Oaths

Creating Oaths
Oaths can be done in three categories. Societal Oaths are those sworn to the Courts and the Freehold. Personal Oaths are sworn between Motleys and Individuals. Hostile Oaths against another are sworn to the Wyrd. Each group has limits on the Benefits and Consequences that can be applied, as discussed below.

Societal Oaths
Freeholds and Courts

The Freehold Oath is limited by the amount of Courts bound to it +1. Each Court provides its Bargain, but additional blessings can be applied. Some Sample ones are below. Other options must be discussed with the STs but should roughly align with the below examples.

Benefits:


 * For a freehold, the changeling becomes a recognized part of the local supernatural landscape; the player receives a +1 to all rolls to navigate the Hedge wherever the freehold controls it.
 * Spring: All changelings gain 1 dot in either Allies, Contacts, or Resources
 * Summer: All changelings gain +1 to all social rolls to negatively interact with Hobs
 * Everblack: All changelings are recognized by the Hobs and gain +1 to all social rolls to positively interact with Hobs
 * Winter: All changelings gain +1 to speed

Consequences are equally limited. Breaking your Freehold Oath inflicts the Oathbreaker Condition, removes all benefits and inflicts the chosen consequences. Other options must be discussed with the STs but should roughly align with the below examples.


 * A penalty to all Contract rolls within the lands held by a forsworn leader (−3 is usually appropriate).
 * The character gains the Sick Tilt (p. 331) during the season of the court he betrayed.

Note: Leaving a Court for another Court can be found on page CtL 112 and is not considered a broken oath.

Personal Oaths
Personal Oaths are sworn between two or more changelings, but are usually divided into two categories. Motley oaths are sworn between a group of like minded changelings while individual oaths are sworn between two changelings. Only one Individual Oath can exist between any two Only one Individual Oath can exist between any two parties at a time.

Each Changeling can be in one Motley. A motley must consist of at least three changelings.

Motley Oaths can have a number of benefits equal to the number of changelings involved +1, up to a maximum of 5 benefits.

Individual Oaths on the other hand, only can choose one benefit for both people. (Additional benefits may be created with Storyteller approval)

Benefits:


 * Once per chapter, they can treat a Contract roll as a teamwork action (p. 190). All participants must possess the Contract for this to work.
 * Those involved in the oath can meditate for one turn, and distribute their collective Glamour evenly among the members; the Wyrd consumes any leftover Glamour as a tithe.
 * Once per chapter, when representing the motley, a member can use the highest relevant Social Skill possessed by any member and apply the effects of any Merit or kith blessing present in the group. The character doesn’t need the motley’s permission when representing them, but any consequences for that character’s action come down upon the motley as a whole.
 * Once per chapter, one member can suffer an injury on behalf of the other. The changeling doing so suffers all damage that his partner would have, and cannot reduce this damage through armor, magic, or any other means.
 * One member can suffer a Condition or Tilt meant for the other. This has to be decided when the Condition or Tilt is levied (if an attack blinds a character, that character’s oath-mate can’t take the Blind Condition the next day), but the two changelings don’t have to be in the same place for this effect to happen. This doesn’t grant immediate, detailed knowledge of the other characters’ situations, but the changeling does consciously make the decision to take on the Tilt. For example, if one changeling is fighting with some briarwolves and would suffer the Arm Wrack Tilt, a motley member miles away could feel the wounds start to appear and choose to take on the injury herself, but she wouldn’t know where her friend was or what manner of danger he was facing. Changelings can’t suffer Clarity Conditions on each other’s behalf.
 * Once per chapter, the changelings can choose to swap their Glamour or Willpower pools. This doesn’t affect their Willpower dots or maximums, merely the points. Once swapped, the changelings are stuck with those new ratings until they naturally rise or fall (or until the next chapter, when the characters can swap them again).
 * Changelings bound by an Oath can always find each other. If one is in the depths of the Hedge, hiding in a new city, or even, some say, among the dead in the Underworld, the other party can seek him out. This doesn’t change the time required or the trials endured to seek out the other member, but the oath allows unerring tracking.
 * Changelings bound by an Oath can form a shared dreamspace that they can choose to go to when asleep. The Bastion of the dreamspace is set to the highest fortification rating of the motley members, calculated independently. The eidolons and props would be separate to each dreamer with a mingled area that everyone can go to. Interacting with these eidolons targets that specific dreamer.
 * Additional Subject to ST approval
 * Guidelines: A 1 point general merit or a specialty in a skill.

Consequences:


 * Social penalties or the Notoriety Condition (p. 343) with members of the betrayed group or court.
 * Feeling the pain of one’s former friends; any wound penalties a former motley member suffers also apply to the oathbreaker, to a maximum of −3.
 * The character suffers a −3 to Initiative (p. 182) if he enters an action scene against a member of his former motley.
 * Breaking a formal oath is a breaking point for changelings (p. 104), so some motleys simply let Clarity sort out the consequences.
 * Additional Subject to ST approval
 * Guidelines: Reversal of benefits, non-persistent physical conditions.

Hostile Oaths
Hostile oaths indicate undying enmity between two parties. Once the oath is sworn, the participants must remain enemies. Hostile oaths usually don’t last very long, as the characters swearing them often fight to the death shortly after doing so. Hostile oaths don’t carry much in the way of mechanical benefit, except that a character involved in one never suffers a clarity breaking point when defeating their enemy. A participant gains a point of Willpower during any scene in which he wounds or inconveniences his enemy.

Violating a hostile oath is rare, since, again, they don’t tend to last long enough. It does happen, though, that in the midst of a fight, a changeling has a change of heart or learns some heretofore-unknown piece of in- formation that renders the enmity moot. The Wyrd, of course, does not care. The changeling must carry out the letter of the oath, or become marked as an oathbreaker.