There are some massively ugly, boring, dull emblems out there and if it's going to cost you a million gold and 20k gp, it ought to look nice. I won't repeat for the billionth time how to apply one in game but I will tell 3 nice tips to design them quickly and awesomely. First, you can technically get a whole ton of nearly 16x16 bitmaps by downloading a demo of the old but good Avernum games by Spiderweb Software here:
Spiderweb's site I'm quite partial towards Avernum #3 because I played Exile 3, the old version...anyway, after installation you'll find in C:/Avernum 3/data/ hundreds of image files like these:
wow, it's like their paid graphics design experts did the work for you! You can totally pick one that would look nice and give it a background and tada
If you are going to rip off someone else's art though, you might find Clic from Blaiz Enterprises a nice free tool. Check it out here:
Blaiz's homepage It actually was built to make icon files, not bitmaps, but you can just click copy then open up paint and click paste and it's there in all its 16x16 glory. It's a very very very fast way to preview something on the screen at 16x16 then swipe it. You just click the little hand and drag it overtop whatever like this:
That one would be horrendously gay and ugly for your emblem but I'm sure you could find something much better from Avernum. Of course, what emblem is complete without a not-one-color background. There's always the
online gradient generator, though you have to shrink it a little. So now you're all set but if you're feeling artistically inept and reeeeeeally need a totally bitchin beyond words, pimped out, awesome, flashy, best on the server emblem designed, I might be able to see what I can do if you e-mail me at desolator144 at new.rr.com (I say at instead of @ because that's how spammers find your e-mail addresses online)
