[ANSTHRLD] skeletons

[doug bell]

>They would like to use a skeleton of a gargoyle as one of the charges.

We don't have any monster skeletons registered and
it's never been attempted are far as I can find in
the LoARs.

I see two problems with this type of charge:

1) Can be reproduced from the blazon
How do you know what the skeleton of an imaginary
monster looks like?  We have depictions of the
creature but a skeleton would likely be from modern
fantasy art.  Skeletons were popular around the
plague but they were human and horse and associated
with Danse Macabre and the plague.

2) Identifiable
I think the issue with the skulls below also applies to
skeletons of beasts and mythical creatures.

These are the issues that have to be answered in a
submission.  If anyone has an antidote to these problems
feel free.

Magnus


[returning a horse's skull] This is a resubmission of the same device which
was returned November 1997 for a redraw because the horse's skull was
unidentifiable.
Unfortunately, it was the overwhelming conclusion of both the college and
the people attending the roadshow where this was discussed that this is
still unidentifiable,
carefully drawn as it is. This compels us to the conclusion that the horse's
skull does not have such clearly distinguishing features as to make it
acceptably identifiable
for heraldic use. The human skull used in Society and mundane heraldry is a
clearly defined charge as immediately identifiable as a bend or a sword.
(Consider how
instantly children who have never taken an anatomy course identify it at
Halloween!) The Society has extended definitions of skulls to certain beasts
where there are
secondary characteristics that clearly identify the type of head whence the
skull derived. For instance, the ram's skull is identified by its
distinctive horns, as are the
elk's skull, the bull's skull, the deer's skull, etc. The few exceptions to
that rule occurred almost twenty years ago, before standards for
identifiability were so clearly
defined. Even so, the major exception, the wolf's skull registered to
Vargskol Halfblood passed in the confusion of the great Heraldicon of 1979,
the source of many
of the most solecistic items we see in the Armorial today. In judging this,
we have to ask what features uniquely identify a horse's head from any other
head and ask
how clearly those transfer when the soft tissue is removed. Unfortunately,
almost all of the features, except the length of the upper jaw, disappear
entirely when head
becomes skull. Therefore, the skull is not identifiable. (Dálkr Hálftroll
Snjolfsson, 5/98 p. 21)


_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail