Coat of arms are used by the Knights of the Old world to identify themselves. One man in armour looks a lot like another, so the coat of arms is used to identify knights
in a battle. In a society where few people are able to read and write, pictures are very important. Therefore a coat of arms is more like a label for instant identification than
it is a painting. From the Bretonnian Knights over the Imperial Knightly Orders and various Imperial noble houses to the rich Merchant-families of Marienburg and Tilea,
the coat of arms are an important instrument of identification in the Old World. Even primitive races like Orks and Goblins use symbols to show their membership of a warband.
The origins of the coat of arms are not clear, many scholars believe that the use of signs has its sources in the old civilisations of the Dwarfs and High Elves to identify the
troops in battle. The early human barbarians copied the banners and signs of the elder races and over the years they created new signs and symbols.

Only the oldest son would inherit his family's coat of arms unchanged; his younger brothers would usually add a symbol to show who they were, in some parts of the Old World they only get the right to use the colours of the coat of arms. When a woman marries, especially if she is the only heir, the coat of arms of her family is often added to her husband's arms.

In Bretonnia it is usual that the young Knights don't get their coat of arms before they haven't spend several years as Knights Errant in the retinue of a senior Kinght, baron or duke. During this time they wear the plain, unadorned heraldic colours of their family or the liege-lord whom they serve. The humble commoners are not entitled to wear personal heraldry. Instead they war the livery colours of the Lord in whose retinue they serve. This will be the plain undadorned heraldic colours from his own heraldry.

Heraldry in the Empire seems to have gone to the opposite extreme - arms are not used
so much as badges - all members of the same order bear the same symbols; all soldiers of the same city or country bear the same colours. It is usual that members of the same Knightly Order use personal variations of the same coat of arms. The Knights Panther for instance all use the Panther as charge but in different variations. Other Orders like the Reiksguard or the Order of the Fiery heart all use the same badge.

In some parts of the Old World, especially in Estalia, the arms are quartered, or divided into parts. In this case, the man's family coat of arms is in the upper left quarter (as you look at the coat of arms) and lower right, while the woman's family's arms are in the other two quarters.
Shields are generally "read" like a book, starting at the upper eft, going across and then down. This system seems to be very complex and is not very popular in the rest of the Old World.

A coat of arms can have several parts. The main part is a shield, which can have a crest above it, a motto, and animals supporting the shield. This article will deal only with shields.

The "blazon" was a description of the shield in words, using a special vocabulary. The terms used in heraldry are similar toa kind of old Bretonnian. The idea is that a shield can be described by one expert in heraldry so that another expert could draw it correctly without ever seeing it. To draw the coat of arms from the description is to "emblazon" it.