John Howe’s three swans, Valruin’s three crows, and now three pigeons; I’m not entirely sure why birds seem to naturally stack this way. Unless all of aviandum is conspiring to stop me from being squashed by the Bozeman of course.
This is a classic example of calligramancer heraldry. Though as such, there is not a great deal one can learn from it just at present, but I shall attempt. The calligramancers devised their own form of heraldry centuries ago, and while there are perhaps more written records pertaining to this particular sect’s history than any other, all these records were taken down by members thereof. So it is hardly surprising that perusal of said histories is one of the more dangerous home occupations.
According to Clarinda Hemp’s notes on the subject, the central figure often denotes something “roughly equivalent to a personal familiar, though not exactly, actually not very like at all.” The figure positioned directly above it seems to act as a modifier of some sort to the central figure; I believe it serves as a technical notation regarding the thing’s exact nature to other calligramancers, but I am uncertain to the symbol’s exact meaning.
The outer symbols are less mysterious, if they are indeed examples of Baldwin’s Stars, the “nasty, pointy ink blots of death” Clarinda wrote about. These exist as a sort of numerical code; a trio in a coat of arms signifies that the bearer used his arts to rendered military service to crown.
-Ophelia Himmle, The Search for Guppy