Rem and Coyote blood oaths

The Lore.
Long ago Mayii and Sin'kelip created a method of making pacts with mortals that could be used as a method of instruction. The coyotes used these pacts with wisdom and passed them on as a heritage to all their spiritual progeny. The oath is made between a human and a coyote, or between two humans and overseen by the coyote. The oath can be to do, or not to do anything but violating your word always comes at a price.

In Rems hands
When Rem leaned about blood pacts it was by instinct from the coyote used to make his soul. He entered into one with Dalvar promising never to torture anyone. Though it was worded as a maladictive act, failure to keep his word would result in a loss of his power.

How it works.
After cutting open the palms of both people entering the oath Rem has the oath maker speak the words by which they will be bound. They are very literal (for example if someone made a pact to never to ask another person to kill them again, and during a particularly bad play asked a friend to shoot them and put them out of their misery they would trigger the pact inadvertently.) The punishment is less literal, usually ironic and intended to teach a lesson, and is rarely permanent. Usually it is emotional aspects that are lost, like courage, or bravado, but it all depends on what is sworn to be given up if the oath is broken.

Canceling a Pact
In order to cancel a pact the pact holder must return the blood of the oath maker. This blood must be the blood that was given at the time the two opened hands were clasped and the oath sworn. It takes delicate magic (or a bonafide coyote devil) to extract the blood.

The basic idea I like but the mechanics leave some thing way too open and lock other things down like a badly written DnD scenario.

How it works
Okay the cutting I know from movies and actual lore. Only in the movies would anyone cut a hand. Historically it was a cut on the back of the forearm. Less chance of impairing either oath maker and easy to both keep clean and show that a blood oath made. So this is more of a nitpick than anything else.

The ambiguous nature of what constitutes a punishment and how it is determined will cause some people to cry god-XXXX.
To be fair I request that you elaborate on how you will determine these penalties and the limits that will be placed on them.
-= heh - I just envisioned the wheel of penalties from the penalty game in the WB toon "Early to bet" =-

Cancel the pact
I highly doubt that this curse, put out by a minor demon, is so all powerful that it can't be broken by other means holy or damned or just plain death.

Captincrunch wrote:The basic idea I like but the mechanics leave some thing way too open and lock other things down like a badly written DnD scenario.

How it works
Okay the cutting I know from movies and actual lore. Only in the movies would anyone cut a hand. Historically it was a cut on the back of the forearm. Less chance of impairing either oath maker and easy to both keep clean and show that a blood oath made. So this is more of a nitpick than anything else.

The ambiguous nature of what constitutes a punishment and how it is determined will cause some people to cry god-XXXX.
To be fair I request that you elaborate on how you will determine these penalties and the limits that will be placed on them.
-= heh - I just envisioned the wheel of penalties from the penalty game in the WB toon "Early to bet" =-

Cancel the pact
I highly doubt that this curse, put out by a minor demon, is so all powerful that it can't be broken by other means holy or damned or just plain death.

How it works:
The place cut is, you are right, less important what is important is the flowing of blood between the two people. It's just more cinematic for the cut on the palm, hands have a lot of symbolic power after all.

The penalty will be determined between Myself and the other player/players. But I figure both would have a good idea of what would happen before a penalty situation would arrise as part of the oath what is at stake is stated. An examples of a full oaths would be.
"On my power, I promise never to poke chuckie in the chest with a 10 foot pole." Here the emotonal qualties of the character like courage would be docked (as without courage the power might as well be lost), and the lost courage added to the person who they made the promise to. The lost courage of course will come back as they practice this quality, and atrophy in the other character as they don't practice it to that level. But for a time one character would be cringeing behind their friends, and the other would act like super man.

Cancel the pact:
It's not that it's all powerful, but using another means like asking another god, being reborn into a new body, or asking another devil/demon to lift it would be like calling in a lawyer to help get out of a contract. Sure you can get out of the contract without paying the person you signed that contract with, but didn't you just pay more to your lawyer than it would have cost to cancle it, or more painful than fulfilling it? I didn't mean that there was only one way out of the pact, just one way to cancel it, like a cellphone contract (Many ways out, one way to cancle early). The other means are not a cancleation but a negation. You were smart to notice these ways out. Much like moving to an area where your celluar provider has only roaming coverage, or moving out of country will let you out of a celluar contract for free, are never mentioned anywhere on the contract itself, I thought it wise to ommit a few details for getting out of the contracts lest those be abused.

So aside from bringing attention back to this one... This to me seems mostly like a superstitious kind of thing mostly. What I mean by this is more times then not if the pact is broken the pactee ends up with a string of bad luck kind of thing. Or some kind of flaw that inhabits their everyday actions. For example a mage, while normally able to cast without any difficulty, has there spells just sort of fizzle out a lot. This effect of course would vary based on the individual. Another example take my character Duckie who normally very energetic and eager with the ladies might find himself fatigued or not so smooth with the female persuasion. Does that kind of some it up a bit?

-as if over a PA system- Paging Dr. Rem you are needed in the human resources department...

Sorry about that Kaye, wasn't sure how to respond. Yes it uses a persons own psyche against them, no that isn't the whole of it. In much the same way as as how while Slavery was a key issue in the American Civil War it was not the only one. While the oath takes or perhaps blocks emotional qualities, it does not permentaly harm. Someone having lost their courage might cowar when people get mad and hide behind friends but they are still who they are and the things that gave them courage before still will they just need to relearn it.

Litteraly the person under the effects mind makes it worse than it is. I suppose this could be likened unto the passing of a kidney stone: painful, tormenting, but temerary and it feels worse than it is.

blue binning for inactivity