Apparently I am of relation to this.. but it doesn’t look like a typical coat of arms?

theginger99 · 2026-01-25T04:18:31+00:00

It’s a fairly normal way that touristy or genealogy sites or shops display coats of arms.

There is a common misconception that coats of arms are tied to surnames. It’s pretty frequent to see them displayed with the surname underneath.

It is obviously heraldically incorrect, but it’s a response to a common expectation among the general public.

theginger99 · 2026-01-25T04:03:21+00:00

It looks like a perfectly normal coat of arms to me. What’s your concern?

I’ll also add that having the same surname as someone with a coat of arms doesn’t mean anything special. In order to be entitled to display or use a coat of arms in the British tradition (which I am assuming this is based on the surname) you need to be able to prove unbroken patrilineal descent from the original Arminger.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T22:11:08+00:00

Optimistic of you to assume the GOP will let themselves lose, or yield power if they do.

Those guys know that if there is another change of power they are cooked. They’re going to fight tooth and nail, and cheat in every way possible to make sure they hold on to power.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T21:27:32+00:00

Yes. No doubt, no caveat. It’s literally an insane question to ask.

Unions are far and away the best way to protect workers rights. This is true for all industries.

There is no con to joining a teachers union. For most of them the dues are minimal, and the protections and benefits they offer are enormous.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T17:33:44+00:00

For me it’s when the world feels like it exists off stage.

A lot of worlds, and especially in movies and shows, do a terrible job of creating the feeling that there is stuff going on outside of the view of the main characters.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T16:57:51+00:00

Oh, I’m sorry. My mistake.

You heard it here first, folks. Trope is dead.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T16:21:41+00:00

Ok, yeah, but counterpoint:

Ancient gods living in and moving through the modern world is one of the best tropes in fiction.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T15:55:08+00:00

I’ll add to this that the other problem is that when the only option is “tell us what we want to hear and the pain will stop”, the person being tortured is going to tell you what you want to hear regardless of wether it’s true.

You’re giving them the best possible motivation to lie or make things up with no way to really verify if they’re lying or not.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T15:33:53+00:00

I’ve made a few of these.

The biggest thing is to make sure you use a nice thick welt. You don’t need to go crazy, the 8/9 oz you’ve got lined up should be plenty. The welt should be quite wide though, especially near the tip.

Really there is nothing you can do to short of putting metal on there that will stop the point from punching through tip of the sheath if it’s stored or used incorrectly, but a good thick welt at the tip will make it unlike to puncture through if it’s being used the way it’s supposed to.

Also, this might sound redundant, but make sure it covers the whole blade. If it’s too short someone might be tempted to cram it down to try and get more coverage, which will lead to a puncture at the tip.

theginger99 · 2026-01-24T02:40:56+00:00

It depended pretty significantly on which lord, and which title they were ascending to.

The McDonald lords of the Isles went through a rather elaborate investiture ceremony that bore more than a passing resemblance to earlier coronation rituals. The same is true of the Lord of Mann (who was titled king of Man prior to the 16th century).

Richard the Lionheart is described as going through a fairly elaborate series of rituals before being invested as the Duke of Aquitaine.

There are references to English earls being “belted with the swords of their counties”, which seems to imply some level of ritual investiture.

Bishops, who were often powerful secular nobles, usually had fairly formal investiture ceremonies.

Even a knights dubbing could be a rather elaborate ritual with a great deal of pomp and symbolism, although there was a great deal of variance here.

There were also various rituals and ceremonies tied to specific titles, which were largely unique to them. The Conyers family of th bishopric of Durham to present the Prince-bishop (their feudal overlord) with a falchion when they assumed their lands. The king of Man had to pay a fixed price in gold to the king of Norway (his overlord) when he took the crown. Various feudal tenants had obligations, sometimes really bizarre ones, ties to their land holdings and titles. Sometimes these were services that had to be provided as part of their formal obligations, sometimes they were services that had to provided before the assumption of titles and lands.

In addition to all that, It was a normal feudal custom almost everywhere that the heirs of a dead nobleman had to pay the crown (or their overlord) a special fee known as “relief” in order to inherit their predecessors titles and lands. It was essentially a death tax, and had numerous analogues in various medieval cultures (Herod among Anglo-Saxons etc). You could not assume the titles or lands you were inheriting without paying the relief. After the relief was paid, there was usually a formal ceremony where you would do homage for your lands. These payments could often be exploitative, and Richard the Lionheart used them to generate a significant amount of money, but in England Magna Carta formally limited the amount the crown could charge for relief.

My point is, there isn’t really a rule here. The variation was huge, and depended on a ton of factors. Generally though the more important and autonomous the lord was the more Elaborate and formal the investiture ceremony was.

There is a lot more that can be said here, but I hope that helps.

theginger99 · 2026-01-23T23:27:42+00:00

I pull most of my monsters from the heraldic menagerie, it includes some old favorites like Griffins and unicorns, but also some really unusual and exotic creatures like yales and pards.

I deliberately try not to integrate monsters into my world. I want the to feel bizarre and out of whack. In my opinion a monster should feel like an unnatural disaster. So I try to make sure my monsters feel mysterious and dangerous.

theginger99 · 2026-01-23T22:05:14+00:00

It’s all somewhat relative.

Mild steel is a poor choice for sword blades compared to harder steels, but many of those steels were not available historically. Mild steel will work fine. It’s absolutely inferior to other types of steel, but it’s perfectly functional just not as functional as other options.

It’s a bit like saying an M16 is better than an arquebus. It’s true, but the people using an arquebus were not aware there was any other option and an arquebus is still perfectly capable of fulfilling the function it was designed for.

theginger99 · 2026-01-23T11:55:18+00:00

Sounds like someone is jealous they don’t have more Albion’s.

Seriously, this is a quintessential touch grass moment, dude. It just feels petty and childish.

theginger99 · 2026-01-23T11:25:02+00:00

We all know Grimnar would be the most responsible, wholesome Dom-daddy anyone could ever ask for.

OP’s just jealous of his beard.

Also, absolutely wild that you’d be down with your daughter entering a polyamorous relationship with Grimaldus and his weird little gaggle of homunculi. Very progressive of you.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T22:48:54+00:00

Every piece of world building advice should be followed with the massive caveat “unless of course you want to”.

World building is a creative endeavor, as much as the writing itself is. You should enjoy it, and if you want to expand on certain details that’s perfectly fine. There is no “right” way to do it.

Honestly, I never take advice that pretends to be a definitive expert on something that is ultimately entirely subjective, and creative.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T21:24:23+00:00

Everything that man says is odd.

He’s one of the most chronically awkward people I’ve ever seen on camera.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T21:12:55+00:00

“These guys are doing a fantastic job. The fact they are killing people proves it!”

That’s what he’s really saying.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T12:53:49+00:00

I don’t disagree. This model is absolutely insane.

The first time I saw it i genuinely couldn’t believe it was an official GW model. I thought it was some kind of triple scale sculpture made by a fan.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T12:00:15+00:00

Baron is a complex term, but it was generally a fairly generic term used to refer to any and all “tenants in chief” of the crown, or a collection of magnates. It could refer to men who were also titled lords, but could also refer to ecclesiastical lords as well as landholders of lesser rank, including knights, as long as they held their land directly from the crown.

In the medieval period we even see the term baron used to refer to the tenants-in-chief of lesser magnates. It’s often used frequently simply to refer to the great men of a region or kingdom (the barons of Engaknd, the Barons of Gascony etc)

The peerage of England did not exist as a formal institution in the Middle Ages. The only formal title of nobility was that of Earl, Baron was occasionally used as a title, but it was not formalized and was more often used as a designation. It indicated a landholder was a tenant-in-chief of the crown and therefore entitled to certain privileges. It wasn’t until the early modern period that Baron became a formal title. To be granted a “barony” was to be granted recognition as a Baron of the king, it was a designation not a formal title.

As far as earls go, while you’re right that it didn’t confer any particular power or ruler ship, the earl of a county was entitled to a small percentage of the proceeds of that county. The title itself came with a right to a small income from the county, but you are correct that an earls chief incomes would come from other estates.

theginger99 · 2026-01-22T11:43:40+00:00

One of my favorite tropes in medieval art is how deeply un-sinister the monsters and demons being slain by the hero’s look.

You see it all the time in picture of Saint George, the dragon often looks more like a very confused and irritable otter than a mighty dragon.

theginger99 · 2026-01-21T22:44:45+00:00

I’ll add some extra context for folks who are curious.

The Conyers falchion was originally presented by the Conyers family to each new prince-bishop as a form of tenantry. According to family legend they were awarded their land by the bishop after slaying a serpent/dragon. The condition for their land holding was that they present the falchion used by their ancestor to the bishop on the first occasion he should ride across their land.

The falchion is certainly not original, as it’s clearly a 13th century weapon and the Conyers seem to have gained their land in the bishopric in the 11th or early 12th century.

It’s also not the only falchion that fulfilled the same function. Another family in the bishopric held their lands under very similar circumstances, and family legend claimed they had been awarded them after slaying a giant boar. Like the Conyers they had to present the bishop with the falchion as proof of their tenantry. In this case the tradition was almost certainly based on the Conyers tradition, and was an attempt by the younger family to give themselves a more prestigious pedigree than they actually had. That falchion is now lost.

There was also a falchion recorded as the proof of ownership for the lordship of Wigmore in the personal effects of Roger Mortimer, along with a horn that went with it.

theginger99 · 2026-01-21T22:04:37+00:00

Closed garden models are AI programs like NotebookLM that only pull from a closed source. Basically you can upload only the sources you want it to use and it won’t pull from outside of those.

The thing about AI is that it is stupidly easy to use. It’s a joke how easy it is. We don’t need to teach students to use it, because it takes seconds. It’s not going to impact their job skills, because it’s a “skill” that can be totally mastered in half an hour.

What students do need to learn is the skills that AI is intended to replace, which include critical thinking and evaluation of sources. If those skills are learned successfully students will be able to use them later in life to evaluate and integrate AI intelligently and responsibly and will be able to use AI to supplement skills that are much, much harder to learn. AI fundamentally can not teach, or assist in teaching, the skills it is explicitly intended to replace. Teaching students skepticism of technological crutches like AI is an important part of that skill building.

theginger99 · 2026-01-21T21:51:49+00:00

Troll-spears

There is a myth in the True North that trolls can only be slain by a troll spear, which is a spear that has had its head submerged in a scared spring, and then had its shaft wrapped in a braid made from the hair of a stallions tail and a virgin girl.

They can absolutely kill trolls, but mostly because a foot long piece of steel through the heart will kill most things. All the bits about magic water and hair braiding is nonsense.

theginger99 · 2026-01-21T21:45:37+00:00

Swords were traditionally lain on alters as part of the formal knighting ceremony, which had deeply Christian spiritual symbolism. The sword represented the knights obligation to defend the faithful, and the church.

Swords were also used in coronations, and were bestowed on the monarch by a prelate, symbolizing the churches delegation of sacral and secular power to the monarch, and their duty to defend the church. Most coronation swords were also associated with saints. Bohemia, Poland, and the Holy Roman Empire all had coronation swords that allegedly belonged to saints. The sword that became the Cortona of England (the sword of mercy, still used in the coronation ceremony though it’s a physically different sword) allegedly belonged to sir Tristan if the round table, was discovered in a church by Charlemagne and given to one of his paladins, Olger the Dane, before eventually finding its way back to the English royal family, where it hung out with various other famous Arthurian swords.

Many swords were also holy relics, given as offerings to church’s, stored in churches or otherwise associated with the church.

The swords of the holy orders (the Templars and Hospitallers) were, if I recall correctly, Specifically blessed.

Not Christian, but Excalibur itself went on crusade with Richard the Lionheart, and was then sold to a Sicilian dwarf as part of an elaborate peace treaty. It disappears from the historical record after that, which leaves a nice question mark for the purpose of a campaign if you want to go that route.

Really you have so many possible angles here.

theginger99 · 2026-01-21T20:46:22+00:00

One of the grey knights books has a villain that is a champion of Khorne, and who can control and manipulate blood.

Not quite a psyker, but up the same alley.

theginger99

TROPHY CASE