"Middle Earth Heraldry" Topic

I am working on a Middle Earth campaign set in the early Third Age and wonder if anyone knows of any sources for heraldry/banners for Arnor, especially after the split into the three kingdoms of Arthedain, Rhudaur and Cardolan. Iam fine for Elves and Gondor from various Tolkien sources, but the Northern kingdom has got me stumped.
Any suggestions?

Wow, that's a toughie. Tolkien did a lot of sketches for his works; I have an old paperback boxed set of LOTR/Hobbit which is decorated with mandala type designs of Tolkien's which are labeled as symbols for various elf heroes. But as for the Northern kingdoms, I don't know. Wasn't a book of Tolkien's art published fairly recently? It might have something.
The only other reference I can recall is the description in "Unfinished Tales" of the Elendilmir, a jewel which seems to have contained some of the light of the Silmarils, which disappeared with Isildur at the Battle of the Gladden Fields. It was later found among Saruman's treasures, and King Elessar (Aragorn) wore it upon his forehead during great occasions of state. You could certainly work up a royal banner based on a shining gem/star. Other ideas might be a broken sword (representing Narsil), a palantir, or some other symbols of ancient Numenor. It's likely that all three kingdoms might use these symbols as each would claim lineage from Elendil and Isildur. Hope that helps.

I had a similar problem. I'm not sure that much detail was ever specified, so you'll probably end up guessing a lot. If you look at the following website, the author has collected pretty much all of the references from the books. This is a great website and saves trawling through the books.

link

Try inst.augie.edu/~ahschuman

We could also lobby Black Tree to post scans of their designs.

Cheers

There has been a special edition af "The Silmarilion", earlier this year with a card included with some heraldic images on it. This is probably first age, but should give some clues. You can also become a Mithril club member, in which case you receive 5 earlier numbers of the members newsletter "Tengwar". Here are also some images and talking about Tolkiens heraldy. Web site of Mithril is: www.mithril.ie.

Hope this helps. I don't think the Black Tree thing is very much "Tolkienesque". (But they do have good-looking dark age mini's).

Mithril produced a Middle Earth Handbook about 10 years ago that contained a wealth of heraldic detail, based on their research for their LOTR miniatures line. If you can find a copy, buy it. Here's what they say about your specific requests:

Arnor: Round shield, seven 6-pointed stars evenly spaced around the circumference starting at the top, with a winged helm in the center of the shield. No notes on colors, but based on Cardolan (see below) I'd go with purple for the background, silver (white) stars and helm, and silver (white) or golden (yellow) wings on the helm.

Arthedain: Same round shield with seven stars as Arnor, but with no central design. Same colors.

Cardolan: Same round shield with seven stars as Arnor, with a "hill" emblem in the center of the shield (looks like a pyramid in the drawing). Mithril notes a purple background on the shield, but no notes on the color of the stars or hill. Mithril does note that their armor was "brightly polished or silver plated", so I'd go with silver (or white) stars. Probably a gray hill.

Rhudaur: Mithril has no notes on shields for Rhudaur, but they do say, "The Knights of Rhudaur were grim men, and thought of uniformity disappeared early in their struggles. They often wore their hair long and wore fur capes and cloaks for warmth." If you want to use a shield design similar to that of Arnor, you could use the round design with seven stars, and for the central emblem use a stylized Last Bridge or watchtower. See this excellent discussion of Rhudaur for my reasoning: link

Osgiliath: Same round shield with seven stars as Arnor, with a "tree" emblem in the center of the shield (classic bushy green top, with a trunk that splits into a triple root at the bottom). Same colors as Arnor, with a green and brown tree. Mithril notes that this design was also later used in Minas Tirith.

Mithril says nothing about banners, but any variations on these shield designs would look good.

If you don't want to use purple on all the shields, you can vary the color by country: purple for Cardolan, royal blue for Arnor, purple-blue for Arthedain, blue-gray for Rhudaur, navy blue for Osgiliath.

Mithril also describes the armor and helmets, so if you want that information, too, or if you want to know what Mithril says about any other races or nations, let me know.

Jeff Moore
jpattern@aol.com

Thanks everyone.