Section A:  Basics

This section deals with the very basic building blocks of heraldry.

The art of heraldry uses a language all its own to describe things.  This extends to the different tinctures, or hues, that we use in our armory.  There are seven tinctures that we use in the SCA, divided into two subclasses, metals and colors.  Two of the tinctures are considered metals, and five are considered colors.  They are:

It is important to note that Or and Argent are the metals, representing gold and silver.  The rest of the tinctures are the colors.  The reason this is important is because one of the cardinal rules for armory is that you cannot place a metal on a metal or a color on a color.

The tinctures are the base of all armory designs.  Every piece of armory starts with a field made up of one or more of these tinctures.  Everything else is then placed on top of the field.

In addition to the tinctures, heraldry also uses representations of the skins of animals, called furs.  These are treated the same as tinctures for purposes of contrast and determining if something is color on color / metal on metal.  These are a few of the main types of furs that are used most frequently.

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