[antir-heralds] advice on a badge

[Britt]

On 10/29/07, Rose/Sam <rose.worldlook at shaw.ca> wrote:
> i have recieved many people who have requested that i balzon this badge.
>
> On a lozenge sable,an apple or
>
> It seems that i am right that it does conflict with the device which is Sable an apple argent.
> which is why i am willing to put a border on it to clear it of the 2 diffrences.
> below is what Teceangl sent me which makes me  want to change slightly.

Actually, you cannot register a charged lozenge as a fieldless badge:
[A lozenge Or] We do not register fieldless badges which appear to be
independent forms of armorial display. Charges such as lozenges,
billets, and roundels are all both standard heraldic charges and
"shield shapes" for armorial display. The SCA has never protected
armory consisting of plain tinctures, except for two examples that are
particularly famous: the (important non-SCA) arms of Brittany, Ermine,
and the (important non-SCA) flag of Libya, Vert. If we do not protect,
and have never protected, the arms Or, we should not be concerned
about the possible appearance of a display of Or by using a single
lozenge Or as a fieldless badge. This is parallel to our practices
concerning inescutcheons of pretense. To quote RfS XI.4, Arms of
Pretense and Augmentations of Honor, "Similarly, an augmentation of
honor often, though not necessarily, takes the form of an independent
coat placed on an escutcheon or canton. Generally, therefore, a canton
or a single escutcheon may only be used if it is both uncharged and of
a single tincture." This rule demonstrates that an uncharged
escutcheon shape in a single plain tincture does not appear to be a
display of an independent coat of arms.

Therefore, a "shield shape" which is also a standard heraldic charge
will be acceptable as as a fieldless badge in a plain tincture, as
long as the tincture is not one of the plain tinctures that is
protected armory in the SCA. This explicitly overturns the precedent
"We do not normally register fieldless badges consisting only of forms
of armorial display, such as roundels, lozenges and delfs in plain
tinctures, since in use the shape does not appear to be a charge, but
rather the field itself" (LoAR January 1998).

Note that this does not change our long-standing policy about such
"shield shape" charges used in fieldless badges if the tincture is not
plain (thus, divided or with a field treatment), or if the charge is
itself charged. Such armory will continue to be returned for the
appearance of an independent form of armorial display. [Solveig
Throndardottir, 04/02, A-Æthelmearc]
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So it would be returned both for the cfonflcit and also for charging a
lozenges in a fieldless badge.

> pourpur, on a Lozenge Sable an apple Or

Let's clean up the blazon.  The tincture Or gets capitalized, the
other tinctures don't, and only the first word of the blazon sentence
and proper nouns are capitalized.

So you want: Purpure, on a lozenge sable an apple Or.

> which sends me back to the Heralds site to check it out becouse it seems that i stil may conflict.

Your problem isn't conflict, it's style.  Purpure is a color, sable is
a color, and you cannot pplace a color charge on a color field.  RfS
VIII.2. (http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/rfs.html)

So for the lozenge to be sable the field must be Or, argent, ermine,
erminois, vair, or some even combination of color and metal (such as
per pale purpure and argent, quarterly, barry, per saltire, paly,
etc.)

Now, there are a lot of charged lozenges out there, and sable is a
very popular tincture. There is conflict with 'Argent, on a lozenge
sable' because of John Greywolf - July of 2006 (via Ansteorra):
Argent, on a lozenge sable a wolf rampant argent.
RfS X.4.j. allows only one CD for changes to the tertiary charge. Now,
if you'd like an argent field, since John registered only last year
and can probably be found, he might be contacted to give permission to
conflict.  Something to consider.

It looks like an ermine or Or field could hold a charged sable lozenge
without conflict. (Something nice about your design is that with only
the lozenge and the apple and nothing to complicate the design, it's
much easier to clear conflict with small changes than it would be if
the design had a lot going on - simple design is best.)

So, what metal or half-metal, half color field do you like?  Or perhaps a fur?

- Teceangl