My name passed! My device didn't.

Just a quick update to say that my name has passed, so Aritê gunê Akasa is official now! Yay! My device, however, did not. It was not due to any mistakes in the blazon or emblazon; it was due to conflict which shouldn't really be a conflict.

A weird thing about rule sets is that they can be fantastic and thorough but the way they interact, occasionally things that should work don't. My submitted device unfortunately conflicted with something that it would not visually conflict with, which is what the rules are set up to avoid. The color scheme for my device and the registered badge are the same. I have ordinaries in point, the already-registered device has ordinaries in fess. This arrangement, while blazoned in SCA heraldry, is not always done in period heraldry and can be displayed either way when a specific arrangement is not given, so no CDs there. Both armorial pieces have an overall charge. My charge is animate, the registered one is inanimate. This means that even though I get a CD for a change in the type of overall charge, I don't get a CD for attitude because the animate charge can't be in the inanimate charge's attitude and vice-versa. 

A commenter on Oscar had mentioned trying to get a LoPtC, or Letter of Permission to Conflict (though now I'm not so sure that actually happened), but either the people could not be reached or did not want to give it. The registered badge is actually for a baronial order, so if it was the case that they didn't want to give a letter, I can't fault them for that decision.

I'm not angry or anything; it's just one of those unfortunate rare cases. Now I just need to figure out how I want to alter my device to get one more CD.

In the SCA, a common way to do this is to add something like a bordure, orle, or chief. I don't really want to do that... Making my overall charge face the opposite direction might work, but I'm not left-handed, which is the medieval reason for making something face to sinister. I could flip my ordinares so they point the other way, but I don't like the way that looks. Perhaps I could change the number of ordinaries?

On the plus side, it was pointed out to me by HL Caoimhin McKee that my ordinaries would be closer together in period than I drew them, so it's a chance for me to make my device more period. It's also an opportunity for me to fix the animal's tail...I'm probably the only one who cares, but I made it look like a closely-related animal's tail rather than the blazoned animal. And to use different line weights on the animal, since I didn't think of that before submitting it.

EDIT: I've come up with the new design! I'll be handing the paperwork off to the Shire herald on Sunday. And I actually like it more with these modifications.  Now that I know how to conflict check (hm...I should post about this), I did that and nothing came up. I'd also be the first person in the SCA to have a particular motif on my armory, so I'm printing off the appropriate bits from the period roll of arms I found it on. I should do a post on how to design a device too...