To the kingdom of Lochac, its royalty, peers, baronages, lords, ladies and the occasional entirely voluntary peasants, greetings and tidings of great joy from your Principal Herald, Karl Faustus von Aachen Crux Australis.

The hard work of the College of Arms has borne fruit once more with the registration of the following names and armory, more than half of which received a comment of “nice” from His Holiness Gabriel Laurel.

Duncan Wolfshead. Name and device. Sable, a wolf’s head erased contourny within an orle of roundels argent.
Finna Ulfsdottir. Name and device. Argent, a wolf sejant ululant sable, on a bordure dovetailed azure three increscents argent.
Gillucan ua Tomaltaig. Name and device. Sable, two chevronels between three lozenges argent.
Giovanni di Palmieri. Name.
Isabella de Mellis. Name and device. Quarterly purpure and argent, two trees blasted and a mullet of eight points counterchanged.
Lazarus Thurnierer. Device. Quarterly gules and purpure a horse rampant contourny Or.
Ragnarr of Ravenshold. Device. Per saltire argent and azure, a drakkar affronty proper, the sail per pale gules and Or charged with two ravens addorsed counterchanged.
Ragnarr of Ravenshold. Badge. Per pale gules and Or, two ravens addorsed counterchanged within a bordure azure.
Tailltiu ghoirt ruaidh. Name.
Tailltiu ghoirt ruaidh. Badge. (Fieldless) A bat-winged fish attired of a stag’s antlers naiant embowed in annulo argent.
Yves de Lyle. Device. Counter-ermine, a pale ermine, overall a phoenix Or rising from flames gules.

Rocket Herald will be in touch shortly to pass on the full details and, in some cases, the sad news of returns.

Speaking of sad news, I have some sad news for the kingdom: I will not be continuing as Crux Australis to September of this year as originally planned.  Due to a confluence of events, I will instead be continuing until November!  It just so happens that I have the opportunity to attend November Crown in Torlyon, so with the permission of He who shall be His Majesty at that time, and of His Holiness and of Her Excellency the Kingdom Seneschal, I am extending my term a couple of months.  I know this will cause great sadness to everyone in the kingdom and the College, but I pray you will stiffen your resolve, screw your courage to the sticking place, etc etc etc and thus soldier on.  Our long bi-national nightmare of blather and pomposity will soon be over.

On a more serious note, I continue to hear from Rocket Herald that submissions are being made with the most astonishing errors in them.  Heralds who should be old and ugly enough to be able to operate a paper form without hurting their fingers are somehow failing to achieve a minimum standard.  I have instructed her to simply return failed paperwork with instructions to read the damn forms if she feels it necessary.  Some heralds who have been around longer than I’ve been writing rude songs are messing this up — forgetting to get signatures on petitions, using the wrong paperwork and thus missing out important information, misunderstanding the whole basis of conflict checking and historical evidence — and I’m close to declaring some of them persona au gratin (that’s French for “person covered in cheese”) and suggesting that they step aside in favour of other heralds.  So let this be the proclamation: nobody is so old, experienced or prestigious that they don’t need to stop and think about what they’re doing, and this College will not waive the basic rules of necessary procedure for anyone, however venerable and titled, if they can’t get their act together.  I’m sorry to be so blunt, but really: Rocket is doing this job for free, and she is getting frustrated at the levels of Clue on display.  She’s too polite to go thumping heads, but I’m not.

So mind how you go!

In service to the Kingdom and College,

: Karl Faustus von Aachen :