Let the Artists Color

over near Camelot and far Carbonek,
over the Perilous Sell, the See of union,
the phosphor of Percivale’s philosophical star shines.
Lancelot’s lion, bewildered by the smell of adoration,
roars round Guinevere’s lordly body.
Merlin defines, in blazons of the brain,
shield upon shield, station upon station;
and the roads resound with the galloping lords Charles Williams, Taliesin Through Logres

In particular, let them color coats of arms.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never filled in a “Portrait” section on a character sheet. I’m not much of an artist. Most players I’ve played with haven’t done much with it either¹. I think it’s a tough field to have for what seems to be a pretty limited audience².

But in this game, everyone has a coat of arms³ - and these are much less exacting to draw. So I’m littering the sheets with areas meant to be filled in not with words but colors.

It’s Easy Identification

I also don’t have the common “Player Name” field on the sheets - because with a big burst of color how would you mistake one for another?

The similarities between a family line across different character sheets, or of a shared liege lord, also can immediately “pop” from the page - which all reinforces that…

It’s a Visual Anchor Point

It’s hard to always have a visual reference for the appearance of every character⁴ and with a lot of them wandering around, players often want some help keeping track of the ones that matter.

With coats of arms, you can do this relatively quickly and easily. And…

That’s Authentic

First, the Middle Ages were vibrantly colorful - something that often gets downplayed in modern depictions of medieval fantasy.

But also - this is all the point of heraldry. The itch to divide by into tribalism by what icons are on the shields - to quickly vibe friend or foe - to know a name by what colors they identify with easier than their face (or the face of whoever is in their stead), is… the point. To be able to put the players in the character’s shoes this way so easily is a great trick. But also…

Artists Love It

Those without a lot of talent can still see a bright colorful patch that’s theirs - the floor is very low to enjoyment - while there’s plenty of ceiling for someone who wants to keep going back and decorating things a little more.

Footnotes

1. Even in virtual campaigns or with form-fillable sheets. ↩

2. Not just people who want to draw their character - but want to draw it on a messy and maybe temporary sheet usually in a cramped area. I’ve had players show me lovely drawings of characters… on other sheets of paper. ↩

3. Some of that is an anachronism, but one I’m willing to excuse. ↩

4. There are some tricks to use - I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of Crusader Kings III’s character creation because it’s the right era and the game doesn’t have a lot of orcs or other hard-to-match things. But there’s a lot of characters and many won’t be pre-prepped just for visual display. Also characters age, get sick, change clothes, change emotions… and trying to express all that character vibe in an image starts to get Sisyphusian. ↩