BOLD BLAZONS TO STRIKE THE EYE: THE HERALDRY OF SEMBIA IN 1499 DR

 BOLD BLAZONS TO STRIKE THE EYE
The Heraldry of Sembia in 1499 DR

If you are in Sembia, and just want to be called “Lord,” amass a staggering amount of money, take up residence in Sembia, and proclaim yourself a Lord. This has worked for scores of individuals over the last few centuries.

The Role of the Heralds
As individuals, many Heralds beyond the “local” level can defend themselves very effectively using magic items of tremendous power that come with their office. However, they customarily do nothing by force. What they do is censure—and because they establish noble rankings (precedence) outside the walls of a city or the borders of a realm, and legitimize status, very few people dare to argue.

So if you happen to be newly married into a junior noble family, and happen to be attending a revel in Waterdeep, certain old-money Waterdhavian nobles may cut you dead. If, however, both you and they show up at a dinner in Scornubel, and a squabble arises over who gets the best seat, it will be the local herald, not the old-money nobles, who determines who outranks who. Likewise in Cormyr, or anywhere else—and this is especially important for folk of Sembia or the Border Kingdoms, where all titles are recent, fanciful, and often invented by their current holders.

The Heralds don’t pass moral judgements on the taste expressed in blazons, or upon the legitimacy of holders, so long as the holders haven’t been informed by a Herald of the Laws of Arms as pertaining to them personally—and then ignored those instructions.

The Heralds are kept so busy in the Border Kingdoms and Sembia that they do charge up-front fees for blazons (not self-bestowed titles, only the use of badges or full arms). This is typically 250 gp per person, once per grant of arms, in the Border Kingdoms, and 5,000 gp for the same thing in Sembia. The full Sembian fee is reduced to 2,000 gp for unmarried sons and daughters of less than twelve winters in age, though the moment marriage occurs or the titled parent dies, the “short” 3,000 gp fee must be paid or use of the arms must...

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