Heraldry Generator

How the Heraldry Generator thinks about a coat of arms

Heraldry is a visual language with hard rules and softer traditions. A coat must respect the rule of tincture (metal does not sit on metal, colour does not sit on colour), it must read at a glance from the lists rail, and it must carry the family's claims in plain iconography. The generator leans on the same constraints. Each prompt names the field's colour and division, the central charge, the supporters, the crest above the helm, and the household badge that the servants and foresters wear into the market. It also names the things the herald chooses to omit, the supporters the late lord dropped, the quarter the disgraced branch used to occupy. The omissions matter as much as the charges.

Picking and using a coat-of-arms prompt

Treat the prompt as the herald's brief, not the finished arms. Read it once for the silhouette, once for the families it implies, and a third time for the clause of contract it is hiding. A shield with a label of three points gules, a bordure wavy, and a chief bearing the date of a contested minority is three separate legal events stacked on a single piece of vellum. Pull those events apart before you draw anything.

Sketching the field and the charge

Most prompts lead with the field. Draw the field first, and draw it at the size of a real shield. A field per pale of azure and or with a single bend sinister sable is not the same object as a quarterly gules and argent divided by a cross throughout counterchanged; the first reads as a contract between two fiefs, the second as a long, quiet marriage. The charge is what your reader's eye will lock onto, so place it where the herald's eye expects it: the centre of the field, just above the honour point.

Reading the supporters and the crest

Supporters are the household's public face. Two ravens each holding a sealed letter are not interchangeable with a greyhound and a hind collared with the same torse. The ravens argue; the hounds keep watch. The crest above the helm is the family's private face, the device the servants embroider onto the riding cloak. A demi-lion holding a closed helm that matches the one worn at the late lord's last battle is a house that has not stopped grieving. A pelican in her piety vulning her own breast into a nest of small eaglets is a house that has decided to keep going.

Picking the motto and the badge

A motto is the family's shortest legal text. Keep it short, keep it in a language the household actually speaks at table, and keep one word the family uses only in formal occasions. The badge is the device worn by the foresters, the kitchen staff, and the night porters; it should be simpler than the arms and quick to embroider. A sprig of rowan on a field argent is faster to sew than a quarterly shield, and the staff will not muddle it with anyone else's.

The identity and cultural weight of a coat

A coat of arms is the most condensed piece of identity a medieval household owns. It appears on the banner at the tourney, the gonfalon at the lists, the standard at the road, the seal ring in the steward's pocket, the painted ceiling of the chapel, the privy seal on a secret letter, and the small inescutcheon of pretense over the heiress's dowry quartering. Each appearance is a moment when the family is read by strangers. The generator's prompts keep that in view: they specify the moment of display as well as the device, so the coat is always already in use.

Tips for drafting from a heraldic prompt

• Read the field first. The field is the house's mood; the charges are its arguments.
• Keep the rule of tincture. If a charge would clash with the field, change the field, not the rule.
• Place one charge, not three. A single charge on a stark field reads further than three charges in a busy field.
• Give each supporter a different sentence to finish. Supporters are a dialogue, not a chorus.
• Use a mark of cadency for any heir who is not yet the head of the house. A label of three points is the simplest.
• Reserve the bordure for an augmentation, a bastard line, or a disputed trust. A bordure is not decoration.
• Put the motto in a language the household actually speaks at table, and keep it to one short clause.
• Add a household badge only when the family is large enough to need one. Small families do not need badges.
• Write the family scandal as a deliberate omission. A conspicuous void in the second quarter reads as a story.
• Finish the prompt with a moment of display. Decide whether the coat is being seen at the tourney, in the chapel, or on the steward's desk.

Inspiration prompts to roll alongside this one

• Roll twice and read the two coats as a single story of inheritance, marriage, or war.
• Roll a field-only prompt and design the central charge yourself. The field is half the work.
• Roll a supporter-only prompt and invent the rest of the achievement around it.
• Roll a motto-only prompt and pick the device that the family would actually live under.
• Roll a banner-only prompt and stage the moment of display at the tournament rail.
• Roll a seal-ring-only prompt and imagine the letter the steward is sealing.
• Roll a scandal-only prompt and decide what the family is hiding, and from whom.
• Roll a regional-custom prompt and place the house in a specific valley, river, or coast.
• Roll a charge-on-stark-field prompt and resist the urge to add a second charge.
• Roll an inheritance-dispute prompt and write the chapter where the marshal records the new line.

What are good Heraldry?

There's thousands of random Heraldry in this generator. Here are some samples to start:

• A coat per pale of azure and or, with a single bend sinister sable that points toward the minor heir's estate.
• One black tower issuant from a torse, three windows lit, one shuttered against the wind that took the heir.
• Two ravens respectably proper as supporters, each holding a sealed letter in their beak for a different claimant.
• A coat that conspicuously omits the second quarter, the void where the disgraced branch would have lived.
• A crest of a demi-lion holding a closed helm that matches the one worn by the late lord at his last battle.
• A household badge of a single white wolf's head cabossed, to be worn by every servant of the senior line.
• A bordure of roses for service in the river campaign, each rose charged with a goutte de poix for the wounded.
• A coat for the House of Bridge: a stone arch with a single break, the family name borne as its own ruin.
• A lion statant gardant on the field, meaning the lord is presently in residence and at peace.
• One silver key in bend sinister, set against a field vert, the key's ward shaped like the gatehouse tower.