Diemed's Heraldric Shield

[ArchScarlettie]

I recently have been playing Diemed in a PBeM, and I have been using the gryphon as the House's symbol. I felt that Diemed deserves an important and legendary figure, as Diemed was a strong House and often helped form a backbone of the Imperial Armies. I recently designed a shield for it, and wanted some input from other fans on it. If possible, I was wondering if it might be approved for the Wiki page on Diemed.

http://www.geocities.com/archscarlettie/gryphonshield.jpg

[Sorontar]

Well running through my beginner's heraldry checks:
* Can it be blazoned? Yes
* Is it simple heraldry? Yes
* Are there already lots of griffons in the wiki's heraldry? No, only Ansien, Seasdeep and Taeghas.
* Does the "Black beast on yellow/orange background" clash with any existing arms? No

Looks pretty good to me. You might want to decide whether you actually need the red bordure line (forgotten how to blazon that).

Note that the wiki page for Diemed ( http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Diemed ) does already have arms.
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/images/0/0b/Diemed.png
Why did you choose a gryphon? I thought they were associated with other realms.

Or (after rereading your message) are you differentiating between Diemed (a realm) and the House of Diem (an organisation)?

Sorontar

[ArchScarlettie]

Well, the dragon being traditionally Avanil's, the Lion being Boeruine, I felt Diem deserved it's own creature-symbol. As for Taeghas or any of the rest, they're not of the level of history the Diem line is.

I meant for the arms to be of Diemed. I can remove the borderline, but I don't know why it would be quartered...

[Sorontar]

Um, I didn't say anything about quartering the arms. Quartering requires the arms to be divided into four sections.... unless you thought mistakenly I meant the background should be quartered yellow & orange. I didn't. Orange is not a standard colour for RL heraldry. The closest is tenné, an orange-tawny colour that is regarded as a stain, not a colour. Yellow (called Or=gold) is a colour. I wasn't sure which one you meant.

The device in the wiki is based on an email by Jaleela http://www.birthright.net/forums/showpost.php?p=38684&postcount=31


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.


By all means suggest an alternative. We are just inventing most of the heraldry ourselves to make a DM's job easier.

cf. http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Category:Heraldry

Sorontar

[kgauck]

http://home.mchsi.com/~gauck/Diemed_Alt.png

Here is Or, a Gryphon Sable in standard form.

[Jaleela]

Well, the dragon being traditionally Avanil's, the Lion being Boeruine, I felt Diem deserved it's own creature-symbol. As for Taeghas or any of the rest, they're not of the level of history the Diem line is.

I meant for the arms to be of Diemed. I can remove the borderline, but I don't know why it would be quartered...

I think that the dragon is the blood mark not necessarily the CoA. But I don't get the sense that the Wiki is canon when it comes to a lot of the details, so people can use whatever arms they want for the house, we just happened to offer up ours when the topic of Heraldry first came up.

The White Lion of Diemed in our campaign is the Royal arms which also represent the country of Diemed.

I don't know if each country needs to have a unique animal. European arms show a multitude of lions, panthers, etc...

If the line is old, I wouldn't quarter it unless Diemed claims other territories. Again to cite our campaign, the current Regent claims Diemed, Ghieste, and Seaward.

Example ancient: England 1/4 and France 2/3
Modern: Britain 1, 4, Scotland (2), Ireland (3)

[ArchScarlettie]

So if you claim the entire Southern Coast, you're going to have to do a lot of quartering, I take it. :)

[kgauck]

Depends on who you are. Diemed would only put Diemed and Aerenwe on such arms, since all the other states are, for their point of view, already Diemed.

However, depending on how new territory is added and the view of the conquering dynasty, they may well make no changes to their arms. When England added Wales, they made no adjustments, when they united two crowns peacefully, they quartered arms. France never adjusted her arms (though during the brief unification with Navarre at the end of the 13th century, in Navarre the arms were represented as France and Navarre quartered) as she aquired territory, even the Kingdom of Arles.

Realms like Avanil, Boeruine, or Ghoere, that claim the Iron Throne would have no reason to alter their arms. Whatever they conquer is already theirs, held by others in defiance of what is just and right.

Realms that unite by marriage or inheritance (a marriage in the past) almost always quarter. Regents that claim other realms by marriage but don't take possession because some other pretender has the place, might quarter their arms to remind all of their claim.

Realms that conquer others with or without claims are unlikely to change their arms upon conquest. Either they did when they got the claim or they never did.

[RaspK_FOG]

I think it's customary for the linework of a sable charge on a metal field to be of the same metal (i.e. or lines on the sable charge for the outlines).

[kgauck]

Most of the lines on a sable charge are ignored. Typically the line seperating the rearward limbs are shown in the metal of the background. Not much else.

[RaspK_FOG]

Yes, that's what I mean. :)