I hope this is cool in GQ, 'cause there really is a right and a wrong way to go about this. . .
For a game, I want the following blazon for the arms of a character: Per bend, Argent and Sable, in sinister chief two mullets in bend Sable.
I really like the way it looks, but can’t find a similar precedent. I was inspired arms that showed a bend between five charges, which was emblazoned with three charges below to dexter and two above to sinister, and I liked the asymmetry of it.
So my questions are:
Is my blazon even remotely period? I’m guessing not, but that’s not a big issue because this is just for an RPG, not SCA.
Is the “in bend” redundant? That seems like the most logical way to fit them in anyway.
Is there a more graceful way to blazon this? I.e. is there some way to force the mullets to appear at the upper right without spelling out ‘sinister chief’?
Please be super-critical–I’m just learning about heraldry, and I don’t want to pick up any misconceptions or bad habits. Thanks!
Well, the first misconception you need to steer clear of is that SCA heraldry is the same as mundane heraldry. Thus endeth most of what I know about heraldry. You could take a look here and search… whoops, the searches are all off-line. Dang. Umm, could you describe your device in modern terms?
E.g.: “Argent, a pall cotised, sable, between three blackthorn bushes, eradicated, sable,” translates to “a black Y with a racing stripe on a white background with a flying brain in each of the three white parts”.
Also, have you seen some of the travesties of heraldry that exist in published games? I wouldn’t sweat it.
Second that. Since it’s not for SCA, and nobody’s gonna care, design it how ya like it, babe. 
Crossed toaster ovens, argent, with oven mitts gules, motto ‘Im Regina Martus Stewartius’. 
Page o’ links.
http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/subjects/heraldry/heraldry.html
http://digiserve.com/heraldry/
Eh, I just want to know out of curiousity. What fun is an RPG if you don’t take it to obsessive extremes? 
In English: Split the shield diagonally from the top left to the bottom right. The bottom half is black. The top part is white. In the white part (the top right), put two black stars diagonally slanted in the same direction as the shield division, so:
_____
|\ * |
| \ *|
\ \ /
\ _\/
One of the things that I find really attractive about heraldry is how efficient the language is. “Per bend, Argent and Sable, in sinister chief two mullets in bend Sable,” strikes me as long and awkward, but it’s nothin’ comared to “Split the shield diagonally from the top left to the bottom right. The bottom half is black. The top part is white. In the white part (the top right), put two black stars diagonally slanted in the same direction as the shield division.” 
If I can make it even shorter and more elegant, it will give me more jollies.
On preview: DDG, would Her Marthaness approve of anything less than perfection? Though I did catch her making pumpkin tartlets with canned pumpkin the other day . . .
My translation (reversing left/right):
Shield divided diagonally from top left to bottom right, white above black. In the upper field are two black five-pointed stars arranged diagonally top left to bottom right.
Rather monochromatic, but that’s just my opinion.
I would blazon it like so:
Per bend argent and sable; in chief two mullets in bend sable.
So, Terminus, you think that common sense will dictate that the stars must lie on the white field?
I haven’t made a final decision on color, yet–just picked black and white for an example.
Not necessarily, thus the “in chief” part of the blazon. Without it, the stars would be distributed evenly across the shield, i.e., one in chief and one in base. No need to say “in sinister chief” because the party per bend automatically implies chief=sinister and base=dexter divisions. Also, you want to minimize punctuation, reserving it for the really important divisions, hence “per bend [no comma] argent and sable”.
I’m not sure whether you can get away without saying that the mullets are in bend. You probably could, since the rule is to evenly distribute the charges if their arrangement isn’t specified.
Hey, thanks for the advice, Terminus Est.
I need to work on my commas.
You’re probably right. I too would suggest leaving the SCA out of the other side of the equation, in that lots of what gets registered is legal (in terms of the rules and regs) but not good. (The SCA regs also prevent a good deal of period heraldry being registered – but that is another issue. ;))
Period heraldry (and that’s an open issue in an of itself; what period? what country?) tends to be even and symmetrical. The asymmetry in the arms you mention with the bend between 5 charges is caused by one of the stars having to be moved because of the bend. Without the bend the stars would likey have been in either a cross or an X. Five stars on a per bend field could either be moved a bit (as with the bend), or could counter-change at the line of partition (half a black star on white, half a white star on black). Two stars on a per bend field would tend to fall one in the top right, one in the lower left (of course they couldn’t both be black :))
Anyway… I wouldn’t sweat it, and what you’ve suggested is way nicer that most of the gaming heraldry I’ve seen.
Thanks, Apollyon, and others.
I shall strive to avoid undue influence by the SCA, though it’s tough, because lots of the nice stuff on the Web is by SCA heralds.
Okay, give: Is it supposed to look like something? A cubist yin/yang symbol, for example?
Heh. Cubist yin-yang.
Nope. Just an abstract design.
Please remember too that you would probably not want to say “sable” twice, so you would want to say “per bend argent and sable, in chief two mullets in bend of the second.”
I think opinion varies on that, matt_mcl. The SCA is adamantly against use of “of the first”/“of the second,” etc., and I’ve read similar admonishments in non-SCA sources as well.
While maybe the repition doesn’t sound as good to the ear, it makes the blazon considerably easier to decipher, IMHO.