Oaths or vows, when magical, are self-enforcing promises. Geases are obligations or fates imposed on others. They can be muddled together. Oaths and vows are an extension of nymic magic because they are verbal and are very often done by swearing in or by a name. Geases look similar and may be combined with oaths, but may not really touch on nymic magic.
Oaths are harder to impose (take more skill or more energy) the wider the audience they address when they are broken.
A one-time alert (a "ping") is easier than durably flagging someone as an oathbreaker. If you didn't catch the one-time ping, you missed the news.
It is easier to alert someone present than someone remote. Only the caster or a designated third party can be alerted remotely.
Alerting the following people runs, easy to hard, in this order:
Ease or strength of casting is affected by:
Coercive factors make it easier to cast the oath if they are "willing" (give in), but also easier to resist, throw off, or remove it. Effectively, coercive factors make it easier for you to absolve yourself of the oath.
If you flat-out did not take the oath but they impose the command on you anyway, it is called a geas q.v..
An oath often comes with a penalty for breaking it. Example penalties, roughly in order of increasing severity and divided into three eschelons:
You cannot inflict a penalty in an oath that you could not inflict in person. Just about any nymic mage (and therefore their deputies, and therefore potentially anyone) can can set penalties in the first eschelon. You need considerably more backing for the second or third eschelons.
Inflicting penalties increases the cost/difficulty of imposing an oath, and it gets harder as the penalties get worse. How much harder? Imposing a madness penalty could drive you mad; imposing a death penalty could kill you.
Swearing an oath by or in the name of a higher power alters things somewhat.
For one thing, the force of the oath is dependent on the actual interest of the higher power:
"You know, I don't think Thoth cares a lot if you're lying to me. He hasn't been very busy for some time and I doubt he's even heard of you."
On the other hand, it leaves the penalty up to the imagination of the power invoked:
"Why, yes, I suppose that, as god of scribes, Thoth does preside over software nowadays. That might explain why your computers and phones and and streaming TV and car controls are all now bricked, you lying bastard. Oh, and as to your bank record..."
The widespread "I swear by my name" oath is low-level, as is "I give my word" and its synonyms. It pings if you lie or don't mean your promise but doesn't leave you flagged and is only noticeable to the prana-sensitive, Receptant, nymic mages, and the like who are present at the time. Trouble is, lots of people are at least a little prana sensitive.
The Grand Norman loyalty oaths to the Crown flag you when you deliberately work against the Crown's good (which need not be when you disobey: "You are not in possession of all the facts, sir, or are an idiot." Tax evasion and smuggling don't count either. Gun-running could, depending on who they are run to.) detectable by nymic mages or the Receptant in your presence.
The military oaths flag you if you are trying to make your side lose a combat, detectable by nymic mages or the receptant. They do not flag you for every infraction. This is for two reasons: (1) Such hyper-critical oaths would be very hard to "sell" and would create an instant and massive black market in illegitimate absolutions, and (2) It would keep the disciplinarians far too busy and drown serious problems in a sea of petty insubordinations.
The Dedicated Cavalry oaths about sex flag you if you, hm, violate them, and are detectable by nymic mages or the Receptant when present.
An oath with a condition of fulfillment simply stops when you fulfill it. "I promise to serve you for seven years." Seven years of service later, it's gone.
You can be absolved of an oath by the party you swore it to, or their duly appointed deputy. Grand Normans traditionally use the phrase Ego te absolvo when they do this. There's no magic in the words, but going to the effort of saying the words makes the act of will definite.
When you are absolved of an oath, it simply goes away. If you are suffering an ongoing magical penalty, it stops: the flag goes away, the psychosomatic illness ends, etc. Damage done by the penalty remains, though. So, for instance, if the penalty made you unable to eat, you don't suddenly gain back the weight you lost.
A sufficiently skilled, powerful, and persistent nymic mage can simply remove/"absolve" an oath. Their task is made easier by the same factors that made the oath harder to cast, worked in reverse.
A geas is a command put on you that you did not agree to. It is otherwise like a vow. It is much harder to impose and requires an expenditure of leaven (prana-generating capacity).
Babies are the easiest targets, because they do not and cannot resist. Hence the best-known examples of geases are the blessings or curses of good or evil fairy godmothers at christenings.
Geases are harder to cast when they are unconditional: "You will prick your finger on a needle and die!" is harder than "If you prick your finger on a needle, you will die."
Fays, jinn, and the like use oaths and geases too, more often but also more carefully, because the general intensity it turned up. Penalties tend to be more spectacular. Remember, for instance, that the Olympian gods swore by the river Styx, and the penalty for oathbreaking was a nine-year coma.
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Copyright © Earl Wajenberg, 2018