- Pronouns
- He
Everyone here will know about the stone regardless. We have to use our Stone to transform. Hiding the Stone stopped being an option when this turned into a big group working together instead of a sorta kidnapping.
Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete
- Thread starter SoaringHawk218
- Start date
- Fantasy
Oath wise I'm torn I don't want to let random people know that they can force a geiss out of us but I also don't want to not take things seriously especially since the path could push people to resolve things quickly.
I'm also worried about the people that we are leaving behind and would like to ask about how safe they are likely to be but I'm hoping that If Sypha isn't there they won't have a reason to attack.
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
I'm also worried about the people that we are leaving behind and would like to ask about how safe they are likely to be but I'm hoping that If Sypha isn't there they won't have a reason to attack.
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
Stasis
Unverified Lotus
- Location
- Milky Way, Earth
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
I'm not expecting her to get pickpocketed right now, I'm just illustrating that Ryza is vulnerable in this matter and that these people are not friends of ours. We have no reason to believe that Belle and Co will keep it secret, and that the people they tell won't act on it.
I'm not that familiar with Fire Emblem, but it's clear that dragonstones are valuable for more than commodity purposes from the snippets at the start of the chapters.
From my perspective this is a bit like letting slip a rumor that Ryza has a supply of enriched uranium in an environment where a lot of people theoretically know how to build nukes, and would love to be nuclear powers, but are lacking in the key materials needed to make them.
How certain would people have to be before guys like Kopoi show up just to see if it's true? I don't know, and I'd really prefer not to find out until Ryza can meaningfully compete on that level.
Not that she isn't strong, but from the combat rolls we've seen she isn't quite strong enough to stand up to the level of human champion that decently strong powers can call up and send out on a whim.
So yeah, we should not show them the stone, or let them watch the ritual. It's not like they know what a manakete is, so even knowing she transformed into a dragon doesn't specifically tell them she's carrying around the key to a fortune/the key to guaranteeing their home nation's security for the next few decades in her pocket.
At minimum if they insist on watching we should take steps to obscure what the stone is. Wrap it in cloth, dig a hole to drop it in and sit on top until the transformation tucks it away for us, anything other than showing it off.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And in all likelihood, the stone won't be recognized as religious at all.
Worst-case scenario with the oath to the Mother is that the humans go "I have no idea who'd enforce this oath, but this girl clearly expects someone to." Worst-case scenario with the Stone Oath is "What the heck does any of this have to do with an actual oath?" And yeah, best-case scenario is that they realize that the Stone Oath's flashy magic means it's probably magically-binding, but the risk of failure is far from the only risk involved.
- Location
- USA
The way I see it, this is the equivalent of someone saying "I swear to God" or "I swear on my family name." They have no reason to expect that Ryza puts any real stock in what she says here. Definitely not more than the stone oath. Not to be too meta about it but the way the stone oath vote is worded the con doesn't seem to be that believability is the problem; it's that we would be borderline hard committing to delivering Sypha home, come what may.
Only if we let them watch it happen, and take no steps to hide it. A crappy tent made of a cloak tossed over a branch with Robin standing at the front end would solve this problem.
Them being suspicious about what's happening is unfortunate, but it's better than confirming the presence of something so valuable.
- Pronouns
- He
Its not like swearing an oath upon an object as a focus/stand in is an unknown idea. They were JUST talking about how one of them would swear on The Emblem. I really don't see any reason for them to wave off or think Ill of the Stone Oath.
Also, recall that Rysa is not actually that devout. Its outright stated in the options that they might pick up on that. "Well, she clearly expects someone to enforce It" is the response they would have to the Stone Oath. Because Rysa herself knows how big of a deal it is and that WILL show through.
The worst-case scenario for the stone oath is no one is totally sure what just happened but that clearly something did. The worst case for the Mother Oath is that everyone can tell it's not actually that big of a deal for Rysa.
Keep in mind it called a Dragon Stone for a reason. Even if we somehow managed to do the ritual in secret they would still see us, as a dragon, take off.
Its not hard to put two and two together. Especially since uh...Bella? The Thief with them already know we have some kind of stone in our pocket that we are protective of. They got the stones from dragon kind in the first place so if a dragon shows up something involving Dragon Stones is the logical conclusion.
This secret does not even have a chance to exist. Thats what happens when the lost magical creature decides to get involved and use their secret magical powers as an explicit part of the plan.
Also, recall that Rysa is not actually that devout. Its outright stated in the options that they might pick up on that. "Well, she clearly expects someone to enforce It" is the response they would have to the Stone Oath. Because Rysa herself knows how big of a deal it is and that WILL show through.
The worst-case scenario for the stone oath is no one is totally sure what just happened but that clearly something did. The worst case for the Mother Oath is that everyone can tell it's not actually that big of a deal for Rysa.
Keep in mind it called a Dragon Stone for a reason. Even if we somehow managed to do the ritual in secret they would still see us, as a dragon, take off.
Its not hard to put two and two together. Especially since uh...Bella? The Thief with them already know we have some kind of stone in our pocket that we are protective of. They got the stones from dragon kind in the first place so if a dragon shows up something involving Dragon Stones is the logical conclusion.
This secret does not even have a chance to exist. Thats what happens when the lost magical creature decides to get involved and use their secret magical powers as an explicit part of the plan.
- Pronouns
- Male
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
Here's the thing: Unless I am badly misremembering, no one alive knows this, just like no one knew that "Dragons" were sapient until Ryza woke up and explained Manaketes to Artemis.
look forward to more
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is why I linked that article about oaths multiple times, because this argument is about as wrong as it's possible to me. First off, swearing by your family name is an absurdly weak oath; at best, it's asking a higher power to revoke your family name if you forswear. By contrast "I swear to God" is a very effective oath, for anyone who believes that both God and oaths are a thing. And, to quote Devereaux, "people in the past generally believed their own religion" (bold in original). I would go so far as to apply that to people in most fantasy worlds, until proved otherwise.
My point is, those two oaths are not equivalent in any society where people would ask for an oath.
I'll keep quoting Deveraux for a bit, because he makes my point better than I could.
Article: You swear an oath because your own word isn't good enough, either because no one trusts you, or because the matter is so serious that the extra assurance is required. That assurance comes from the presumption that the oath will be enforced by the divine third party. The god is called – literally – to witness the oath and to lay down the appropriate curses if the oath is violated. Knowing that horrible divine punishment awaits forswearing, the oath-taker, it is assumed, is less likely to make the oath.
On one hand, an oath sworn to a god(dess) worshiped in the kingdoms would be more trustworthy, because the humans here believe that s/he would smite Ryza if she foreswore. On the other hand, if the people here don't assume Ryza is making up a fake goddess to "swear" to, they should understand that Ryza expects the oath to be enforced, which is what makes it trustworthy.
Mantrae's men don't trust Ryza and ask for an oath, which means they must think oaths are effective. "I swear to God" would be seen as a very effective oath indeed! The only contexts in which someone could think it wasn't, would be ones where you wouldn't bother to ask for an oath in the first place, because you have no reason to expect that the oath-swearer puts any stock in any oath.
The problem isn't that swearing on an object is something that would be foreign to them. The problem is that they have no reason to think a dragonstone is in any way equivalent the The Fire Emblem.
Naga above. I know it feels like I'm repeating myself because I'm trying to explain the same points over and over to different people, but I wish some of them would read my posts well enough to respond to my actual arguments.
That's better.
I'm not convinced that Ryza wouldn't understand that the oath to the Mother wasn't a big deal. That might be because I'm putting together the pieces SoaringHawk has given us about manakete religion and oaths in a different shape than what SoaringHawk has in his notes, but it seems like the most reasonable shape from the pieces I have to assemble.
It sounds like the Stone Oath is also an oath sworn by the Mother. If that's the case, the only substantive differences between the Stone Oath and the non-stone oath are the lightning and the fact that she's touching her dragonstone. That makes it easy to break down the likely results into two possibilities:
- If Mantrae's men are liable to care about oaths sworn to the Mother, the dragonstone only makes the oath more convincing if they know the dragonstone is significant to Her—and they don't. The lightning might help cement that this is a Binding Oath, but oaths are generally considered effective without the god directly intervening to give a thumbs-up.
- If they're not liable to care about oaths sworn to the Mother, the dragonstone wouldn't make the oath more convincing even if they somehow understood the dragonstone's importance. If the bishop doesn't trust oaths sworn to Zeus, holding his sacred scepter while making the oath won't change that. That leaves the lightning, which might be considered a sign of divine intervention...if Ryza wasn't capable of generating lightning on her own.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
So from what I'm getting, a more interesting vote would not at all include the stone and would actually be this:
Do we swear our oath by The Mother, about whom we actually give a crap but Mantrae's people have no knowledge of?
OR
Do we swear our oath by The Sentinel, about whom we give no craps but Mantrae's people believe in?
@SoaringHawk218 What is known about The Sentinel?
From what I've been able to observe, the following are culturally attributed to The Sentinel within the Kingdoms: watch over the living, grant fortune and providence, gift certain people with some form of prophecy, and take the dead.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Problem 1 with this good idea is that Ryza has almost a century of experience with the Mother's religious practice, but probably hasn't seen a single religious ritual dedicated to the Sentinel. But we could offer to swear an oath by the Sentinel, with someone here familiar with appropriate oaths (probably anyone except Belle, Kelton, and maybe Robin) teaching Ryza the proper way to swear.
Option 3 would be to swear an oath to both, either simultaneously or sequentially. One oath that Ryza thinks matters, and one that Mantrae's men consider binding. I haven't been able to find any sources that weigh in on whether oaths to multiple gods from separate belief systems were ever A Thing, but considering that alliances of spiritually incompatible peoples existed, and the way that faiths and spiritual beliefs historically intermingle...it feels like it was probably A Thing in certain edge cases?
The first problem with any Sentinel oath is that it doesn't feel like something Ryza would do. Swearing an oath she doesn't think is real, just to trick some people into believing it? Even if it's something she'd do without giving a formal oath, it still feels deceptive and mean in a way that doesn't fit Ryza. The second problem is that, practically speaking, it's a bit late for a write-in to have any chance at winning.
I think it could still be interesting to discuss, though. Why else would I write three and a half paragraphs about it?
This is most of what Ryza knows: though she also gets the feeling he seems more aligned with Black magic. However, that comes mostly from his apparent domain over prophecy and the fact that the most devout-seeming Sentinalite who's talked to her was a shaman.
She would not feel comfortable swearing by him without knowing more: The Mother is her goddess, even if she's not the most devout follower. If she's going to make a promise, it's going to be to the one she hopes is watching over the souls of her parents.
As for @GreatWyrmGold 's excellent summation of oaths: I will say you've put more thought/research into it than I did. However that does not make your work any less meaningful: I learned and thought a lot about what you'd put forward.
Therefore, I'll add a bit more information: a Stone Oath does explicitly invoke several powers that Manakete would recognize as having authority over them, as well as having the ability to punish transgressions. Manakete saw the Mother as a mostly claws-off goddess, but she did have a Chosen One / Designated Champion in the mortal realm (The Arbiter) that the oath specifically mentions.
This is not so much that the manakete actually thinks the Arbiter or Mother are going to directly punish them if they break it, but it is part of the ritual that magically binds both heart and dragon to take the oath seriously.
The humans, however, are unlikely to recognize the magical binding part of it: they'd listen to the words. However, Ryza does believe that they would recognize both the use of multiple divine/semi-divine powers, the theater of it, and her clear belief to reason out that Ryza herself considers it binding.
Meanwhile, just swearing by the Mother will probably work: Ryza doesn't think there's a major chance of failure, but she does see it as the weaker promise, and so she's worried some of that might leak out into her body language.
I hope that answers your questions.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Claire along. Sypha clearly likes her, and she sounds kind of nice. She and Kelton also seemed to have something going, so maybe you two can bond over liking him!
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Claire along. Sypha clearly likes her, and she sounds kind of nice. She and Kelton also seemed to have something going, so maybe you two can bond over liking him!
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
-[X] Swear a Stone Oath. Go all out and swear the most meaningful promise a manakete can make. This was the promise that Father and Mother made when they married, the sort of oath that never gets broken.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
- Location
- Earth
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
-[X] Before leaving make sure that they swear an oath not harm to Robin and have him return home safely and whole
-[X] You pray you can end this with minimal blood... Your heart is filled with Determination
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
[X] Sypha's Escort:
-[X] Invite Bernard along. He's Sypha's cousin, so she'd surely want him to be safe too. He also is still injured, so it'd be best to get him out of harm's way as soon as possible. He is a bit of a twit, though…
-[X] Before leaving make sure that they swear an oath not harm to Robin and have him return home safely and whole
-[X] You pray you can end this with minimal blood... Your heart is filled with Determination
- Location
- Somewhere between here and there
[X] Your Oath:
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
Stone Oath is just setting ourselves up for trouble down the line; depending on how the next round of political grandstanding shakes out it could easily end up compelling us to betray Artemis&co and march right into Mantrae's hands (and the Empire's by extension). Sypha might be trustworthy, Mantrae absolutely is not. She's already shanked us once, and the Empire clearly has more leverage than just Sypha to make her act this way.
Not too thrilled about any of the escort choices, TBH. Anything we show Bernard or one of Mantrae's goons is going to get passed back to the Empire whether they personally mean to or not.
-[X] Swear in the Mother's name. This is a meaningful oath, but you're not the most devout of manakete. They might realize that this isn't quite as ironclad as they probably want.
Stone Oath is just setting ourselves up for trouble down the line; depending on how the next round of political grandstanding shakes out it could easily end up compelling us to betray Artemis&co and march right into Mantrae's hands (and the Empire's by extension). Sypha might be trustworthy, Mantrae absolutely is not. She's already shanked us once, and the Empire clearly has more leverage than just Sypha to make her act this way.
Not too thrilled about any of the escort choices, TBH. Anything we show Bernard or one of Mantrae's goons is going to get passed back to the Empire whether they personally mean to or not.
Vote closed
Alright, looks like Ryza's going to promise in the Mother's name and invite (or be nudged by Sypha into inviting) Bernard to come along.
As for the half-shifting, can I get a d6 roll for how insistent/sneaky the observers are in getting a look at what Ryza's up to?
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- Location
- Florida
d6 here we come
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oath to the Mother was in the lead the whole time. I certainly don't mind; I got half of what I wanted and I wasn't even that strongly in favor of Stone Oath. I just wanted it slightly more than the Mother Oath.