GREAT HOUSES, ARMS, PENNANTS, AND INSIGNIA. Throughout the history of the Imperium, distinctive devices identifying members of the Great Houses served several purposes; how long the practice endured shews how important the nobility considered those purposes. First, a coat of arms was the signal mark of noble status. It displayed both the owner's distinction and individuality-no other in the known worlds bore the same arms. Second, the coat was hereditary, and therefore proved descent from an ancestry that had achieved greatness, or at least notoriety. Third, when a figure or color from the coat was used as a badge by retainers, soldiers, or servitors, the association with the House was clear for all to see. The origin of coats of arms is lost in the past. They were certainly used before the Imperium, and may derive from Terra itself. The names of the colors alone, unchanged in ten thousand years, prove the antiquity of the custom; what language they derive from no one can say. The approved colors are: or (yellow or gold), argent (silver), gules (red), azure (blue; compare The Azhar Book), sable (black), vert (green), pwpure (compare modern Galach parfal), tennt (orange), and murrey (dark red). Heraldry, the system of describing coats of arms, has a unique syntax, quicker illustrated than explained. Here, for example, is the blazon, or verbal description, of the arms of House Corrino: "White a lion sejant guar-dant erect or." That is, on a white field, a yellow or gold Son, seated facing the viewer. Here are the arms of the more powerful Great Houses. The illustrations should clarify any doubt caused by unfamiliar terminology House Alman: Gules on an eagle displayed wings inverted white, beaked and armed or, a shield or with heart of the first (i.e., with a heart of the first color named), GREAT HOUSES, INSIGNIA 276 GREAT HOUSES, INSIGNIA House Atreides. Sable a falcon's head couped gules encircled by laurel branches vert. House Kemic: Party per chevron or and vert (a field of yellow overlaid with green in the shape of a chevron) in chief fat the top) three bexaets gates (red circles) fesswise (horizontally), in nombri! (at bottom center) a rocket ascending argent, House Wallach Sable on a pale (a vertical band) argent, a closed book tenne" encircled by a serpent vert. House Wikkheiser. Azure an anchor or between alpha and omega white GREAT HOUSES, INSIGNIA 277 GREAT HOUSES, INSIGNIA House Ophelion: Party per cross on 1 and 4 vert a lozenge (diamond) argent, on 2 and 3 or a cross formy sable.