Still mulling over how to represent champions, musicians and banner bearers.
For standard bearers:
Vertical banner poles in samurai fashion (banners visible from the side) to stick into a hole where the saddle uses to be. Note that this is different by 90° to the original samurai things which are tangential to the spine...
For characters/champions:
Same as above, but with a cross bar at the top of the pole that will allow to hang a banner on it that can be seen from the front (GW beastman/chaos style, if you know what I mean).
For musicians:
Big drums harnessed on their backs with rods from their legs that drives the sticks which are attached with a joint to the drum´s body. Much like the one man show multi instrument street musicians do. can you imagine that?