[ANSTHRLD] Sustaining vs. Maintaining and Conflict Check

[Marie de Blois]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 1:08 PM, doug bell <magnus77840 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> A maintained charge is small relative to the larger charge maintaining it and counts
> for no difference.

Correct.

> Sustained charges are about the same size as the charge holding it and provide
> a difference (one CD).

Close, but there's some more implications everyone should know about
sustained charges.  A sustained charge does not automatically give a
CD.  More accurately, a sustained charge is considered to be an equal
part of the charge group that the sustaining charge is in.  Often,
this can result in a CD against some armory (for number), but just as
often it brings up potential conflict with other items, or brings up
other style issues (such as the 'slot machine' rule).

This is probably best explained with examples.

In Sable, a dragon maintaining a rose Or, the rose is significantly
smaller than the dragon (and in general, should be smaller than a
secondary charge would be).  The primary charge group is "a dragon
Or", and the rose is part of no charge group (for conflict it is
invisible).  It gets no CDs from Sable, a dragon Or - more to the
point, these two are heraldically equivalent, even though they have a
blazonable difference.

In Sable, in fess a rose sustained by a dragon Or, the rose is about
the same size as the dragon.  The primary charge group is "a dragon
and a rose Or".  So, it has 1 CD from Sable, a dragon Or and 1 CD from
Sable, a rose Or - in each case, the only CD comes from changing the
number of primary charges.  It also only has 1 CD from Sable, two
dragons combattant Or - the only CD comes from changing the type of
half the primary charges.


I know, kinda muddying the waters here, but hopefully it keeps someone
from overlooking a conflict ...

Marie