Dark Elf colors and heraldry question.

[Beastlord Rakarth]

I'm sure this has been discussed extensively, but I haven't found anything useful after searching this site and on the Internet using search terms such as heraldry, city colors, symbols, etc.

I currently own the 4th and 8th edition Dark Elves army books, so likely missed quite a bit (for example, the 7th edition Empire book seemed much more straightforward about provincial colors than the 8th edition book). I'm wondering what the color schemes and common symbols are of each great city, beyond what is found within the 8th edition book. At this point, I'm mostly leaning toward Naggarond or Hag Graef since I like the (unoriginal) purple scheme...although I think I've read somewhere that Hag Graef's scheme is black, but that does not seem to be the case in the army book.

Also, which city uses the serpent symbol?

[Thraundil]

There are actually not a lot of heraldry in the 7th edition DE book...

Hag Graef is the lair of Malus Darkblade, and every lord or lady that hails from the city ultimately answers to him. Since he aspires to take Malekiths throne more or less openly, I'd say that him using the royal purple makes sense.

In either case, I think the serpent symbol is either Karond Kar, lair of beastmasters and slaves, or maybe Clar Karond, the big war port. I'm not 100% on which one, I must admit.

[Daeron]

There never has been a clearly defined heraldy for Dark Elves in any of the books I have read (which is every army book, darkblade novels and the sundering collection).
There are, however, snippets here and there when the dark elves are described. Perhaps we could make some work on collecting those... But it would be an elaborate effort.

There are quite some shield and banner designs in the latest End Times: Khaine book, which displays the shields and banners of each unit in some of the epic battles.
This one does give a few designs.

Malus Darkblade's shield, and therefor that of Hag Graef, is a purple shield with a blad sea serpent.

Malekith's shield design is similar, according to the book, except it displays a black dragon (only its neck and head, no wings) on a purple shield instead of a serpent. His black guard continue on the logo by adding white manes to the dragon's head.

Karond Kar shows no clear symbol in the book. Regiments with beastmasters and monsters usually have symbols of harpies or hydras to mark them.