@fragmented_imagination: Not gonna lie, my first thought rehosting these has been "Will it pass Sanders' inspection?" ;p The badge itself is a paint job on the OG emblem; I went in trying to bridge Kemetic symbolism with contemporary aesthetics, and it sounds like it worked. The SVG remaster changes the shield a bit (I never found a vector version and made do with what I could scrounge online), but at least it's now properly symmetrical.
Black Guard badge by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)
Unit insignia of the Black Guard, designed for Imperium Offtopicum XIV; work began all the way back in April of last year, only for me to sit on it until earlier today. The schematic is loosely based on the badge of the Egyptian Republican Guard. If my Internet translation service is to be believed, the text reads: "Defending the Faith".
Originally created for ATEN (and the foundation upon which I crafted my player country), the Black Guard was an elite and secretive unit of the Holy Egyptian Republic, and subsequently the United Arab Republic. In ATEN it is literally mythological, tracing its origin to sponsorship by the Old Gods, and was intended to serve as a national 'superweapon' of sorts before Tanicius all but admitted magic was just to flavour the setting and had no qualitative impact on gameplay.
In IOT XIV, it is formed under the UAR from the mutated survivors of the atomic bombing of Cairo in 2106. As in ATEN the Guard was envisioned as a cadre of super-soldiers, but I never managed to properly narrate its development. While in this game its mystical connotations are now strictly symbolic, they are also delectably poetic: variably out of government secrecy or personal request, the unit's recruits are registered as legally dead, and they adopt personae of sorts as guardians of the afterlife. There is also a much greater human angle to the XIV origin: the introductory tract is rife with the eternal quandaries of faith and being, and had the game lasted longer I'd intended a long-arc story centred on this character's career.
UPDATE 3-9-22: Downloadable vector available in the SVG Legacy Flag Pack!
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Everyone
Class:
Finished Work
Submitted:
1y108d ago
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Posted: Tuesday, 01 August, 2023 @ 12:05 AM
@Thorvald: I smelled the Arabic, so I had to go look. 😁
Posted: Monday, 31 July, 2023 @ 10:09 PM
@Warehouse_Rabbit: I'm subverting more expectations than Rian Johnson B^D
I specifically aimed for a 'midnight' aesthetic to evoke the Guard's role as a shadow army. Plus as per the Hero Forge mockups, it makes for better camouflage. :B
I love the design of the Arabic letters; it looks quite authentic to a number of logos and insignia that I've seen from Arabic-speaking countries.