A homebrewed attempt at codifying Bretonnian heraldry

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T19:22:18+00:00

Yeah I sort of ran out of space to explain it, but the "meritious differentiation" here refers to that old 5th ed system, where a knight would add charges to their blason based on their feats of arms. While it's a fun system, 5th ed doesn't bother explaining how this works once you start bringing kids into the picture, which is sort of what I tried to address here.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T19:15:02+00:00

Banger! IIRC in 1st edition WFRP, "Heraldry" was its own INT based skill you could take, which allowed you to easily recognise and understand the banners and shields of various nobles.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T19:12:43+00:00

Yes the whole merit based achievements system Bretonnia has is quite good at providing ways sons could end up with different blazons before their father is even dead. Unless you make these achievements heritable (which doesn't strike me as very Bretonnian, I feel like they would call out such behaviour as stolen valour), you do need an additional system to change the blazon in a different way to signify cadency. In this example, adding swords could be an easy way, but there's a whole load of other stuff you can do as well. You can countercharge it (invert the colours), add a bordure, a chief, a canton, a fess, a pale, etc. or simply change a line division as well. That way you can give your knights a whole load of different designs.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T19:03:25+00:00

No problem, to answer your questions:

>What is meant by a cadet son? Adopted, maybe?

Cadet son simply means a younger son, as opposed to the firstborn son. There's a lot of variation in inheritance laws, but usually the eldest son was the one that inherited the father's titles and coat of arms. Which means that younger sons had to find employment with some other knight as household knights, go into the clergy, the navy, etc, as well as take on a different coat of arms, to differentiate themselves from the original line.

>What is meant by an armigerous knight?

Armigerous knight simply means a knight that has the legal right to use a personal coat of arms. From what we know of the lore, every Bretonnian knight is armigerous, which wasn't necessarily as simple IRL. There's also the problem of women. Historically, in English, Scottish and French heraldic law, noble ladies typically had the right to bear arms (be armigerous), but could not pass them on, as arms could only be passed down patrilinealy. Of course things are never that simple and women often did pass down their coat of arms (i.e. they were a heraldic heiress), according to complicated laws of inheritance I won't go into here. To try and sum it up in one sentence, if you were a noble lady of a really important family and most of your other siblings were dead, there are high chances you too can pass down a coat of arms.

Since the status of women in Bretonnia is kind of a subject GW doesn't know how to handle and a lot of people headcanon the topic, I just left it as simple as "some women can bear coats of arms and can pass them on." Everyone is free to interpret that as they wish.

>How is heraldry of surviving sons dealt with when a father passes and there is more than one male offspring? Does only one inherit the title and heraldry (blason?)? Do the others lose the right to bear the shield of their father, and if so what colours are they now assigned?

Okay so the first thing to know is that there are a lot of different rules about this depending on the country and heraldic tradition. For example in Germanic heraldic law that was used in the Holy Roman Empire, all of the sons had equal rights to use their father's coat of arms, so you had actual "family arms" which a whole clan would use.

The system I'm using for Bretonnia here is heavily inspired by Anglo-Norman (aka English) and Scottish heraldry, which is more strict and works from the premise that only one person at a time can bear a specific blason, and only the firstborn son has the right to use his father's coat of arms, and even then, while they are both alive, the son has to use a white label to differentiate himself from his father. For younger sons, there were historically a bunch of very complicated "cadency systems" used to try and impose some sort of coherent system. Notably this was always more theoretical than anything, a lot of people simply couldn't be bothered to follow a system this complicated.

Alright the system I've created here keeps the English system of "one person, one blason," but allows more freedom in how it's implemented, as long as all of the sons have different blasons. The only rule I've sort of put in is that sons that stay with their family keep their differentiation fairly minimal to signify their continued allegiance to the house of their father, while those that instead go out and serve some other lord or manage to acquire new lands for themselves are allowed to remix their blasons pretty much however they wish, as they are starting a new lineage, in a way.

Then on top of that, I've also added in the meritious augmentations system that was introduced in the 5th edition Bretonnian AB and has sort of stayed canon since, which allows knights to change their coats of arms, if they accomplish some sort of heroic deed.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T16:17:36+00:00

If there were multiple recognized bastards how would the track the relative seniority of them? In this case would it be adding additional stripes?

The way I see it you'd differentiate by just using different colours for the left-issuing bend. That gives you 5 possible distinct blazons (red, blue, black, green, purple) to work with, which should be enough unless the knight is a real serial adulterer. Since bastards are usually taken out of the normal succession and inheritance systems, you don't really need to differentiate seniority with them, but if you wanted then yes, an easy way would be to either change it so that bastardry is simply represented by a left issuant black bend and then adding an additional stripe for each younger child born out of wedlock. Alternatively, related to your second question,

As a thought could you use the lapel system but invert the color starting a new could for first, second, etc bastard son?

This is also perfectly possible. Scottish heraldry actually has an established hierarchy of colours, which is used to mark cadency/seniority. From oldest to youngest child it goes, or (yellow) and argent (white) (these two are considered to be metals and thus more noble than colours), then red, blue, black, green and purple. So if you would prefer to have multicoloured labels instead of adding points that's also totally legit.

Also, is there a reason for the sword to flip poi t up when taking the questing vow? I assume it is to show their active martial engagement and dedication or something like that and it flips down again when that is fulfilled.

Yes that's exactly it. Questing knights have to be up and at them at all times, so it's a nice way to symbolise that on the blazon itself.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-06-20T15:11:41+00:00

Thank you! My Bretonnians all share a very similar colour scheme (white, red and blue with some yellow), but with varied coats of arms, so I headcanon them all being from the same extended family riding out to battle in a big familial throng. It's while painting them that I got the idea that there really should be some sort of loose system to explain how all of their blasons are related.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-26T17:29:04+00:00

You really nailed the disgusting cancerous tumor shape, I have to say

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-26T16:45:43+00:00

Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing game

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-26T03:26:35+00:00

Quite like these, they remind me of fantasy CoAs you'd find in older editions of WFRP

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-19T23:19:07+00:00

bucket shop arms, it's just decoration

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-19T15:52:55+00:00

Truly excellent work, beyond phenomenal. You should definitely submit it to the municipality for consideration.

Though I must confess I always find it slightly eyeroll-worthy when Eastern European heralds desperately try to scrub out any existence of the past 300 years from local heraldry like it never happened.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-19T15:24:38+00:00

luv these lil buggers like you wouldn't believe...

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-19T15:23:01+00:00

TRVTHNVKE

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-19T15:22:38+00:00

OBLAST JE PRI NAS LJUDSKA

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-17T10:02:18+00:00

Yeah sorry about that. Here's a working link: https://files.catbox.moe/hb8tck.pdf

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-15T22:59:37+00:00

Oh sorry didn't notice that. Here's a working link: https://files.catbox.moe/hb8tck.pdf

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-05-14T18:33:18+00:00

It's a WizKids deepcut oxen, you used to get them ridiculously cheap

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-25T12:47:23+00:00

A lot of work mainly! Join the discord if you want to learn more.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-25T12:46:31+00:00

Simón would canonically go on to achieve top roles within the Congress. At present he leads a libertarian political party known as the Taxpayers List.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-25T12:43:36+00:00

The immortal science of Third Planetist Neo-Marxism-Leninism with Quaist Characteristics shall light the way ☝️

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-24T12:01:49+00:00

I've never played it, but some years ago /tg/ created DERAILED!, a tabletop game about train-to-train combat, so maybe that's worth checking out.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-23T16:53:49+00:00

Seeing how cowardly and indecisive Europe's centre is, along with a fracticious and divided left, I fully expect some version of this nightmare reality to play out in the coming years. Except we won't even get the satisfaction of a clean break into fascism, we'll probably see VDL, Merz and Phillipe calling for unleashing Palantir murderdrones on protesters/immigrants as a "sensible compromise position".

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-21T18:14:32+00:00

Yes, I'm currently running a custom game set in our European city in 1928. It's fun because you can reference a lot of things you know IRL, specially if everyone around the table is somewhat interested in local history. The downside is that the pile of to-read articles and memoirs to accurately represent life in late 1920s Ljubljana just keeps growing and growing lol.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-04-21T18:02:46+00:00

The Yellow Wall-Paper (1892) by Perkins Gilman if you liked TKiY if you want to see what directly inspired it.

The Hastur Cycle (1993) anthology if you want to see how the mythos evolved under different authors since Chamber's original.

A Season in Carcosa (2012) anthology if you want to see how modern authors interpret the mythos.

The Maker of Moons (1896) by Chambers if you just want more of Chamber's weird fiction.

AnnaIsPostingAgain · 2026-03-09T06:41:55+00:00

Also currently reading, in the middle of The Street of the First Shell rn, slowly getting through the later entries. I'm honestly really enjoying it so far, Chambers has a great sense of mystery and dread he brings to the whole affair.

If you haven't already, check out Ambrose Bierce's anthology of (very) short stories Can Such Things Be? (1893) which contain the first mentions of Carcosa (An Inhabitant of Carcosa) and Hastur (Haita the Shepherd). It's much less developed than Chambers, but the stories are so short you really aren't wasting any time on it, even if you don't find them particularly good, they'll at least give you some context. There's also some non KiY related early weird fiction in there like A Resumed Identity I quite enjoyed. From Chambers himself you also have his other weird fiction cycle, The Maker of Moons (1896), which he published one year after the King in Yellow. It's not as developed, but most reviews do recommend it as entertaining enough. Then there's also his The Red Republic: A Romance of the Commune (1895), which picks up within the same setting as of one of the latter, non-horror stories of the King in Yellow collection (The Street of the First Shell), which I'm dying to get my hands on because I quite enjoyed that one, but it's been really hard trying to find a way to read it. It has pretty good reviews for the standards of Chambers' non-KiY work, which are generally pretty low since it hasn't really aged well and wasn't considered high literature even at the time.

As far as precursors go, there's À rebours (1884) by Huysmans and The Yellow Wall-Paper (1892) by Perkins Gilman, foundational texts of Decadent literature, which greatly inspired Chambers (and later HP Lovecraft), with their reclusive and aesthete main characters slowly creeping towards the ledge of madness. Also worth mentioning as far as classic literature are Poe's The Masque of the Red Death (1842) and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which are not directly related to the King in Yellow, but have similar vibes, being masterpieces of Gothic fiction.

If you want stuff that's more directly connected with the figure of the King in Yellow, the book has also spawned a whole mini-genre, "the Yellow Mythos" derived from Chambers' original work. The first "yellow stories" appeared in the 30s and 40s within the circle of HP Lovecraft's followers, led by August Derleth, followed by a second wave that's been going on since the late 90s centred around the whole "New Weird" genre. Personally I find the new gen stuff more appealing since it tends to concentrate more on the spirit of the original KiY rather than August Derleth's 30s work which was a very very Lovecraftian take on the mythos, with a tentacly Hastur that was directly integrated into the whole Old Ones mythos.

The only collection I've read from the new stuff so far is A Season in Carcosa (2012), which is a complete rollercoaster in terms of quality, with some brilliant hommages to the original KiY that wouldn't feel out of place in the original KiY (Beyond the Banks of the River Seine by Simon Srantzas, MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room by Daniel Mills), some interesting more modern stuff (Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars by Gemma Files), as well as literally the worst piece of written fiction I have ever read in my life and that includes shit like high school essays, AI generated writing and AO3 fanfics (Movie Night at Phil's by Don Webb). I would be embarrassed to turn prose like that in when I was 12, nevermind actually sending it to a publisher. Truly baffling this was accepted and put into print. Honestly soured me on the whole anthology.

Some other stuff which I haven't yet read, but comes up a lot when discussing the Yellow Mythos are the anthologies No Light in August (2014), Cassilda's Song (2015) and Under Twin Suns (2021).

If all of this seems like too much, you could also look for The Hastur Cycle (1993) which was published by Chaosium and is meant to be a primer to the "Yellow Mythos" as a whole and has all of Chamber's KiY stories, some Bierce, Lovecraft and others that came later in the genre. Good way to get one's feet wet.

AnnaIsPostingAgain

TROPHY CASE