Westerland Heraldry

Heraldry is the term that describes the tradition with which we make and read coats of arms, but it also largely describes everything that has to do with coats of arms. The Westerlands has a shared tradition for heraldry.
 * In Marks and other Frontier territories, including freeholds, there is often no particular tradition followed when it comes to heraldry - or at the very least, such traditions are vaguely observed.
 * A given Household, that is a cadet-branch of another household, will traditionally copy the Coat-of-arms of their parent Household, but change the division style during the first generation. During the second generation, it is common place make more significant alterations.
 * Household coats-of-arms are inherited.

Primary Color
Unlike in the real world, "yellow" is considered a valid primary color on heraldry, and not merely thought of us a metallic. Each coat of arms features a primary primary color, but is then combined with the color of the immediate liege-lord - meaning what ever the Liege-Lord's color, he can have 5 vassals before it is necessary to significantly alter the design to differentiate using designs.
 * In lands that remain loyal to the Empire, the color Purple is prohibited from being used on coats-of-arms, unless the specific family holds a blood relation to the Imperial line.
 * Free Holders would often display a single primary color, symbolizing their freedom of obligations. This was otherwise usually only done by Kings or Arch Dukes.

Borders
Borders were always in metallic (silver or gold), and were not displayed on common depictions of the coat-of-arms, and were not considered to be part of the design - Borders were rather used on ornamented depictions and formal displays - it was simply too expensive to always include borders.
 * Borders served to separate all colors from each other - though it was not used to separate fur-symbols from the background color.
 * One could often tell a Knight from a man-at-arms by merit of his tabard featuring borders or not.

Furs
Higher ranking Lords will often use Furs to further decorate their shields, but that does not alter the fact that they retain a primary color. Generally speaking, The background color, behind the fur pattern, was the color to look for. Houses not serving directly under the king would often use the King's primary colors for their fur-patterns, as a tribute - and Kings would often use Purple to indicate their importance - but it was also an obvious place to state an alliance, for instance, after a potent marriage between two large dynasties, the dynasties would often trade a color this way.

Divisions
Divisions were used when vassals of the same liege-lord shared the same dynasty, but had split into cadet branches. Some regions follow a strict pattern of division, but because it quickly can become tricky to determine who was first and who was last, it has more or less been abolished - now the only thing that remains the same is the placement of liege-colors versus personal colors - in this case, liege colors are marked with Red (see picture above).

Ordinaries
An Ordinary signifies Knighthood - a Knight will feature the Coat-of-Arms of his household, and then add his Ordinary to it. Hereditary Knights inherit the same Ordinary.
 * If a Knight did not have a proper title-holder in his dynasty, he sported only the ordinary - but otherwise, each Knight within a Dynasty could sport his own Ordinaries on top of the existing design.
 * The Knight's personal colors were sported on the Ordinary Pattern - if the Knight was a member of a Dynasty, and thus already featured a division, he was allowed to have his Ordinary feature a third color (actually, this was encouraged).

Charge
The Charge (a few examples found on the picture) was a very complicated part of the coat-of-arms. Very often, the Charge was a more significant identifier of the owner of the coat-of-arms, than the colors were - simply because, in a local region, there would be many of the same colors going around.
 * The main branch of the Dynasty would choose a Charge - a symbol that went on the shield. It was often an animal or an item that was painted directly on the shield.
 * The main branch of the dynasty would display the charge painted in a metallic color - though admittedly, this was often primarily the case if the family was somewhat wealthy. Families of lesser wealth used Yellow and White in place of Gold and Silver.
 * Cadet branches would usually use the same charge, if they were close to the main branch, but in a different color (not metallic - and for obvious reasons, also not yellow nor white), often the color was the primary color of a family they had married with to form the cadet branch.
 * The further away from the Dynasty a cadet branch was removed by generations, geography or even just politics - the more they tended to alter their charge. Which way the charge was facing, how it was positioned, how many of them were featured and what it was equipped with - these were all options of variations.
 * While the main branch of a Dynasty always displayed only a single charge, many cadet branches would display multiple charges - this meant that the cadet branch was more than 5 generations removed- meaning that it was again safe to remarry into the primary dynasties that provided the charges displayed on the coat-of-arms.

Mantling
Perhaps the most complicated portion of a Coat-of-Arms - only displayed on very formal depictions of the coat-of-arms, the mantling was actually quite important.
 * The coat-of-arms associated with a noble-house always depicted a mantling that, depending on local customs, displayed their social standing - a house that was associated with the title of Count would have a specific mantling type - only colors, and minor decorations differed from other Counts.
 * Mantling decorations were meant to display information about a noble-house - some symbols meant that their ancestral lands were arable, some meant that they lived by a freshwater etc., while some symbols were used to depict religious orientation.
 * Each individual member of a noble-house could, however, depict their very own mantling. A personal mantling was often very different from that of the House.
 * If a man took his own mantling, this meant that he was no longer interested in inheriting the primary seat of the House, but it did not legally prevent him. It also meant that he was interested in forming his own cadet branch, and was a sign that the man was eligible for marriage.
 * It was pretentious for a man who had not come of age, and found means to provide for himself, to take his own mantling.