Oaths: How to word them & other questions

[Unahim]

My players are getting to the point where they'll be introduced to the Freehold and its Courts soon, and I imagine that swearing of Oaths will follow soon behind. This made me wonder what a Freehold or Court Oath (or Motley Oath for that matter!) might look like?

A generic "I promise to follow the laws of the Freehold, etc, etc..." sounds like a good basis, as that would let the terms of the Oath evolve along with changes in rules/laws, but apart from that I'm not too sure. Anyone have any examples of Oaths that have been sworn in your games?

Also, is it simply a mistake that the penalties for breaking a Personal Oath keep talking about motleys and motley members, while a Motley Oath is described as being a societal and not a personal oath, or am I missing something?

[PinkHaunt]

Well, on my group we didn't focus on the Court Oaths because we already started to play inside our respective Courts and never really felt like developing the Oath we swore to them, we did however recently swore our Motley Oath and I can give you that as an example we swore to "never ever deny help for other motley members when directly and expressly asked for" and we didn't say anything regarding the consequences and content of the help demanded by the other motley members because we wanted to leave room for some narrative drama (we also named our Motley Rogue Patrol because our changelings all are all kinda very trickster-like, and usually get into conflict with the cops for small little crimes such as tresspassing and vandalism,but all those times we were just trying to help someone in trouble).

Teaching Oaths are also kinda common between my group, we swear them all around between us to learn contracts with cheaper XP cost, and they are all very simple, we swear to teach someone something, and in exchange, the other person teaches us something in return or do something for us. These ones I kinda sometimes feel like there's not much room for evolving, but it depends on what the teacher asks in return for the knowledge. Like, if the teacher asks for something as straightforward as learning a new Contract the student knows, there's not a lot to work with, but if he asks for a favor or a small sidequest like "find me a specific goblin fruit" or "get my fetch to stand down and talk reasonably to me", then there's some room for the Wyrd to change things up once in a while.

[Unahim]

we didn't say anything regarding the consequences and content of the help demanded by the other motley members because we wanted to leave room for some narrative drama

Ouch, that will lead to some Dwarf Fortress "Fun" when someone breaks it, I imagine. :P

[PinkHaunt]

Ouch, that will lead to some Dwarf Fortress "Fun" when someone breaks it, I imagine. :P

oh we sure hope it does :P I mean part of the fun of swearing oaths it's all the things that could go wrong, and the crazy stuff you might or might not be capable to do in order to keep your word, am I right?

[Master Aquatosic]

First thing that comes to mind is looking at sources in the real world and other fictions ranging from the Pledge of Allegiance to Medieval English Oaths of Fealty to the Oaths sworn by the Knights of the Round Table in the various books of Arthurian legend

[Master Aquatosic]

Or perhaps the Oaths of Office taken by the highly superstitious Ancient Romans, the Oaths taken bu those who entered the Confucian Bureaucracy of Imperial China and even the President's Oath of Office

[Unahim]

First thing that comes to mind is looking at sources in the real world and other fictions ranging from the Pledge of Allegiance to Medieval English Oaths of Fealty to the Oaths sworn by the Knights of the Round Table in the various books of Arthurian legend

Or perhaps the Oaths of Office taken by the highly superstitious Ancient Romans, the Oaths taken bu those who entered the Confucian Bureaucracy of Imperial China and even the President's Oath of Office

Will check those out, thanks for the suggestions.

[Master Aquatosic]

Also look to old Celtic legends like the tales of Cu Culainn and fealty/knighthood pledges from across Europe. Also, if you want to make poetry out of the Contract-teaching Oaths, the rhyming bond Oaths between Humans and Flyers in the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins are a cool template