From: Josh@fquest.FidoNet.Org (Josh)
Newsgroups: alt.missing-kids
Subject: Various topics
Date: 4 Dec 92 17:23:07 GMT

Greetings from Arval!

What discussion where, and e-mail commentary
Protecting fantasic places
Sleeping Dragon revealed
Arms for non-heraldic personae

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What discussion where, and e-mail commentary

I must strongly disagree with anyone who suggests that any discussion on
any forum is a disservice to anyone.  (Pretty categorical, eh?)  Discussion
on this mailing list should certainly not replace discussion in formal
commenting channels, and it is certainly a courtesy to send copies to the
interested parties if the discussion is productive, but it is ALWAYS good
to discuss, explain, and debate the value of rules, decisions, and
policies.  Neither Brigantia nor Laurel are harmed in any way by our
discussions, though they may not profit from them.

Fairfax discussed distributing commentary by e-mail, and several people
jumped on him as him he were suggesting distributing it ONLY by e-mail.
That's not what he said, folks; give him credit for a little intelligence.
If individual commenters want to send and/or receive commentary
electronically, that's wonderful: It may save them money, and it certainly
distributes the commentary faster.  If they expect their letters to be
treated as CoA commentary, then of course they are obliged to send them to
everyone else on the mailing list by post and to send Laurel the requisite
copies, but there is absolutely no reason to discourage them from using
e-mail to improve the function of the College.

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Protecting fantasic place names

Giovanni wrote:

> Why do we waste our time protecting armory not claimed and never claimed by
> anyone?  Or for that matter, why are we "protecting" the name of a non-real
> place, so a household is not permitted to use it for a name, when we do not
> "protect" the names of real places?

I'm not sure what you mean by the last comment; we protect real and
fictional place names on exactly the same basis: If they are important,
they are protected from conflict.  If they are unimportant, they are not
protected.  "Important" is defined in Laurel's adminstrative handbook.

Why do we protect fiction armory and names at all?  The populace wants us
to do so (or, at least, wanted us to do so at one point).  For many people,
Middle Earth and Narnia and Darkover are as much as part of the basis of
the SCA as France, England, and Germany.  There are a lot of people in the
SCA who would be very upset by someone officially using the name "Bilbo
Baggins" or "House Hastur".  The SCA is more than just medieval
re-creation, and the College of Arms is trying to serve all interests.

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Sleeping Dragon

Enough people have asked that I think it's time to tell this story once and
for all.

Many years ago, Charles Stewart O'Connor was Dragon Principal Herald,
Alisoun MacCoul was Brigantia Principal Herald, and Graidhne ni Ruadh was
relaxing after having been Dragon.  Alisoun and Graidhne were crashing at
Charles' place after a Midrealm coronation.  Charles, as is his wont,
toddled off to bed about 8:00 (He is legendary for this), leaving Alisoun
and Graidhne in possession of the house.  Foolish boy.  They decided that
Charles was a poop, and that they were in the mood for a post-revel, and so
they decided that there was going to have been a post-revel at Charles'
house.  They took out every cup, glass, and mug in the house and poured a
little bit of beer into each one.  They crushed cigarettes into many of
these containers, spilled beer on the floor, crushed chips into the carpet,
and generally created the very picture of a really good party.  Then they
made some phone calls and went to bed.

The next morning, Charles discovered the detrius, and was informed that
there had been a GREAT party last night.  The phone rang.  A friend thanked
him for hosting the party, and offered regrets that he hadn't been there.
The phone rang again.  Same story.  This continued, as Charles heard from
all his friends who had been at the coronation.  Then he heard from friends
who he hadn't thought were at the coronation.  Then he heard from friends
who he would have sworn weren't at the coronation.  then he got a phone
call from Regina Romsey, in Germany, and he figured out what was going on.
The calls and post cards continued for arrive for some months.

All these people are the Household (not order) of the Sleeping Dragon, and
we've got a badge to prove it.

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Arms for Non-Heraldic Personae

Bjalfi asked for thoughts about how he, with his pre-heraldic persona,
should deal with SCA heraldry.  Should he have arms or not?  Several people
have replied, succinctly demonstrating that the answer is: It depends what
you want to do.

Mostly, it depends on how you think of your persona in relation to the SCA.
There are basically three approaches:

1) Don't register or use armory at all.  If you are trying to re-create an
accurate image of your persona as he would have lived in his time and
place, then armory is out-of-place.  If that's what you are trying to do,
then the right solution is to ignore armory altogether.  You may still use
some other kind of insignia, if it is appropriate to your period, but
armory simply makes no sense.  And there is now reason why you should
register these other insignia, since they are non-heraldic.

2) Register and use armory which compromises between your persona and the
period of heraldry.  If it is not so important to you that your persona
re-creation is 100% accurate, or if it is also important to you to have
arms to use in the SCA, then you can try to design something acceptable
that also fits the style of insignia used in your period.  This is
difficult to do well, but it can be accomplished with some work.

3) Register and use standard heraldry without regard to your persona.  Many
people resolve conflicts with their personae by observing that wherever
their persona may have started out, he now lives in an SCA kingdom and
naturally adopts some customs of that kingdom.  One of those customs is
heraldry, and so it makes sense for any personae to use standard
late-medieval heraldry.

Any of these approaches is equally valid; it all depends on what you want
to accomplish with your persona.

        Arval.

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Arval Benicoeur                                       mittle@watson.ibm.com