Canonfire!

Fri May 18, 2007 10:26 pm World of Greyhawk Heraldry Page

Hello All,

Heraldry has been something of interest to me for many years and I remember being fascinated by the emblazonry in the original folio (I had just entered high school when it came out). Well now, many years later, I have the skill and the resources to re-create the heraldry I loved.

So, once a week (hopefully every Thursday) I will put another emblazon (the shield) along with its blazon (a text description of the shield) from the World of Greyhawk. You can find my website for them here:
http://home.comcast.net/~saracenus

I have three emblazons up on the site currently:
1) Almor, Prelacy of – Created for the Oearth Journal (stock AG library elements).
2) Safeton – Created for my home campaign (the field is custom work, see below).
3) Highfolk – Created for the website (altered AG artwork, see below).

Please tell me what you think and feel free to suggest emblazons I should do next. If you notice errors in my blazonry (the text description) please let me know (I am not a trained herald by any stretch of the imagination).

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

PROCESS:
I have a library of 3,500+ vector .WMF images from Armorial Gold (AG). From this library I can recreate many of the heraldic shields. Some shields require custom work by me (either whole cloth or altering images from the AG library).
AG’s products can be found here:
http://www.heraldryclipart.com/

I start in Adobe Illustrator 9.0 sizing and layering the images I need (or, if necessary altering or creating them). Once the image has been put together and colorized I save it as a .PSD file and open it up in Adobe Fireworks MX making both a .PNG and .GIF file of it.

I then publish the emblazon with accompanying text in Adobe Dreamweaver MX.

LEGAL:
All artwork is copyrighted by me, Bryan Blumklotz. Please ask my permission before using. AG images copyright by AG and I use them via their license. All Greyhawk intellectual property is held by Wizards of the Coast.

Edited Sections in Bold and Italics

Sat May 19, 2007 12:41 am

Coooool!

Sat May 19, 2007 5:06 am

This is excellent work. I'm going to keep an eye on your site!

--Jeff T.

Sat May 19, 2007 10:30 pm

Armorial Gold is great. I have recommended it to a few folks interested in creating heraldry. I have heraldry on many of the knightly orders and the provinces of Furyondy already if you want to use it, though it is understandable if you want to do it all yourself.

Nice to see someone else interested in fleshing out the heraldry of the Flanaess. Heraldry is such a simple thing but it really adds to the atmosphere of the regions when you know what the nations'/provinces'/cities' colors are, as it is what is on the shields, flags, the uniform colors of the armies, guards, etc.

Just need to go back to beating a few web folks over the head about creating a database of Greyhawk imagery(product covers, minis, art, and other things). This type of thing would fit right in there I think.
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Sun May 20, 2007 5:37 am

Sun May 20, 2007 5:38 am

Mon May 21, 2007 11:02 pm

Hello All,

In preparation for this Thursday’s coat of arms, The Dwarven Stronghold of Dumadan, I am going to explain my take on Dwarven heraldry and its relationship with those of human lands in Greyhawk.

Greyhawk is modeled on Western Europe, but it is not Western Europe. The rise of European heraldry is a complex subject better handled by large books and other websites. While I will look to real world heraldry for inspiration and a look of realism I am going to use it as a launching pad heraldry in the fantasy world of Greyhawk.

Human Heraldry:
The War of Empires prior to the Twin Cataclysms influenced the Oeridian tribes with the simple standards of the Suloise Imperial legions and ornate geometric heraldry of the Baklunish nobility. Combined with the rich tribal totems of the tribes these influence came together as “modern” human heraldry with the formation of the Great Kingdom.

It was born of a need to identify heavily armored and helmed units and individuals on the battlefield. The heater shield (see fig. 1) became a favored place to put such identifying symbols for knights and it became the favored shape for other materials to display them.

Fig. 1

Dwarven Heraldry:
The dwarves of Oerth have always had their own system of identifying clan, hold, and kingdom. Dwarves had less need for identifying massed units on open battlefields. Their fighting was on the broken ground of mountains and hills or the cramped confines of underground tunnels and caves.

It was more important to identify a dwarf’s lineage so a system of images and runic text were combined on the favored round shield (see fig. 2) of the dwarves.

Fig. 2

The grey stone border is for dwarven writing and round center is for the coat of arms.

When both societies mixed their heraldry influenced each other, but stylistically they remain different. The heater shields of Dwarven kingdoms and clans in the various Greyhawk products are representations of Dwarven heraldry from a human perspective. Where I can I will provide both versions.

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Tue May 22, 2007 8:21 am

You may want to consider adding a weblink here on Canonfire, by visiting THIS PAGE, and I will see what I can do about adding you to the site. Wink

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Kneel before me, or you shall be KNELT!

Tue May 22, 2007 1:23 pm

added
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Kneel before me, or you shall be KNELT!

Wed May 23, 2007 9:16 pm

Hello All,

Dumadan is posted up. Here is my take on Dwarven heraldry and how it interacts with human heraldry. Tell me what you think.

http://home.comcast.net/~saracenus

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu May 24, 2007 7:30 am

Beautiful work, Bryan. Many thanks!

Thu May 24, 2007 8:14 am Knights of the March

Would you consider creating the Heraldry for the Knights of the March?

Thu May 24, 2007 8:59 am Re: Knights of the March

Thu May 31, 2007 3:23 am

Bryan---

There were some beautiful reproductions of the GH heraldry done several years ago by an online fan who's name now escapes me. Her work (17 devices, in large and small size formats) was compiled in the shields.zip file, which I just submitted as a download.

You might consider designing your devices so that you start with the ones not covered in the above work.
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Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/

Thu May 31, 2007 5:06 pm

Hello All,

The Free City of Greyhawk's arms are up on the GHH website. Enjoy.

http://home.comcast.net/~saracenus

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:35 am

Saracenus,

Very cool. I find myself looking forward to Thursdays to see what's next. I'm anxiously awaiting the Knights of the Watch/Dispatch/March and hopefully the Malagari. Keep up the great work!

Dukan

Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:41 am

Sorry for the long delay in responding. I do not think that there is a prexisting Heraldry for the Knights of the March. They are directly related to the Malagari, mentioned by Dukan.

Gary Holian and Samwise are probably the best two to answer if there is a Canon device for either. The Malagari is a secret order, so I dont know if they have a heraldic symbol or not.

If you are not familiar with the Knights of the March, they were the forerunners of the Knights of the Watch. The KoM were known mainly for subduing the Gran March and the depredations performed during their rule of the Gran March. They were disbanded and replaced with the Knights of the Watch by Tavish the Great. Part of the KoM formed the core that became the Knights of the Watch. Part of the KoM formed the Malagari, a secret order dedicated to secret things. Most believe they are intent of opposing Vecna.

That is how I read the Canon/Canonfire version of history. You could check out Sams Grand Sheldomar Timeline if you are looking for more detail.

Thanks again, everything looks great; I look forward to each week's installment.

Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:50 pm

The Knights of the March are not directly linked to the Malagari. The Knights of the March were made up of various knights in the Duke of Dorlin's service and were sent into the marchlands to quell them. As the duke’s power rose, the King sought to keep him under his thumb, and as the Duke continued to quibble over fully pacifying the area, the King eventually sent in his own forces and replaced the Knights of the March with the Knights of the Watch, reducing the title of Knight of the March to relative meaningless(titular knighthood), which has all but faded from use over the years.

The Malagari are a separate order of knighthood and are effectively the not-so-secret police of the Silent Ones. While their purpose is not openly known, the Malagari were formed to ferret out and often destroy information pertaining to Vecna, the Mages of Power, and any other thing that could threaten the Sheldomar. That information and any artifacts acquired are returned to the Silent Ones to either be destroyed or locked away from those who would make use of/abuse them. In the grand scheme of things, the Knights of the March didn't accomplish much of anything before being replaced by the King with a knightly order of his own creation.

The Malagari do have agents within the Knights of the Watch/Knights of Dispatch who are also actual knights of those orders(members of the Malgari with this dual-knighthood are referred to as the Darkwatch), but as to their heraldry or that of the Knights of the March there is none recorded.

That is not to say that I don’t have something in the works for the Knights of the Malagari however… Wink

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Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:42 pm

Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:27 am

Ceb-

For you info on the Malagari, do you have any references. All i have are notes taken from Gary during greychat. It was my strong impression that the Malagari were the partial remnants of the KoM, but I cannot find anything Canon to even suggest the Malagari. Gary said that he had written up a good bit on them for inclusion in one of his published works, but it never saw the printed page.

Thanks

Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:30 am

BTW,

When is the next Knighthood installment?

Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:52 pm Knighthoodlums

Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:53 pm Kingdom of Sunndi

Hello All,

This weeks arms are the Kingdom and County of Sunndi. This is a change in plans as the Greyhawk military arms are still being worked on.

Also note that next week I will be shifting the WoG Heraldry site to GreyhawkOnline.com (Thanks Issak). However, this week it is in the same location:

http://home.comcast.net/~saracenus

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:13 pm Re: Kingdom of Sunndi

Thu Jun 07, 2007 7:26 pm Re: Kingdom of Sunndi

Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:44 pm

Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:45 am

Hello All,

I am sorry, but I forgot to post up that the arms for the City of Radigast went up around 10 pm PT last night at:
http://home.comcast.net/~saracenus

Between problems moving the site (which is delayed for a week) to its new home, http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry, and spending time in the chat with James Jaccobs I just brain damaged it.

As a side note, the reason I am posting the city's arms before the County of Urnst's is simple, the Oerthjournal reboot needed it sooner rather than later for the reformatting of OJ.

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:59 pm

Hello All,

First off, there is a new location for the website...
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry

Many thanks to Issak for the hosting of my site.

I have posted the latest arms, the Barony of Narwell.

Enjoy,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:40 am

Cebrion Wrote:

Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:48 am

Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:06 am Valley of the Mage

Welp,

This weeks heraldry is finally up. It is the arms of the Valley of the Mage, both from the original folio and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.

http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry

I have tried to explain why there are two different arms for this location and I think I have a decent explanation.

Enjoy,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:42 pm

Nice burn on the Black One with the bendwise sinister placement. Happy

Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:37 pm Mea Culpa

Apologies to all,

I have been swamped with my statistics class, work (I picked up an additional temp bookkeeping assignment ), my home GH campaign and a major family medical crisis has prevented me from posting up for the last two weeks.

I have been working on images but I haven't been able to research the background info for the commentary, which is really the hardest part.

So, I promise to post a new on this week, I will have hit my 3rd quiz and taken my mid-term by this Thursday.

In Service,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:44 pm

New heraldry is up at
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry

I present the arms of Lord Mastryne.

Enjoy,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:33 pm

Ok, my lameness has progressed to an unbearable degree. However I have daylight in my life... My statistics final is this Thursday, Aug 16th.

My plan is to publish a new set of arms the following week. Hopefully during my month long break before the Fall term I can get 4 new ones up and a few in the chute so I can keep publishing while I am back at school...

Sorry for the lack of updates but I have not had any time...

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:00 am

I just found this thread and your site keep up the great work.

Would you take suggestions from us and maybe do some NPC's from personal campaigns. I've done a few and would be interested in seeing them on-line. If not no problem. I look forward to seeing more.

Although I have not found the Valley of the Mage Arms. Sad

I do see Lord Mastryne's Arms. Cool

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Wait... What did I just post?

Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:10 pm

Alaric,

Sorry about that, I thought I had updated the pages and few hadn't... So, Valley of the Mage and Radigast City are now linked...

Sorry about that...

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:19 pm

I have posted the Faerie Kingdom of Celene to the WoG Heraldry page.

http://greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/

Please enjoy...

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:11 am

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:41 am

Hello all,

I have updated the text for the Faerie Kingdom of Celene, I just wasn't satisfied with the short blurb I had... this is after all THE Olven kingdom in Greyhawk, or so they would have us believe...

http://greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/lands/celene.htm

Enjoy.

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:38 pm

The Front Page is not updating properly.

Here is the link for this weeks Heraldry:
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/free/greyhawk_pre_militia.htm

This is the first of several Greyhawk Militia shields and it shows the Pre-Greyhawk Wars version.

Next will be the Post-Greyhawk Wars versions (there are three).

After that, I will be posting the specialty units that sprang up in the wake of the conflict:

River Patrol "The Water Rats"
Hardby Marines
Mountaineer Militia
Narwell Headhunters
Safeton Borderers

I believe after that I will be posting the first Knighthood, the Knights of the Holy Shielding... Provided Ceb gets in touch with me.

Thanks,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:05 pm

Hello All,

The post-war arms of the Greyhawk Militia are up. Check it out.
http://greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/

In Service,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:46 pm

The River Patrol, "Water Rats" heraldry is up.

Check it out at:
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/

In Service,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:21 pm Current Heraldry Status

Hello All,

Sorry for the long delay, I can't believe the last heraldry I posted was back in September 2007. Work, school, and my GH campaign has chewed into my art time.

The good news is, I will be putting up a new piece of heraldry this Thursday in honor of Gary Gygax, without whom this project of mine would not exist. I will post up a link during chat.

I have done some side work for people requesting heraldry and eventually I will put those shields up here. I also want to get my Greyhawk Militia shields done and move on to the next project.

In Service,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:21 am

As this pertains to the subject of this thread, my Knights of Holy Shielding article will finally be updated to include Saracenus' heraldry in the next week or so(so I am told). There is a bit of extra text as well, but nothing too different. In the first offereing I posted a portion of a rough draft(D'oh!), plus left out a small paragraph(D'oh! D'oh!). It should all be fixed soon.
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Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:55 pm

New heraldry is now up as promised. I give you Mordenkainen's coat of arms as described (though slightly modified by me) by Gary Gygax. This is my tribute to the man.

WoG Website: Mordenkainen

I have started a livejournal site to talk about my heraldry and life in general, but mostly heraldry. So instead of putting up double posts, I am going to link to them here:

Gygax Tribute & Mords Shield

I also posted up today on who I create the shields I make, here:

My Current Methods & Madness

In Service,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:05 pm

That's an awesome tribute to Gygax, and I think that the "voice" of Saracenus makes it doubly so. I like the blog too.

Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:22 am

Nice job Saracenus! I prefer your Celene heraldry than official blazony. At least your "elven tree" could have a meta-meant. According to 2ed Complete Book of Elves, every root could be a different elven sub-race.

I admit never liked the mundane Oak of Celene.

Complimenti! Wink

Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:59 pm Principality of Ulek

New Heraldry: The Principality of Ulek
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/heraldry/lands/PoUlek.htm

Enjoy,

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus

Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:15 am

Nice work, Saracenus. And timely, as I'm working on a gazeteer update for the Principality IMC; that heraldry will make a great covering for the folder.

Blue Salamanders? There must be a story to that.

Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:17 pm

Very nice

Personally I like a little mystery within the heraldry.

Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:05 pm

Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:51 am

Just bumping this up for future reference.

Sat Jul 11, 2009 3:32 pm

If it is for reference purposes, bookmark the page instead rather than bump other current discussion further down the page. If Bryan becomes active in his heraldry project again(which I hope he does) I will instead either Sticky the thread or perhaps even create a special place for projects like this one, Anna's maps, and others.

The crazy level of excitement reminds me of when I first discovered Canonfire! Laughing

As I told somebody else very recently, it's like finding an old dusty box in a forgotten corner of a game store, and opening to find all of the cool stuff you like from way back when. Everything in moderation though. Wink

Do I dare give you the link to The Oerth Journal page? What the heck:

http://www.oerthjournal.com/oerthjournals.html
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Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:48 am

Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:10 am

<Thread Necromancy>
Did a grektalk session and I just looked over my aborted work on the heraldry of Greyhawk. Wow, that was a nostalgia rush. I really miss working on this project.

I am dusting off my D&D books and looking to run a new campaign in 2016, mayhap I will get back into the swing of things and create some new heraldry.

I need to get a new computer and look into updating my Adobe Suit from CS3 to CS6.

Then find a new host, I no longer have access to the legacy site.

</Thread Necromancy>