So, these may require a bit of explanation.
I am currently planning a story setting, a small archipelago with a local lord and a set of knights to
set up a protection racket protect the people. Iron is not naturally found in the area, so they only have a fixed amount brought in from overseas, which is primarily used in the steel swords that are the weapons and heraldry of the knights. There are three major divisions in this heraldry - the first is the descendants of 'native' families, of which no religion survives save for a respect for nature, so their heraldry tends to be related to natural resources or forces. The second wave was an invasion a century or so ago that subjugated the larger nation the archipelago is part of, with some islands given over to the invaders, who believe in animal spirit guides. Third came a new religion, worshipping human achievement, which spread rapidly and uses the primary symbol of a hand. Then there are some scattered exceptions.
Something to note is that I sketched these right to left, as I tend to do, being left handed.
These are the first sketches I did, with snake-themed heraldry. I wanted to incorporate the forked tongue somehow, and so tried a couple of methods (it is difficult to make out, but the end of the middle one has a slight fork engraving). I am leaning towards the right hand design out of these.
The design on the right is geyser inspired, which I was immediately happy with. On the other hand, after four designs for an owl-themed sword on the left, I still did not feel happy, but was not sure what to change.
Fairly straightforward, a few seashell designs on the right (one rather shaky admittedly) and a volcano-inspired sword breaker on the left. It struck me that steel swords against bronze may actually make sword breakers capable of living up to their name a little better.
A tortoise katar on the right (with an outer and inner view), potentially with a scissor function hiding an inner poisoned blade (which have historical precedent). On the left, I first experimented with a wind design, before settling on minimalist moon heraldry for a pair of smallswords.
Dragons on the right, shark on the left. Once again, I am still unsure about the dragons, but was very happy with the shark immediately.
I did not like my first rat design on the far right, but am quite happy with the 'Rat King' sword I did next. Of course, the tang continues uninterrupted through the ring, as to do otherwise would be to badly weaken the blade. On the left are three squid designs that I remain unconvinced by, though I am leaning towards the cinquedea on the far left.
Paired crab swords on the right, palm tree on the left. Nothing too special, though I prefer the latter design.
Fishhook/anchor and ship designs on the right, religious hand-based designs on the left. I think I will keep all three of the latter, as I quite like all of them, and that gave me the idea for the earlier lore.
