Editing Heraldry (section)

===Tinctures===
Traditional real-world heraldry limits the number of tinctures to two metals (''argent'' for white and ''or'' for gold), five colours (''gules'' for red, ''[[sable]]'' for black, ''azure'' for blue, ''vert'' for green, and ''purpure'' for purple), and two furs (''[[ermine]]'' and ''[[vair]]''), and limits how these tinctures can be placed together. Westeros instead uses a much larger palette, makes no distinction between metals and colours, and describes tinctures using simple English words instead of heraldic vocabulary. Real-world heraldry follows the [[w:Rule of Tincture|rule of tincture]], which dictates that "metals" may not be placed over other metals, and "colours" may not be placed over other colours. While this rule is sometimes broken in real-world heraldry, it is altogether absent in Westeros and many houses have arms that would violate the rule of tincture:

<gallery>
File:House Waynwood.svg|Black on green ([[House Waynwood]])
File:House Kettleblack.svg|Black on red ([[House Kettleblack]])
File:House Chyttering.svg|Gold on white ([[House Chyttering]])
</gallery>

Furs are also used in [[Westeros]] heraldry:

<gallery>
File:House Rosby.svg|Ermine ([[House Rosby]])
File:House Harte.svg|Vair ([[House Harte]])
</gallery>

In traditional heraldry no distinction is made between white, silver and light grey, which are all named "argent".  Likewise, both gold and yellow are called "or". In Westeros, white, grey, and silver are treated as distinct tinctures and can be used together on a coat of arms: 

<gallery>
File:House Stark.svg|A [[direwolf]] grey on white ([[House Stark]])
File:House Slate.svg|Pale grey, a double tressure white ([[House Slate]])
File:House Pyle.svg|A grey iron greathelm on white ([[House Pyle]])
File:House Footly.svg|A field of silver caltrops on black ([[House Footly]])
</gallery>

Many of the available blazons of Westerosi coats of arms are notable in their lack of detail; for instance the blazon for the coat of arms of [[House Blanetree]] (''maple leaves, green and brown, strewn on a field of yellow'') fails to tell us how many maple leafs the shield should have, and gives only the vaguest indication of how they should be placed. In some cases the blazons manifest in quite poor designs rendering them of little use for recognition on the battlefield, for example:

<gallery>
File:House_Blanetree.svg|[[House Blanetree]]
File:House Hayford.svg| fields "bleed" into each other ([[House Hayford]])
File:House Lynderly.svg| complex and low-contrast ([[House Lynderly]])
</gallery>

For practical reasons, traditional heraldry uses a very limited set of [[w:Tincture (heraldry)|tinctures]]; it was not always practical or possible to reproduce subtler color variations in the numbers and time constraints found.  Besides, coats of arms are meant to be recognizable from far away and are often employed in shields and other pieces of equipment that are subject to abuse, neglect and disrepair.  Even today, many pigments show some degree of color degradation, often severe, when consistently exposed to sun rays, rain and other influences. This limited palette is not the case in the Seven Kingdoms, where heraldic descriptions include ambiguous or subtle colors such as:

<gallery>
File:Dunk.svg|'sunset' (eg. [[Duncan the Tall]])
File:House Sparr.svg| 'oak' ([[House Sparr]])
File:House Volmark.svg|very variable tones such as 'grey' ([[House Volmark]])
File:House Reed.svg|'grey-green' ([[House Reed]])
</gallery>

The use of physical material descriptions like 'oak', 'masonry' or 'sand' in Martin's heraldic descriptions also complicates matters because it is uncertain whether these refer to a specific shade or to an attempt to actually represent these materials pictorially, such as painting the grain of the oak or the bricks of the masonry. Such detail would seem difficult to render on fabric surfaces such as flags, surcoats or the livery of men-at-arms or servants. This however reflect the real world use of the tincture "proper".