Outlands College of Heralds

Welcome to the heraldic submissions website for the Outlands!

Electronic Payment | Submission Forms | Submissions Tracking | Submissions to Castle | Articles by Outlanders | Other Resources

The acting Gold Castle Herald, our internal submissions herald and responsible for the Letter of Presentation, is currently Magister AEthelwulf munec. Contact Gold Castle if you find a typo on the Letter of Presentation or are a local herald inquiring about the status of a submission.

The Rampart Herald, our external submissions herald who makes kingdom level decisions and produces the Letter of Intent and the Letter of Response, is currently THL Khalidah bint Yahya'a. Contact Rampart if you have a question about the status of your submission (and can't find it through the Submissions Tracking page), have commentary on submissions, want more information about a decision made on your submission, if you are a submissions herald from another kingdom with a submitter who previously submitted through us, etc.

The Besom Herald, our notifications herald and sends out the official notification about decisions on your submissions, is currently Gold Castle Herald. Contact Besom if you know that a decision has been made, but have not yet gotten your notification letter; it may take several weeks for a letter to be drafted and sent. Note: The former notifications backlog has been completed. Notifications are currently up to date, and should appear in your email when an item appears in the LoAR. Please print the email when you receive it as no further notifications will be sent as a physical letter.

Electronic Payment

The Kingdom of the Outlands now accecpts PayPal for electronic payment of submissions fees. Submissions forms must still go through a local group, but if you are interested in using PayPal, please reach out to the Kingdom Exchequer's PayPal Deputy via this form, letting them know how many new items are being sumbitted, and they will send a PayPal invoice for the amount due. Once the payment clears the Kingdom PayPal account, a confirmation will be sent to the submitter, their branch herald, and to Gold Castle. Branch heralds will include the confirmed payment on the Branch Payment form as usual.

Submissions Tracking

Track submissions through the Submissions Tracking page. It is organized by month of the internal Letter (the Letter of Presentation). For an overview of the path submissions take through the process, check out the "Life of a Submission".

Submission forms

These are the current Outlands College of Heralds submission forms. Any alteration of the forms is grounds for return, and any submissions using older forms will be returned.

The fillable-form .pdf versions can be filled in electronically with either the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or the free Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader will also allow you to save the filled-in form. Unfortunately, neither version will allow you to include the images.

Submissions to Gold Castle

All submissions must be routed through an Outlands Local Submissions Herald. This includes heraldic submissions prepared at Pennsic, Estrella, and other events outside the Kingdom. The Local Submissions Heralds should know and understand the submissions process and requirements, and are the first step in checking and perfecting submissions. The Outlands Heraldic Roster lists the contact information for the Local Submissions Heralds in the Kingdom. Submitters who are unable to locate a Local Submissions Herald should contact White Staga> for assistance.

Submissions sent to Gold Castle should meet the following requirements:

All submissions are sent electronically to Gold Castle at castle@outlandsheralds.org. A complete submission consists of single copy of each form and accompanying documentation, scanned as a 300 DPI 8.5x11 inch JPG. PDF documents and anything other than 300 DPI 8.5x11 inch JPGs will not be accepted. A 300 DPI 8.5x11 inch JPG will have a resolution of 2550x3300 pixels. Submissions should follow the instructions on the forms. OSCAR can only accept five pages of attached documentation for each item or form submitted. Gold Castle will discard any pages beyond the first five.

Submission fees are $5/new item (name, device, badge, etc.). Fees are submitted to the Exchequer of the branch processing the submission, or via electronic submissions as detailed above. The local Exchequer submits payment for each month's heraldic submissions directly to the Kingdom Exchequer. The payment process is documented on the Branch Payment Record, which is to be completed in full and sent with the monthly payment to the Kingdom Exchequer. A completed Branch Payment Form containing all of the requested information must also be received by Gold Castle before the items on that Payment Form will move forward.

Resubmissions of returned items do not require payment of a submissions fee; however, the Local Submissions Herald must document the return information for the resubmission either on the submission forms or in the email containing the resubmission. This information should be sufficient to quickly find the original submission or the return. "Returned on the Month 20YY Lo(R or AR)" is the expected format for this information. Castle will internally pend any resubmission that does not include sufficient return documentation.

Gold Castle requires an electronic text copy of the Name Documentation and Consultation Notes (the bottom block on the bottom of the name submission forms) and an electronic text copy of any summary attachments intended to replace or supplement the name write-up on the submission form. This also includes supplemental documentation provided with device or badge submissions. Submissions not accompanied by the required electronic text copies will be internally pended until this information is received by Gold Castle. Including this information in the body of an email to Castle is the easiest way to do this.

(The electronic text copies are needed to facilitate the preparation of the Letter of Presentation and the Letter of Intent. These letters include a summary of the information provided on the submission forms. Without a cut-and-pastable copy of this information, Castle and/or Rampart are forced to transcribe/retype the documentation notes. With the proliferation of internet-based documentation sources, and the increasing inclusion of long URLs in the documentation notes, Castle and Rampart are no longer willing to transcribe documentation notes. Submitters and local heralds are strongly encouraged to look at previous Letters of Presentation and Letters of Intent to gain an understanding of the type of information and format needed in submission summaries/notes.)

Internally pended items and the reasons for the pends will be listed in the footers of the Letters of Presentation. Items that are listed as "pended on three consecutive Letters of Presentation without resolution will be administratively returned on following Letter.

Articles by Outlanders

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