The Submissions Process

Revised: April 15, 2024

When starting a submission, it is recommended that you talk to a herald. A herald can help you make sure that your submission follows the rules set by Laurel and that there are no items that are too close to what you want.

Individuals can submit the following items:

• Primary Society (persona) name
• Device (it is called arms after you've received your AoA)
• Alternate names
• Badges
• Household names (may be registered jointly with one other person)
• Household badges (may be registered jointly with one other person)
• Augmentation (if granted the right to one by the Crown)
• Heraldic title (if granted the right to one)

Individuals can have up to ten (10) name items registered and up to ten (10) armory items registered at a time. Neither an augmentation nor a heraldic title counts against the registration limit.

Once you have a submission, the next step is to send it in. In some kingdoms, you must send your submission in through your local herald (who will in turn send it to the submissions herald); in others, you must send your submission directly to the submissions herald.

Once the submissions herald receives your submission, the submissions herald will put it into the kingdom commentary process. This process can take from 3 to 8 weeks, depending on the kingdom; see your kingdom herald's website for specifics.

Once the kingdom commentary period is over, the kingdom submissions herald will determine if submissions should be sent to Laurel, the Society-level heraldic office, for final evaluation or should be returned because they don't follow the rules or have a conflict.

Once Laurel receives the submission, heralds in the College of Arms (CoA) spend the next two calendar months commenting on it. You can track your submission in OSCAR, our online system, here. So if your submission is received by Laurel in February, the CoA will spend whatever time is remaining in February commenting, and will comment during March and April. Laurel will make a decision on the submission in May. Each month's decisions are written up in a Letter of Acceptances and Returns (LoAR) which then goes through multiple rounds of proof-reading. Thus the LoAR can take 4-6 weeks to be published after the end of the decision month. So if your submission is decided upon in May, the LoAR for it will likely be published near the end of June or early July. No decision is final until it is published in a LoAR.

If you feel that your submission was returned in error at either the kingdom or Laurel levels, you may file an appeal. If the appeal was for a kingdom return, the kingdom will review the appeal but must forward it to Laurel for Laurel to decide on the item. If the appeal was for a Laurel return, then the Laurel team will review it again – it will not be reviewed by the same person who returned the submission.