Sun and Moon in Heraldry

[GRWelsh]

Has anyone ever noticed the sun symbols in the heraldry of the eastern Flanaess, and the moon symbols in the west?

Great Kingdom: Sun with Crown
North Province: Sun with scaly monster encircling it
Ratik: Sun with Crown in upper left section
Rel Astra: Ship with a sun behind it
Sunndi: Three suns on a blue diagonal band
Almor: Sun rising over a wall
Nyrond: Suns in two the quarters
The Pale: A moon on the west, a six pointed star on the east
Furyondy: Moon in upper right
Dyvers: Moon in upper right
Veluna: Star with four moons

Two nations share, or have part of, the names of Oerth's moons: Luna, the silver moon, in Veluna; and the elven realm of Celene has the same name as the smaller blue moon. Two main regions of the grey elves are Sunndi and Celene -- Sun and Moon.

Maybe this is obvious stuff to some people, but for some reason it just jumped out at me all of the sudden...

[geneweigel]

They're common enough symbols in heraldry to give it a real world feel. The Aerdi have kind of a Louis the XIV sun king thing going on with their heraldry.

[Scott]

I haven't noticed it previously.
It's consistent enough that it may have been intentional.

[geneweigel]

I remember sitting down one day many years ago to extract all the "house" references and match them up with the heraldry and not getting very far. Theres like 3 or four of them and then there is the "golden league" to consider as well. I tried to reinvigorate this investigation with Gary to get some info about that a few years ago and it just went nowhere. Lots of "not adding anymore to the IP" talk rather than any new information.

[Scott]

Aug 3, 2008 16:50:32 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

the elven realm of Celene has the same name as the smaller blue moon.

What about the possibility of Celene (the moon) being a sort of Aman/Valinor type of place for the setting?

[GRWelsh]

Could be... Having the "heavenly bodies" and "wandering stars" be fantastic realms fits in with the overall flavor of Greyhawk and the S&S source material, IMO... Burroughs' Barsoom, Vance, CAS, Lovecraft, Howard's Almuric and Yog, etc.

Not to plug Spelljammer or anything, but I've always been fond of the idea of incorporating medieval astrology into the D&D universe... what with the crystal spheres, firmament, aether, etc.