knowledge
- Many heradic terms explained
- Heraldica
- Massive archive of heraldic information
- Wikipedia Heraldry
- Good introduction with links to plenty of other sources
- SCA Heraldry Primer
- And the main [SCA Heraldry] site
- Lochac Roll of Arms
- Examples of lots of heraldry from the SCA in NZ and Australia. Although all of these arms were registerable it doesn't necessarily make them good / classic heraldry.
