Magical beasts

I spent a while poking wikipedia looking up heraldic animals.
... because I keep reinventing Hogwarts in my head, as you do, only with magical animals as symbols.

I looked up Unicorn Griffin Dragon
and found The Queen's Beasts
and then The King's Beasts

they include, alongside the Tudor red dragon, the Ulster black dragon
and a weird looking thingy called a Yale.

It's like a goat with boar tusks and yellow spots, and its horns can turn around so they're forwards or backwards.
It's probably an ibex that medieval bestiaries got a bit carried away with.

Also the obvious educational establishment already uses it, as well as bits of Cambridge, because a King's mother used it and donated a bunch of money.

So then I looked up Royal Badges
and even when they're not all illustrated, that is A Lot.
Dragons in gold, black, and red (with gold belly)
antelopes that seem very bitey
a griffin, a phoenix, and a spotted panther...

... panthers apparently being white, spotted in primary colors, and fire breathers.

*blinks*


The flowers are good too, with plantagenet, hawthorn, and pomegranate alongside the still ubiquitous roses.
Hawthorn in the badges is a tree, but the flowers drawn out can be lovely patterned things too.



So there's all sorts of nifty symbols to play with
but
as soon as you play with heraldry you're playing with family trees and history and stuff.

So like that lady whose support of Cambridge turned into heraldic supporters, maybe you'd be implying a connection?

You could make a whole story of royal patronage, cut off when they felt it necessary to go into Secrecy.

Or, you could make a very fakey shield, because it's not like a society in Secret would register arms with the same people, they could be the local equivalent of the SCA or a bunch of chancers trying to make themselves look good.



... I was going to use unicorns and dragons and griffins and one more, but neither yale nor fire breathing panthers are quite so famous...

Also, which dragon? Best of three?



I was noodling ideas where magical beasts are being drawn on to power magic, but since hardly anyone has anything to do with them now and most people don't even need to learn how to make the wands that connect them, people have pretty much forgotten. Wave wand, get spell. Never have to wonder about what happens to the unicorns it's exhausting.

Hair in wands, or feathers, or scales
or...



which spotty beast?



Of course on other heraldry pages there's a lot of sea things. It has been suggested this happens because you cut a shield in half and squish it together to make a married one, and sometimes there are tails, but I think it's more likely because mermaid versions of most things is funny.

Sea lions is obvious, and sea horses, but I liked sea dogs.



and already unicorns and gryphons and dragons have reptiles and birds and mammals covered, so maybe it is fishes turn.




... or, maybe no one really needs another Hogwarts, obviously.



But it was fun thinking up a story where all the symbols implied that this ages ago Edward founded the place, this new family Henry continued it, and royal involvement ended with that Mary.

... though I also discovered once again that I get Marys muddled.
oh well...



gryphons with broom and dragons with hawthorn and pomegranate somewhere...

maybe supporters...?


... does a story really need spotted panthers...
... of course it does, they're the cryptids, spotted panthers spotted again...