Monday, September 22, 2008

Heraldry and the Party

The other day I came across a heraldic device generator (I think one of the other RPG bloggers mentioned it, but I don't remember which one). I thought it would be cool to create a device for Kain's Cadre.

I came up with an initial design based simply on what I thought looked cool. Jen and the DM thought I should go back and redo it, bearing in mind the meanings of the symbols. We found another site that defined a lot of the terms used. With that in mind, we came up with this (which isn't all that different from my "looks cool" original):


The azure field is for loyalty. The sable pale and quartering are for constancy of military strength and fortitude. The lion is for deathless courage, and the gules (red) color is another reference to military strength.

We also hunted around for a motto, and wound up including a family motto from a site listing a huge number of them, added to something I made up to go with it, along with a variant of the Jem'Hadar's "victory is life".

"Strike with power, endure with strength, flourish with victory."

2 comments:

Brent said...

This could combine in interesting ways with D&D 4th Edition's concept of Battle Standards. Plant one in the ground, and it creates a zone which affects allies within it. The effect might increase attack or damage rolls, decrease enemies' attack or damage rolls, grant special vision, or increase healing.

Gregor LeBlaque said...

I've liked the battle standard concept a lot since I saw the preview on wizards.com. Now I have a copy of Adventurer's Vault and might look into getting a magic standard for this group ASAP.