KazikluBey

Not that anybody asked, but here you go. Quick job, especially thanks to whoever made the commune of Lapenty's arms on Wikipedia. And the update? Well, sounds good. Still not sure what class I'll play though.

I read the first, second and last page and the same combatants are at it still, but appear to have moved on to arguing about the argumentation rather than the topic at hand so forgive me if I just drop my thoughts instead of partaking in the current discussion. Oblivion soured me and a lot of folks on level scaling I think, and made many think that Oblivion's way of doing it is what level scaling is. Meeting random bandits in the game's best armour who stick you up for a 100 coins epitomized the concept for me. I have since learned that this is not generally the case; Skyrim, to take an example close at hand, makes a couple of important improvements in the form of minimum levels for zones and by saving the level you are when you first enter a zone. Both are levelled at the general complaint of never running into dangerous enemies, and the lack of a feeling of increased power you can get when going back to zone you were too weak for the first time. I also believe they skipped giving random bandits quite so high end equipment. I'd say the game doesn't entirely succeed in making good use of level scaling, but it's certainly an improvement over Oblivion. As mentioned on the first page of the thread, there are also games where you don't really notice the level scaling, like BG2, which I think made good use of it - in combination with the really difficult, optional, non-scaled encounters (provided you didn't cheese them) with loot to match. BG2 would have been a worse game without the level scaling, since there was so much optional content that the difficulty could easily have gone out of whack. So, yeah. I think in a game with a lot of optional content that boosts the party's power, some amount of level scaling is likely unavoidable for an optimal play experience.

Ah, yes. Sounds reasonable, I don't know too much about blazons, and even less about English ones. Swedish blazons also seem a little less standardized in format. And working with vector graphics in Inkscape at least takes care of the scaling in a graceful way, except I didn't find a good vector falcon, so I left that one as-is. Edit: True, I had trouble finding a clean enough oak tree as well (thank you, Municipality of Marthalen). Preferably there shouldn't be any detail inside the charge when it's counter-changed, I think.

I had a thumb through the calendar of Swedish nobility, and the number two is really quite rare, and if a charge is repeated twice, there's practically always another charge as well that takes the center stage - particularily popular with a high chevron as the divider, and two small charges up in the corners. In any case, there never seems to be a field left blank like in my rendition, so I think Suburban-Fox's interpretation of the star placement is the sounder one. Edit: Well, except for the no-metal-on-metal rule which is why I placed them up top to begin with, I think, but as JES already said they ignored that bit... And because I can't leave well enough alone, I had another go: As for image manipulation software I just used .svg files from Wikipedia in Inkscape, and the mostly just the fill tool to correct the colors. If you look closely, you can see some red lines I couldn't easily get rid of in the chequered one. Oh, and yes this is fun, it's not often you get a chance to get nerdy about heraldry.

Sinister means facing left - the heraldic left, that is! You're supposed to view the directions as if you're holding the shield yourself. And you're right, I missed the red part there.

I'm more familiar with the continental terms, so I had to do some looking up and it looks like someone beat me to it, but here goes: The falcon should probably be given "natural colors", but I lack artistic talent as well as Photoshop Inkscape skills, so there you go. For the Gathbins, I'm not sure exactly where the distinction is drawn between indentation and dancetty, but with only two peaks they look almost like hills, which could be fitting, I suppose. Also, fructed wasn't specified, but finding a suitable oak without acorns seemed impossible, though it's probably one of those things that just come implicitly, like animals looking to the heraldic right unless otherwise specified. The Manhem dragon should probably be more in the center, but I liked the cleaner cut. Every element comes from public domain/Creative Commons stuff on Wikipedia, with the exception of the falcon.