The Heraldry Skill in Flashing Blades

The Heraldry skill in Flashing Blades is a Bonus Skill for Nobleman characters, costing one (1) Skill Point during character creation; Heraldry doesn't appear on the skill list of any other backgrounds, so a character without the Nobleman background must spend three (3) points at character creation to acquire it (FB core rules, page 5).

HERALDRY
This skill indicates a thorough knowledge of noble genealogies and coats-of-arms. Characters with this skill will be able to identify high nobility and members of the royal family, trace their family histories, and recognize their crests and seals. Noble families of other nationalities will be more difficult to recognize than domestic nobility. (3.4 USING SKILLS, FB core rules, page 7)

Heraldry appears two more times in the core rules, first in the ranks and positions rules for bureaucrats, as a gatekeeper skill.

Chancellor (requires Heraldry and Etiquette skills, roll 9 or more to receive; +1 if Social Rank is 16 or above, +1 for having been a Provincial Governor, +1 for having been an Ambassador). The Chancellor looks after the bureaucracy and paperwork of the Royal Court. (5.53 Ranks and Positions in the Bureaucracy, FB core rules, page 33)

Heraldry is also a gatekeeper skill for the position of Herald in the rules for minor jobs (5.103 Minor Jobs, FB core rules, page 39), for which a character earns 20 livres per month of employment. With a potential salary of up to 120 livres annually, the "minor job" of Herald earns more than a number of positions in other careers, with the caveat of requiring year-round employment, and is tied for the highest paying minor job with Gunsmith and Apothecary.

The Heraldry skill appears in a number of adventures, as a means of identifying non-player characters by their arms or revealing some bit of background detail.

Another personality whom the player characters may meet at Tavern Brevage Noir is Baron Jean-Paul De Gilloir, a debauched nobleman with a passion for gambling. Any character with Heraldry skill who makes a successful roll against Wit (+1) will recognize him as the same man who gambled away his family fortune and estate, and who has recently taken up with ruffians and petty villains of the Paris underworld. ("Tavern Brevage Noir," Flashing Blades Introductory Adventures, pages 3-4)

Any character with Heraldry or History skill may roll against his Wit (+2 modifier) to call up information about the Archduke DeMainz. ("The Man Behind the Mask," FB Intro Adv, page 5)

The fourth man also arrives in a carriage, this one with the coat-of-arms of a Baron. He is incredibly fat and his clothes, while quite expensive and fashionable, are in a state of disarray. Any character with Heraldry skill who makes a successful Wit roll (+1) will recognize this man as the Baron De Gras, a wealthy but debauched noble. ("Monsieur Le Droit’s Secret," FB Into Adv, page 11)

There are nine additional instances of skill checks (four in Parisian Adventure, three in The Cardinal's Peril, one in An Ambassador's Tales, and one in High Seas) which are functionally the same as these. Three non-player characters (two in An Ambassador's Tales, one in High Seas) possess the Heraldry skill in the published adventures.

In my actual play experience with FB, many players choose the Heraldry skill for their Nobleman characters due to the low cost in skill points and because recognizing arms and knowing details about other nobles is really part and parcel of playing a nobleman; it's usually taken along with Etiquette, which is also a Bonus Skill for Nobleman characters - two points for two background- and genre-appropriate skills, as the rules intend. Heraldry's also a means for supplementing a noble character's income when the rewards of adventure don't quite make ends meet.

I think there's more here.

Let's look at the history of heraldic arms in Ancien Régime (pre-revolutionary) France. First, unlike the United Kingdom, coats of arms were in no way restricted to the nobility; anyone who wanted arms could have them. In fact, the Parlement of Paris - a high court, not a legislative body - refused to register royal edicts limiting access in 1556 and again in 1663. In practice this meant that families and corporations - private, public, or civic, like a city - could have a coat of arms if they wanted. This extends the reach of Heraldry as a skill well beyond "high nobility and members of the royal family" to chartered trading companies, bourgeoisie families, or small market towns. Heraldic arms are also used by members of the Church; an appearance of the Heraldry skill in the published adventures reads, "A Player-Character who wakes his Wit roll (+2 for Heraldry) will recognize the insignia of the Archbishop of Paris on the offending vehicle, as it passes out of sight" ("Scavenger Hunt," Parisian Adventure, page 27). Gentlemen's clubs and orders of knighthood should display their own arms as well.

Given the extant to which coats of arms are available, their display should be commonplace in a 17th century French setting. Arms as architectural details should be everywhere, not just chateaus or townhouses of the nobility. A chamber of commerce (la chambre des marchands) might display heraldic banners of its wealthy merchant members; the arms of church benefactors may be carved into the woodwork of a choir stall. Heraldic arms can be used to reveal history: chiseled into the stone lintels of the baron de Bauchery's chateau are the arms of the comte de Bonair - how did the baron come to possess the courtly count's castle? Perhaps club members wear ceremonial tabards emblazoned with the club's arms during rites such as initiation or processions. Arms may appear on crockery or in pewter - plates, mugs - in stained glass, and in paintings and statuary. Books were often sponsored by and dedicated to noble patrons and their arms may appear as a frontispiece.

One of the most important applications of arms is the seal. Seals impressed into wax are used as authentication not just for letters and royal edicts but for contracts, deeds, and other legal instruments. For example the incorporation documents of a chartered company will include a row of wax seals suspended from the parchment by a ribbon or ribbons, indicating the parties to the agreement, including the king's agent and the lawyers who represent ownership.

With the ubiquity and significance of heraldic devices in l'Ancien Régime, one might expect the occupation of herald (héraut d'armes) to be closely regulated and highly regarded. A French college of heralds was created by King Charles VI in 1407, decades before the English College of Arms. The college of heralds was established with four grades:

le poursuivant d'armes - "chaser" or apprentice herald

le héraut - herald, a journeyman

le maréchal d'armes - marshal of armes, a master

le roi d'armes - king of arms, a grandmaster of the college of heralds, initially twelve in number

The college was given space at the convent of Saint Anthony - Le Petit Saint-Antoine - in Paris to meet and keep a library of armorials. At the time, heraldry played an important role in battle, identifying who was on the field, and at tournaments, announcing the contestants. One of the early duties of heralds, wearing their distinctive tabards, was to act as a messenger between army commanders, for which they were afforded privileges and safe passage similar to those of diplomats. The absence of limitations on who could bear heraldic arms proved to be a problem several kings tried to address, first and foremost to prevent "the usurpation of arms" by commoners - one of the roles of heralds was to insure that arms were not duplicated. However, the efforts of Charles VI and his successors to more closely regulate the use of coats of arms in France were of limited success, in no small part by their ubiquity.

By the 17th century of our little game, heralds are, while not exactly in disrepute, of diminished status, associated in part with the rise of a professional army of standing regiments. In 1615, King Louis XIII will incorporate the college of heralds as part of the royal household under the responsibility of le grand écuyer - the grand squire of France - and create a juge général d'armes de France for prosecuting the usurpation of arms by commoners; as with his forebears, he will achieve limited success and the role of heralds becomes largely ceremonial. King Louis XIV will attempt, without success, to restrict the use of coats of arms by those not enobled, and will only succeed in adopting a fee for the use of heraldic arms for a little more than a decade after 1696.

So, what does all of this mean in terms of playing Flashing Blades?

While herald as a profession may be diminished, heraldic arms, as noted earlier, are still very common and should be a regular feature of the setting. The Heraldry skill synergizes well with other skills: Oratory and Etiquette as a noble's, bishop's, or council of aldermen's master of ceremonies, Magistracy for identifying seals on a contract or discerning the finer points of Salic laws of succession, History for working as a chronicler for a noble or royal order, Forgery for producing convincing fakes. A spy needs more than Espionage and Disguise; without Heraldry as a skill, they may miss crucial intelligence.

One aspect of a herald's job isn't touched on at all in the rules as written: producing coats of arms. Heraldry implies a level of artistic skill; an apprentice herald - un poursuivant d'armes - will likely spend most of their time creating arms for clients and preparing armorials - books cataloging coats of arms - under the supervision of a herald or marshal of arms. In fact, one could make an actual career path for heralds: three years as an apprentice (Social Rank 4) before becoming a herald (Social Rank 6), marshal of arms (Social Rank 8) on becoming a Master of the Heraldry skill, a king of arms (Social Rank 10) - opening on a 10+, promotion on 9+ - if a Master Superior in the Heraldry skill.

Lastly, one more historical note creates a fascinating option for a swashbuckling character: early heralds were not noble at all - they came from the ranks of jongleurs and jesters, street perfomers. Imagine a 17th century version of Paul Bettany's Geoffrey Chaucer from A Knight's Tale, the perfect wisecracking second to a gentilhomme or noble duelist . . .