Heraldry Games

Heraldry Game

• Owl &Mouse Educational Software provides a free game online that provides a good introduction to heraldry. The game is played entirely in your browser and is mostly text-based. You take on the role of the teenage son of a feudal lord and use your knowledge of heraldry to gain allies and protect the king. Each page presents some information that both advances the story and teaches a bit about heraldry. At the bottom of the page, the game asks a trivia question about the information. Answer correctly and you move on to the next page.

Heraldry RPG

• "Heraldry" is an add-on set of rules for anyone active in the live-action, role-playing scene. The rulebook provided by Columbia Games provides an in-depth system for taking your character through a monastic herald academy with specific amounts of in-game money and die rolls required to succeed in the pursuit. In the end, the character will gain a full-fledged coat of arms and fictional heraldic history to go along with whatever back story you have already created for the character. The rulebook also provides a wealth of information on how real-world heraldic systems worked. The book sells for about $10, as of January 2011.

Westeros Heraldry

• For those more interested in a fictional world's heraldry, "Westeros Heraldry" makes sure you are caught up on your family shields from George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series of novels. The game times you as it challenges you to match a family name with one of the 75 shields present in the series. After three misses, the game shows you the correct shield and moves on to the next. It can be played for free on Purpose Games.

Heraldo

• "Heraldo," or "Heraldic Bingo," is a variation of regular "Bingo" that is designed to teach players about heraldic language. Spaces on the board are replaced with common shields and symbols used in heraldry. The caller then uses only heraldic language to call out squares. "Blue," for example, becomes "azure," and the "background" becomes the "field." Players then play as they would a regular game of "Bingo," but they must have knowledge of the heraldic language to know if they have won.