I'm not sure how the crest will work, but I have heard it said that you will be able to change your name using a contract with the "government" at some level. So even if your family dies off you should be able to pick up a new name. I would imagine that a good blacksmith or someone will be able to make crests and a coat of arms. The danger with a limited size family is losing your inheritance. Adding on to your question, can you change your name to an existing (or previously existing) family name?

Kelipski, that raises another question altogether! If you can change your family name, does that automatically make you ineligible to inherit from your original family? If you change your name to an existing family name, I'm sure all sorts of legal and ethical issues arise.

About the Crests - are they simply items that have no bearing on the actual family itself, or is your family's crest "registered" to the Kingdom? I would imagine the latter, but I never considered that a Crest might just be a decorative item. I presumed you'd see your custom crest on anything related to your family name, in character creation, looking at bloodlines, all that sort of thing.

EDIT: typo

Caelestius, personally if one of my children changed their names I would assumed they are disowning the family and therefore forfeit any claim to family wealth.

So the question for that is, are contracts enforceable if one of the parties changes their name from the one listed in a contract?

It would have to be. Legally changing your name in real life is an extremely complex process, and it certainly doesn't free you from any preexisting legal agreements or documents. I'd imagine it's much the same in Elyria.

I would like to see an answer to this question. I do not plan to nor have I pledged to a bloodline package, but I do, eventually, plan to change my surname legally in-game to start my own family line eventually. I'm sure the devs/mods know the answer to said questions.

Any Devs or Mods out there wanna help this poor man out?

It has been said that there will be opportunities to change your surname in game but usually by deed. For example; kill all the sheep in a county and you have earnt the right to call yourself Grim Sheepbane.

Or a more likely one would be Smith for progressing to some level of Blacksmithing.

Posted By ZeroCool at 5:51 PM - Wed May 17 2017

It has been said that there will be opportunities to change your surname in game but usually by deed. For example; kill all the sheep in a county and you have earnt the right to call yourself Grim Sheepbane.

Or a more likely one would be Smith for progressing to some level of Blacksmithing.

I pity the farmer who manages to spread nightsoil over every field in the county.