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Registering names and heraldic insignia

Registering a device is a worthwhile effort. It involves communication, historical research and creativity, meaning you touch on all three aspects of the Society for Creative Anachronism. It allows you to make something and call it your own. It exposes you to a complicated process with a thousand years of history behind it. These are all Good Things.
(Karl Faustus von Aachen, Kingdom of Lochac)

One may freely choose a name by which one is know in the SCA activities. To register the said name, however, it needs to be compatible with period names. Registering heraldic insignia (device, badge) in the SCA requires a registered SCA name. Successfully registered names and heraldic insignia are protected in the SCA in the sense that College of Arms registers no item that is too similar to an already registered item.

By sending a filled submission form to the kingdom Submissions Herald, you give the SCA College of Heralds, based in the USA, permission to process and maintain all information on the form in relation to everything required for registering your submission. The records may be maintained indefinitely. For more information, please see Your information and privacy.

All successfully registered items from all SCA kingdoms are listed in the SCA Armorial.

Overview

All residents and branches of Drachenwald send their heraldic submissions (names, armory) and pay the submission fees to Drachenwald College of Heralds. Forms are sent to the kingdom Submissions Heralds and fees are handled by the Exchequers of Drachenwald and Nordmark.

Registration process starts with an idea, and continues with a bit of research, to come up with the item you wish to submit for registration.
For that purpose a submission form is filled, and the fruits of the research, in other words any documentation needed for supporting your item as compatible with period equivalents, is attached.
A small fee is required for each submitted item.
The outcome of the submission process is either acceptance (registration) or a return for further work.
A returned item, once reworked, may be resubmitted without additional fees.

Help

Submissions Heralds

Drachenwald heraldic submissions are handled by Edelweiss and Albion, and their deputies.

Edelweiss Herald

Internal Submissions Herald who submits Letters of Intent to the Drachenwald College of Heralds. Send this person your name and armory submissions, including resubmissions and appeals.

Albion Herald

External Submissions Herald who submits Letters of Intent to the SCA College of Arms. This person will notify you about the outcome of the submission process.

Submission fees

The fee is is £4 / 5€ / 50 SEK for each submission item.
For example, for a name and device the total fee is £8 / 10€ / 100 SEK
Residents of Nordmark pay their fees via Nordmark account; rest of Drachenwald pays directly to Drachenwald College of Heralds.

Nordmark

If you live in Nordmark, please contact the Nordmark Exchequer at for bank account details.

Drachenwald other than Nordmark

If you live anywhere in Drachenwald other than in Nordmark, submission fees are paid to the College of Heralds account, cared for by the Drachenwald Exchequer.

After paying, please send an e-mail to Edelweiss Herald and Kingdom Exchequer (, ) briefly stating what you paid for. For example: "I just paid for name and device submissions for [SCA name], the payer should show as [payer's legal name]." This will help us very much in connecting payments with received submissions!

Details for UK payments

Kingdom of Drachenwald
HSBC
Account Number: 91484060
Sort Code: 40-47-34

Details for paying outside UK

IBAN: GB49MIDL40473491484060
BIC / SWIFT Code: MIDLGB2165G
Account Name: SCA - Kingdom of Drachenwald
Bank's Address: 2 North Walk, Yate, Bristol BS37 4AR
Bank: HSBC

Submission forms

The current version of the submission forms is Laurel v. 3.0; Drachenwald v1.1 (Laurel Approved 15 Apr 2014). All earlier versions of the forms are obsolete and no longer accepted.

If you print out the forms: In your printer's Page Scaling options, choose None (vs. Fit to Paper, a common default for A4 paper). Make sure you print a 100% scale version of the PDF, to produce a form of the correct size. Tip: To confirm your print settings, measure the shield (on the device form). It should be exactly 5 x 6 inches (12.7x15.2 cm).

Permissions to conflict and heraldic wills

SCA College of Arms has letter templates for different kinds of permissions to conflict and heraldic wills on their FAQ page (scroll down to 'Letter Questions'.

SCA College of Arms - Frequently Asked Questions

Petitions

When a group registers a branch name or branch arms, the name and armory submissions must be accompanied by a petition.

Template for Group Petitions

Delivering submissions

The Drachenwald submission forms are PDF files that can be filled digitally and/or printed on paper and filled by hand. Submissions can then be delivered either on paper via mail or as digital files via e-mail.

Please e-mail Edelweiss Herald at to send your digital files or for requesting the postal address.

When submitting digitally:

All files (both submission forms and any documentation) must be 300 dpi and printable size, JPG or PDF.
If pictures are used, please make sure that they are of equal quality.
If you need to digitalize from paper, quality scans are required (e.g. photos are not acceptable).

When submitting on paper:

Print out the (fully or partially filled) PDF file; in your printer's Page Scaling options, choose None (vs. Fit to Paper, a common default for A4 paper). Make sure you print a 100% scale version of the PDF, to produce a form of the correct size.
When colouring in the colour version of device or badge form, please use felt-tipped non-washable colour markers for the colour version. Watercolors, wax-based media such as crayons, and colored pencils are not acceptable.

Your information and privacy

What is done with your submission form?

Your submission forms are initially received in the kingdom of Drachenwald by the kingdom Internal Submissions Herald, Edelweiss Herald. Edelweiss Herald is responsible for uploading the submission form and the submission data relevant for commentary in the SCA Laurel Sovereign of Arms Online System for Commentary and Response (OSCAR), the international client used by heralds for the online parts of processing the submission.

In OSCAR, visibility of personal data is minimized.

1. Only the following parts of each submission are public:

Society Name because it often is the submitted item and because the College of Arms maintains all your submissions under your Primary Society name ("SCA Name").
Name Being Submitted if other than Society Name because it is the submitted item.
The picture of the heraldic insignia, both line drawing and colour versions, because it is the submitted item.
The blazon of the heraldic insignia, which is the textual explanation of the submitted heraldic insignia.
The support and any required documents (any personal information is redacted) since they are needed for evaluating the registrability of the submitted item.

2. The commentary section related to specific submitted item is visible to all those who have commenting rights to that item. Comments may not contain e.g. contact information of the submitter or other sensitive information.

3. The submission forms are only visible to specific officers whose duties contain handling the forms.

Who can see your submission form?

In Drachenwald, the kingdom Submissions Heralds (Edelweiss Herald and Albion Herald and their deputies) and Schwarzdrachen Principal Herald. They use the submitter's personal information only for contacting the submitter regarding the submission. Beyond uploading the submissions in OSCAR, they never give out any personal information of submitters.
In the SCA, Laurel Sovereign of Arms and their deputies whose duties are directly related to handling submission forms. They use the submitter's personal information for verifying submissions during submission process, and ensuring that registered names and heraldic insignia are correctly maintained. They never give out any personal information of submitters.
In the SCA, the Archivist, who is responsible for the archive of submissions.

What happens to your data after the submission process?

Please note that the data is retained even if the submission gets returned (i.e. does not get registered). This enables SCA College of Arms and Drachenwald College of Heralds to allow you to resubmit a previously returned, now reworked item without a new submission fee.

Public access

The public data (Society Name, Name Being Submitted, pictures and blazon of heraldic insignia) remain in OSCAR, also regarding returned items.
All registered Society Names, other registered names, and blazons of all registered heraldic insignia are listed in the public SCA Ordinary and Armorial (O&A).

Limited access

The commentary on an item (both registered and returned) remains in OSCAR and continues to be visible to all those who would have commenting rights to it were the commenting not closed.

Very restricted access

The forms remain in OSCAR, only accessible by kingdom Principal Herald, kingdom Submissions Heralds, Laurel Sovereign of Arms, and Laurel deputies who have submissions duties.
The submission forms are also stored in the kingdom submissions archive, accessible to Schwarzdrachen Principal Herald and Schwarzdrachen deputies who have submission duties.
The submission forms are also stored in the Society submissions archive. It is possible to request from the archivist a picture of registered heraldic insignia (but no other data) based on its O&A information.

What data do we ask from you and why?

We do not give your contact information to any third parties, and it is only used for contacting you and keeping you informed regarding your submission / registration.

The mandatory personal information and what it is used for

Mandatory means that not providing this information on a submission form causes an administrative return of the submission. The ruling on whether some information is mandatory or not is done by SCA College of Arms and applies to all kingdoms. Kingdoms may have further policies in place.

Your Society name:
- Since College of Arms maintains all your submissions under your Primary Society name ("SCA Name").
Your Legal Name:
- To recognize your submission fee paid to kingdom account as related to your submission. Unfortunately international money transfers do not usually carry messages over, so linking based on Society Name is currently not viable.
- Together with your Address and possibly your Date of Birth, to recognize you during the submission process, for making sure that all submissions are correctly attributed to individuals.
- To be able to contact you via mail. This is only done regarding the particular submission the form contains and in Drachenwald it is only done if all other contact methods fail. (Other kingdoms may have different policies on this matter.)
- If College of Arms needs to create a Holding Name for you, a usual pattern for it is '[Your legal first name] of [Your SCA Branch]'. Please note that you may refuse the creation of a holding name on the Name Submission Form.
Your Address:
- Together with your Legal Name and possibly your Date of Birth, to recognize you during the submission process, for making sure that all submissions are correctly attributed to individuals.
- To be able to contact you via mail to notify you regarding the particular submission on the form. In Drachenwald contacting via mail is only done if e-mail contacting fails. (Some other kingdoms have different policies on this matter.)
Your Branch Name if you live in the area of an SCA Branch smaller than kingdom:
- If College of Arms needs to create a Holding Name for you, a usual pattern for it is '[Your legal first name] of [Your SCA Branch]'.
- Please note that you may refuse the creation of a holding name on the Name Submission Form.

Recommended personal information and what it is used for

Recommended means that it is very useful during the submission process but not providing it will not cause an administrative return.

Your E-mail Address is very important to us, to be able to contact you via e-mail to notify you regarding the particular submission on the form. In Drachenwald this is the primary means of keeping you informed on your submission. (Other kingdoms may have different policies on this matter.)
Date of Birth is not mandatory to give, and in fact does not need to be your legal date of birth. What matters is that everything you ever submit has the same "Date of Birth" value. It is used together with your Legal Name and Address to recognize you during the submission process, for making sure that all submissions are correctly attributed to individuals.

Other personal information that is requested on the submission forms

Gender of Submitter: we do not require this information! The process of updating the forms is slow but we expect that the next version of the Name Submission Forms will not request for this information. Even in the case of you providing this information to us, we do not use it for anything.
Your Phone Number to be able to contact you via phone to notify you regarding the particular submission on the form. In Drachenwald contacting via phone is only done if e-mail contacting fails. (Some other kingdoms have different policies on this matter.) Unlike Address, providing your Phone Number is not mandatory.
Consulting Herald (Socety Name), if applicable. Drachenwald does not require a submission to have or be submitted by a warranted consulting herald (some kingdoms do), but it's often helpful. If a particular herald has helped you with your submission, it is a good idea to mention them on the form - particularly if they have copies of your submission, armory pictures and/or the documentation. If there are problems with your submission, the consulting herald may be able to help in resolving them.
Herald's E-mail / Phone (e-mail address is the preferred means of contact in Drachenwald). If there are problems with your submission, the consulting herald may be able to help in resolving them.

This is the pre-2019 archive site. Go to the official site.