[NS-Heralds] Help with first client

[Marion Fitzthomas]

> From: Ashley Lewis <jaquemine at yahoo.com>
> I have my first client for name and device submission and I have a couple of questions I hope you all can help me with.

Wow, you got a tricky first client!

> The first is on the device.   My client wants an irregular star, specifically, something like the star within a compass rose but with the SW point as long as the N, E, S, & W points.  Is there a way to blazon something like this or are we better off going with an eight-pointed star and letting him draw it however he wants after the device has been registered?  If we can blazon the star, any suggestions on how I go about documenting something like this?

Unfortunately, I can think of no way to document this.  Compass stars
were not used as heraldic charges in period; and altering the compass
star in this manner would likely put it far enough away from period
practice to make it unregisterable.  (If I had to blazon it, I'd say "a
compass star with the south-west point elongated".)  If you really want
to go the route of registering it one way and then using some artistic
license, you might consider registering a plain ol' compass star, and
then drawing the point in question a little longer than the other three
lesser points but not quite as long as the four greater points.

--Marion