Umbral Domains: DA Fae Tailored Oaths

Tailored Oaths

Technical Discussion

Some of the Oath and Baptism discussions recently have gotten me thinking about how Oaths relate to the Echo system.

In general Oaths are treated as a panacea against Echoes, protecting a given fae with Echoes from any source that happen to be used against her. But this seems a little bit of a broad brush to me.

I know that technically it's not the contents of an Oath but it's very existence that connects fae to humanity and provides them protection. Still I like to think that a fae could be linked to certain aspects of humanity through an oath while still being quite divorced from other aspects.

Game Details

"Tailored Oaths" are oaths which protect fae from echoes generated by particular sources while being useless against other sorts of echoes. The primary example of such sources are religious echoes, although other categories of echo can be used as well as long as there are a relatively large "in" and "out" groups associated with a particular echo (ie. echoes a particular community uses, or protective taboos and rituals a given tribe uses as echoes).

With tailored Echoes a fae can make an oath with a shaman to uphold specific religious tenants, undertake a form of religious service, or protect members of the shaman's group. The oath then gives double the dice in protection when mortals try to use symbols or invocations of that particular shaman's religious tradition as Echoes against the fae. But the oath gives no protection when characters try to other unrelated Echoes against the fae.

For example say an inanime makes a stone oath to a Christian bishop to the extent that the fae will promise aid to any mortals who hail it in the name of Christ so long as said mortals keep the commandments of loving God and neighbor. Participating in this oath gives the fae 6 dice (2x the normal 3 dots for this stone oath) against Echoes related to Christianity. However, the oath will be useless if the fae encounters a human wearing a wreath of garlic as an attempted Echo.

Note: When employing these rules be careful. Tailored Oaths should protect from categories somewhat greater than 1 Echo, but should not cover more than half the Echoes a Fae is likely to encounter. Any Oath that covers the clear majority of all Echoes should not be treated as a Tailored Oath for purposes of game balance.

--Peter K. 19:08, 11 June 2006 (PDT)