> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ashenmarch.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Heraldry & Cosmetics > Design your coat of arms, adopt Surname Arms, raise a court crest, and dress every slot your house wears. Gold buys finery, never power. Your **coat of arms** is your house made visible — it rides on the land you hold, your profile, the leaderboards, every Herald's tiding, and the map. This page is the whole wardrobe: the free arms editor, the premium **Augmentations** that widen it, **Surname Arms** presets, the **court crests** a court raises over its members, and the many slots you can dress. One rule sits under all of it: **cosmetics are earned Gold or a gift — never power.** Nothing on this page wins a siege or raises your rank. Finery marks *who* holds the ground, not *how strongly*. (Gold is earned from the land you hold — see [The Treasury](/en/treasury).) ## The coat of arms editor Open the editor from your house page. Every house gets a full, free set of arms from day one: Pick one of the **four shield shapes** — the silhouette your device sits on. Place one of the **eight iconic charges** — Lion, Eagle, Sword, Tower, Cross, Crown, Mullet (a heraldic star), or Fleur-de-lis. Choose from the **eight true heraldic tinctures**. Your charge inks itself contrast-aware, so it stays legible on any field. Edit any time, and **Cancel** to back out without saving. The free arms are yours forever — nothing here is ever taken back. **Why can't I pick one particular colour?** Your **self colour** — the outline that marks your own land on the map as *yours* — is reserved so you stay unmistakably you. It isn't offered in the crest palette, and no purchase buys around that guard. ### Premium Augmentations **Augmentations** widen the editor. Each is a **permanent, per-house Gold unlock** — buy it once and its whole range opens to you forever (you never pay per colour or per charge). All support **preview-before-buy**: you see the option on your *own* crest before you spend. Live today: * **Master's Palette** — a second and third colour, richer swatches, and free-form hex, well past the eight base tinctures. * **Field & Bar** — divisions and ordinaries (checky, barry, bends, chevrons and the like) so the field itself carries pattern. * **Menagerie** — rarer charges beyond the free eight. **Coming soon.** Two more Augmentations are specced and on the way: * **Bestiary & Devices** — figurative shield charges such as *shakefork, hammer, rose, crescent, fox,* and *wolf*, with more beasts and devices to follow. * **Gilded Hand** — *treatments*, a finish applied to the crest itself: a **gilt-edge** keyline in gold, a fine **damascened** inlay across the field, or a polished **burnished** sheen. One treatment at a time, and it never touches your colours or the charge's legibility. A **full-achievement bundle** unlocks every Augmentation together at a discount to buying them one by one. **Your arms are your map roundel.** On ground you own, your coat of arms renders as a coloured **roundel** — your charge inked over a disc in your house colour — so a glance at the map reads *whose* land it is. The full shield opens when you tap a holding. See [Reading the map](/en/war#reading-the-map). ## Surname Arms **Surname Arms** are premium presets — a complete coat of arms designed *"in the tradition of"* a name. Browse the collection in the arms editor, search by name, and the game suggests a match when your house name lines up with one. Browse or search — e.g. *"Arms in the tradition of Cunningham."* You can adopt **any** preset; it isn't locked to your real surname. The name is a discovery hook, nothing more, so adopt the one you simply like best. Confirm the adoption and spend the Gold. The preset's design becomes your coat of arms. From there it's just your arms — open the editor and tweak the tinctures or charge freely. Adoption is permanent and one-time; there's nothing further to pay. These are **original, AI-generated heraldic designs inspired by a name's tradition** — a themed cosmetic, never a claim to your "authentic ancestral arms." Real arms belong to a person and a grant, not a surname, and some are legally protected. We evoke a name's known motifs; we don't reproduce anyone's actual blazon. Surname Arms roll out a market at a time — the first waves cover the most common surnames in each launch region, with more names added over time. Surname designs draw only from **shield charges** (adopting a preset also lifts the [Bestiary & Devices](#premium-augmentations) gate for that design). The legendary court-crest beasts below are never among them — a crest and a shield charge are different devices. ## Court crests A **court crest** is the topper that sits *above* the shield on **every member's arms** — a court's highest, most-shared piece of identity. It's set once for the whole court and tinted in the court's colour. * **Free tier** — every court gets a shared crest chosen from **eight base devices** (lion, eagle, sword, tower, cross, crown, mullet, fleur-de-lis). The **Liege** picks which one flies, and can switch freely at no cost. This tier is live today. **Coming soon — Legendary crests.** A premium tier of **legendary heraldic beasts** — *unicorn, dragon, griffin, phoenix, pegasus,* and *stag* — with more (*wolf, wyvern, bear* and others) to follow in later waves. **How a court earns one — the gift model:** * **Any member** can gift a legendary crest to the court, spending **their own** personal Gold. It's a prideful, one-time act — *"I gave our court the Dragon."* * The **court owns it forever.** A gift can't be clawed back if the gifter leaves, and it survives a change of Liege or a disband. * The **Liege equips** which owned crest is active, and switches among all owned crests plus the free eight at no further cost. Legendary crests are priced **far above** any personal cosmetic — on the order of ten times the priciest personal piece — a genuine court-level goal, not an impulse buy. All are priced the same, and the purchase is permanent and non-refundable. ## Slots you can dress Beyond the arms themselves, Gold dresses the surfaces your house appears on. Each is a cosmetic **slot** with a set of options; buy one and it's yours permanently. | Slot | What it dresses | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Profile frame** | The border around your house card and hall of honours | | **Great-hall theme** | The background wash on your house page | | **Motto** | A scroll beneath your arms — a preset phrase *(custom-written mottos are a later addition)* | | **Style of address** | A vanity epithet — *"House Draven, the Bold."* A visibly separate class from earned rank titles, so it never poses as one | | **Livery field** | A heraldic pattern (checky, bendy, paly, barry, lozengy, chevronny) laid over your land's fill on the map | | **Banner / standard** | A small pennant device flown on your holdings and walls | | **Cartographer's border** | The line treatment on your holdings' map outline — gilt, embattled, or corded | | **Roundel ink** | The finish on your map roundel's ring — silvered, gilt, or sable | | **Vault skin** | A reskin of your Treasury card | | **Coin face** | The device on the ◉ Gold glyph in tribute and collection animations | **Coming soon — the Herald.** **Herald's Seals** — a stamp you set on your own tidings — and short **Proclamations** are planned for a future wave, so your house can leave its mark on the feed too. Cosmetics always paint *beneath* the map's live-combat and decay signals, so no piece of finery ever hides a siege or a weakening holding — identity never overrides the state of the war. ## Where to buy, and what it costs You buy every cosmetic in **[the Market](/en/the-market)**, and gift the giftable ones there too. Prices span a wide range — a preset motto or an epithet is among the most affordable, an Augmentation costs more, and a legendary court crest sits at the very top — so the [Game Reference](/en/reference) holds the authoritative, current price of every piece. (All numbers are tuned over the beta; the reference is refreshed when they change.) Where Gold comes from — tribute, collecting, and what it can and can't buy. Your rank, the base coat of arms, courts, and Kingdom Regions. How your roundel, livery, and border render on the war map. Every price and threshold in one place.