A new Knight House - Choice of Heraldry

[Frater Cornelius]

Hm, well this is embarrassing. Between my musings, colouring preferences and fluff I somehow managed to re-create House Cadmus. And no, I do not want to play an established house. However, I do not want to deviate from that colouring either. Hm, no idea what to do about it :D

[hendrik]

what decides a house is mainly the heraldry, though colours can offcourse help too. what part of the fluff makes them house cadmus? are they also beast hunters? I know from previous posts you're a space wolf player (or at least used to be), so how about using some wolf related heraldry instead of the goat and eagle? you could even use actual fenrisian wolves head cut in half as decorative chest pieces. being green doesn't make your house automatically house cadmus...

I've been doing some quick tests for my own acheron and settled on something like this:

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb281/amorfatipictures/20150502_161641_zpslldioljw.jpg

Sure, it shares a lot of similarities with house terryn, but it's actually based on Count Henry I Von Anhalte, from the manesse codex (the bloke kicking butts in the middle), and used enough differences in heraldry to IMO make it clearly not belonging to house Terryn:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Codex_Manesse_%28Herzog%29_von_Anhalt.jpg

 

what makes house cadmus house cadmus is the heraldry, and the typical yellow/black, and green/black shoulderpads. by just changing that, and using clearly different heraldry you should be able to differentiate enough

Edited May 2, 2015 by hendrik

[CommodusXIII]

Hm, well this is embarrassing. Between my musings, colouring preferences and fluff I somehow managed to re-create House Cadmus. And no, I do not want to play an established house. However, I do not want to deviate from that colouring either. Hm, no idea what to do about it :D

There's nothing wrong with that. My color scheme is very close to Legio Astraman - I just worked it into my fluff. You'll sort it out in due time.

[Frater Cornelius]

@ hendrik - The premise of the houses as well as colouring is pretty similar. The fluff and heraldry will have to make the difference. I planned to make a wolf head, but as a personal heraldry of one of the Knights, and as a homage to the SW. I suppose my house will have much more of an 'Arthurian meets Germany' vibe than Cadmus.

 

@ Commodus - Indeed. After the base colours are applied, I will work on the patterns and frescoes. In the end, it should have enough difference to be clearly distinguished despite the same colouring.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Immersturm

[Red Skullz]

This sounds very exciting, do a test figure! :)

[Charlo]

What I've been working on with Immer:

 

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/ah177/nevscorner/Archeron%20Knight%204_zpsqkxrtvgq.png

[Frater Cornelius]

Aye, much obliged. That is the first step for the Green Knight. Leg bones are done. Pistons are following some time soon. Arms and torso skeletons are done as well. I will paint the armour plates separately. After pistons are glues, I will work on the base decoration. By the end of this week I am hoping to be able to start base-coating and commence colouring it sometime next week :)

[Frater Cornelius]

Another interesting question came to mind. How strictly would I follow in-universe and real historical guidelines to creating a colour scheme and by extention a coat of arms?

 

I think following the Knight Companion generally wouldn't be wrong as it gives Knights a uniform feel and makes colouring them simpler.

The question is the colours and symbols. Now, I chose Vert, Ardent and Sables in addition to a personal colour (excuse my technical jargon here, I spend the entire morning Macro Economics session reading about coats of arms), because I liked the colours seeing as I attribute my own personal meaning with them. However, when going by their heraldric meaning, it isn't quite what I would go for.

 

At this point one needs to distinguish personal heraldry from house heraldry. A good personal one would be Sanguine/Maroon as it stands for perseverence in battle and fortitude. A Knight who regularly takes Meltas like a champ would choose this as his personal colour. Gules would be for a Knight who puts his house and world above himself and serves without hesitation.

 

But what of the house? Here things become a little bit more complicated, seeing as most coats of arms were attributed to a single individual with every individual of note had his own heraldry. Here we are talking about a group of individuals under one coat of arms, of which every individual also has his own coat of arms which includes the main colour of his house and the second colour would be his own.

The problem with finding a colour for the entire house is that certain colours and symbols usually represent certain attributes, which can be easily assigned to individuals but not as easily to a group of individuals.

 

Here comes the question. Should still do a house crest and assign a main colour to it and give every Knight their own sub-colour, taking liberties with heraldric meanings or should I deviate from in-universe lore and give every Knight his own heraldry as primary part of the coat of arms and add a secondary colour that means Imperial-alignment? A third option is that I might call the personal heraldry of the current leader the main part of the crest and add personal colours to each subsequent one. However, this would mean that the heraldry changes every time a new leader ascends, which would make things needlessly complicated.

 

Quite interesting issue. I am looking forward to opinions

Edited May 4, 2015 by Immersturm

[CommodusXIII]

But what of the house? Here things become a little bit more complicated, seeing as most coats of arms were attributed to a single individual with every individual of note had his own heraldry. Here we are talking about a group of individuals under one coat of arms, of which every individual also has his own coat of arms which includes the main colour of his house and the second colour would be his own.

The problem with finding a colour for the entire house is that certain colours and symbols usually represent certain attributes, which can be easily assigned to individuals but not as easily to a group of individuals.

 

The simple solution would be to pick an attribute that every member of your house should have - Loyalty for example, or Faith, or Courage.  You can then add a secondary attribute that's personal to the specific Knight.

 

Here comes the question. Should still do a house crest and assign a main colour to it and give every Knight their own sub-colour, taking liberties with heraldric meanings or should I deviate from in-universe lore and give every Knight his own heraldry as primary part of the coat of arms and add a secondary colour that means Imperial-alignment? A third option is that I might call the personal heraldry of the current leader the main part of the crest and add personal colours to each subsequent one. However, this would mean that the heraldry changes every time a new leader ascends, which would make things needlessly complicated.

 

Why not a combination?  Would it be possible to have a House-standard template for heraldry, with specific differences between Knights?  Speaking technically, keep the ordinaries the same but modify the charges between the Knights.  It wouldn't necessarily have to be a difference in color as it would be symbology - though, you can certainly go that route.  Keeping the rest of the heraldry constant would limit the clashing of different ordinary colors.

[Frater Cornelius]

Okay, I have thought about it. Here are two options:

 

Option one:

Green - Freedom, beauty, joy, health, hope, abundance

Silver - truth, sincerity, peace, innocence and purity

Black - wisdom, grief, constancy and prudence

Red - military strength, warrior and martyr

(relevant ones are marked bold)

 

These knights are hunters and generally a boisterous bunch, always holding great feasts or fares for several occasions. One might mistake their glory seeking as empty bravado, but on the inside, everyone is a loyal knight, ready to fight for all the right things. And above all else, they remain pure from the stench of Chaos.

The house colours are Green as primary colour, Silver as trim, black as the colour for decals and other pattern, red shows Imperial alignment.

The house symbol is a Raven. It stands for wisdom, hope, divine providence and harbinger of death. It fits since Knights fight for justice and bring hope to the people of the Imperium. They bring death to the enemies of man. And divine providence? In the name of the Emperor, I say ;)

 

Option two:

Blue - loyalty, chastity, truth, strength and faith

White - truth, sincerity, peace, innocence and purity

Golden - understanding, respect, virtue, majestic generosity

Red - military strength, warrior and martyr

(relevant ones are marked bold)

 

This one is more the traditional view on knights. They are true, strong and loyal. Plenty of parallels can be drawn between the two setups. The outward appearance might be the first one. The green knights on top will have a more mysterious look but will have their own set of tradition, whereas these guys would represent stalwart defenders of mankind and a radiant show of force and glory.

Their primary colour will be blue, the trim is golden, the decals and patterns are white and Imperial alignment is red.

The house symbol is the Gryphon. It stands for courage and strength.

 

The second one is certainly the more straight forward and is easier to do. However, I find the somewhat alternate approach of the first option a bit more interesting, as it isn't just your stereotypical knight in shining armour, but also shows that the Knights value other things beyond looking shiny and strong. It opens some interesting plot lines with the Raven as their symbol and the duality between harbingers of hope and bringers of death.

 

What do you think?

[CommodusXIII]

I think that the first option is better - one, it's the colors you've already stated that you prefer and two, you like the insinuations that they bring.  If there's ever a choice between easy and alternative, my choice would always be the latter. 

[WarriorFish]

I agree, the first is more fitting :)

[Frater Cornelius]

Then the personal colours for each Knight would be gold, blue and sanguine respectively. The symbol for the sanguine one will probably be a bear, which stands for protection, health and bravery, which goes in line with perseverence in battle.

[Charlo]

See this is why I'm going to go with a free blade who is basically a giant rust bucket. His paint job will get more decoration when he earns his legacy on the table!

 

Although the fluff nut in me will probably cave and make a house to go with my Skitarii...

Edited May 5, 2015 by Charlo

[WarriorFish]

This makes me want to get back to my Knight, but I have priorities I must attend to first! When can we expect to see paint on plastic? ;)

[Frater Cornelius]

See this is why I'm going to go with a free blade who is basically a giant rust bucket. His paint job will get more decoration when he earns his legacy on the table!

 

Although the fluff nut in me will probably cave and make a house to go with my Skitarii...

 

I really enjoy the historical aspect of it. Doing research on meanings and facts. I find it very engaging, seeing as history is a somewhat of a hobby of mine. Feels great. I can't wait to write stories about these Knights :)

[Frater Cornelius]

Working on the base now. Using this image here as inspiration:

http://f.rodon.org/p/10/080204165916d.jpg

[marshall Egregorius]

please tell me you are going to find bear miniatures at reaper or some such to add to the base! That would be epic!

[Frater Cornelius]

I might consider some wild life, yes. The base is supposed to represent their home planet. Not sure how well this would look in the heat of battle though :P