The Witness

In Aesop's Fables there is a cautionary story, numbered 239 in the Perry index. To perjure oneself meant waging war on the gods, who even themselves could suffer under the same sanctions. In taking an oath one called down a conditional curse on oneself, to take effect if one lied or broke one's promise. Oath-taking and the penalties or perjuring oneself played an important role in the Ancient Greek concept of justice - but an even greater one in your life.

There are so many weird points in your life. Points where you shouldn't have cared, not about some long forgotten person or the injustice they suffered right before they died. For some blasted reason you cared anyway. You cared so much that it kept you up at night, awake and staring. You might remember the day you learned that crucifixion had been a common method of execution. It felt like you’d swallowed something terribly cold. A weight dropped into your stomach and sat there, heavy and uncomfortable; you could see all the people who'd been crucified before Christ - rather before he'd made it famous. Naked, they walked through a hellish landscape, one foot at a time, sobbing and holding their wounds.

It was as if you were the first person who'd noticed them in all this time. No one else really cared about them, you noticed even as a child. No one talked about them. These were the individuals who stuck out to you. The forgotten - but suddenly as if there in the room with you. You had an expanding sense of purpose in your chest, filled with the idea that you had an opportunity to do something about it.

But of course, you couldn't. They were all long dead. There you were in your room, strangely alone, that lead weight in the bottom of your bowels. Later in the night you were unable to sleep. It was in the small hours of the morning really, when so many big things happen in the heart. You couldn’t stop thinking of them, those unsung heroes in the stories, the people who didn’t make the cut. You dredged up the lives of imaginary people who had been hurt, who had been wronged, who had died with no one with them and no one knowing what had happened to them. Was there a person right now, alone, out there in the world this night, wishing they had just one person with them? 

You found that people, as a rule, like to close their eyes. No one liked listening to the stories you found. You’d get polite pretence at best, sometimes a strange defensiveness as if they were to blame for some ancient atrocity and were only now able to reassure you that they of course had nothing to do with it. People care more about being the good soul than they do about acknowledging the pained souls.

Oathbreakers are the worst. When someone puts their trust in you, you feel it as if from a place of giant, humbled gratitude. When someone makes a promise they’re protecting a person’s trust in them. And something about trust feels different from everything else in this world, apart from maybe love. There’s something weird about love. Trust and love hold two keys to something out there in the wide, dark universe that you know is important. The people who break trust, they break some foundational constant in the blueprint.

It was a shocking discovery to find just how many fierce beliefs you held, even as a child. There had to be a point to being alive, you reasoned, because with all the grey areas and horrors of the world there must be some universal truth - there must be something that is absolute. Absolutely right, absolutely wrong. You felt a nude insistent reality: that without justice there was nothing. Just thousands of thousands of people in a long line across history, dying in the worst of ways, men breaking their vows and the women drowned for their spouse's affair; people in the church burning other people alive before they'd even had a real trial, melting their skin to the pole.

The more history you learned, the worse it got. You know it might stem from an injustice, a deep trauma you've experienced early in your own life, but is that so bad? Without it you'd be as uncaring or ignorant as everyone else, and able - even eager - to cover your eyes and pretend the ugliest of things don't happen. People like to feel comfortable. Meanwhile you're fractured by the beauty of people who hold to the promises they keep. Especially when it’s hard to keep. It’s often the same people who put forward the effort, who make the time.

Your sense of the ghosts grew - your sense of the people long dead, long wronged, unsung, it grew each year. There's a plea in each of them, a need for someone to recognise how alone they'd been, how much wrong they’d suffered. You find yourself still suffering from the loss of the old gods and stories, looking back on a different world as the new world around you grows louder and larger. This world, the world where people do the worst of things to each other, is sickly, it feels all wrong, and it’s growing worse by the year as people become indifferent. Sometimes it’s the world of the spirit people which feels better - when you imagine them. Colourless and wan, but at least honest. They know all about injustice already. They know what happens if you ignore the warning signs around you. It’s the people who go on with their lives without looking left or right who share the blame.

The more you imagined it, the more you gained scraps of that dead, spirit world. It was as if someone from it was really there or drawing near you, to whisper to you, often to cry. You might be going insane, but even if these people are a figment of your imagination, their stories are beautiful and broken and their lives give you a sense of purpose and perspective you wouldn’t otherwise have. You care where most others would not. And it’s so easy to hate some individuals when you’re faced with the bitter reality: that people use others, they abuse trust, and they get away with it laughing, leaving behind them a family or a face that will never, ever, recover.

Your whole being is naturally repulsed by those who break promises, and in a room full of snakes you find yourself feeling deeply unwell. Your skin begins to prickle painfully and the urge to vomit overtakes you if you witness betrayal or backstabbing behaviour outright.

The day it all changed - the day of justice, some might say - was the day you woke up and found that your own imagination grew teeth.

God help them.

Mechanics: You are able to create binding agreements between individuals that result in extreme pain and unexplained bleeding from eyes, ears, nose and mouth upon the breaking of said oath. Smear a measure of your blood across your hands, and across the palms of anyone to be joined by the oath. You must clasp hands with the person or people who are making the oath (if it’s just one person take both their hands in yours) and have them state the agreement they are holding to. If it’s multiple people to swear in, one can be the person to state the oath but they must all verbalise consent to it. You can say “Doth thou consent? Say nay, or say aye.” Or some such. And they must all say aye, clearly.

You must stay connecte by clasped hands or - if no hands - stumps where there were hands, or arms. You must touch the part of their body that could be at least considered hands. The vow is binding once you state the following, after all agreed parties have consented verbally to the above:

“The oath is thine covenant, my blood will bind.”

Then it is done. The vow is binding until both parties agree through free will and honest intent to end the deal, or if you utter the second phrase in the presence of at least one of the participants. They might try to force you to do the latter, but notably this does not work if they try to use dominate to do so.

If one or both participants renege on their side of the deal, they experience agonising pain as blood begins to leak from their eyes, ears and nose. Based on experiments with ghouls, the effects can be fatal in regular humans if not treated quickly. In vampires and empowered humans it is debilitating, but will not result in death. This binding contract can be voided if both parties agree with genuine intent to end the oath, or if they are in the presence of the Witness who must utter 'The Oath is renounced by the blood'.

The effects of breaking the oath can be fatal to humans who bleed to death over a course of days. To vampires, they can continually heal themselves but it is a tax on their resources they will bear forever, and they will always visibly show to weeping of the blood; they cannot reabsorb the blood that leaves them until it is on the surface level of their skin, out to the world.

It is debilitating this, but does not necessarily kill them - it might torpor them were they to ignore the process or be unable to feed regularly to stay on top of it. It remains a curse for them for evermore, and the results of their oathbreaking are visible to everyone. 

The Anomalies of the Blood

A dossier of abnormalities recorded from kine* born under the effects of the Long Night, otherwise known as The Black Sun, The Black Dawn, etc. All subjects display abilities beyond normal human limitations - most unique to the individual. 

Claudius has also requested it of me that we should note the following effect has been observed from all kine collected: upon feeding on the subjects afflicted with anomalous blood, Cainites experience a heightened emotional and visceral reaction that lingers beyond a usual feeding. This could be an invaluable asset to the Auction. 

*Note - “kine” is, of course, the name we Cainites give humans.

The Witness

Observation Summary

The subject possesses the peculiar ability to form binding contracts between parties - be they mortal beings or any kind of supernatural entity. They style themselves as a mediator or a judge, and breaking an oath presided over by this mortal has unpleasant consequences indeed. The one to break the agreement finds that they begin to bleed from orifices - a slow coagulated blood flow that causes excruciating pain. Their very flesh sends jolts of agony through their body when they move, until the one they swore the oath to has vocalised their forgiveness, or the Witness themselves declares the bond broken. Think of the possibilities of this in the hands of a capable Clan head!

Detailed Account

This appears to be one of those abilities that the subject has had at least some awareness for most of their life. There was always something gravely significant about the making of a promise, a sanctity that only the lowest form of individual would break. Oathbreakers appal the subject viscerally, and they seem almost enthusiastic to employ their abilities without prior invitation. The pursuit of forthrightness is almost an obsession, an ideal to which they cling and suffer greatly when it is not upheld around them. Duplicitous behaviour triggers a reaction akin to wounding the subject, to the point that they describe a painful prickling of the skin and flashes of headaches when encountering betrayal.

For as pure of heart as this might paint the subject, the bonds they preside over need not be for benevolent means. It is the act of breaking a deal that triggers adverse reactions, no matter the details of said agreement. They tell me that truth is objective - they care not for platitudes and morals, but if humanity cannot hold to their words, they are doomed to failure. I pointed out that they have strayed outside the confines of humanity, but they held fast to these ideals.

For these reasons, they were naturally drawn to positions of judgement in their own community. Whether as part of a local militia or judiciary, they seemed to take particular satisfaction in exposing oathbreakers. Naturally, this leads to enemies - those punished or even jealous. Rumours began to spread that the subject was capable of laying curses on those they disdained. This was understandable given the debilitating condition that overcame those who broke a deal the subject had presided over.

Regarding the process, the subject merely has to be present and within six paces of an agreement as it is brokered, and be contacting them by skin - directly or indirectly, as in a circle of clasped hands. Once they utter the words 'The oath is thine covenant, my blood will bind,' the deal becomes binding. If one or both participants renege on their side of the deal, they experience agonising pain as blood begins to leak from their eyes, ears and nose. Based on experiments with ghouls, the effects can be fatal in regular humans if not treated quickly. In Cainites and empowered humans it is debilitating, but will not result in death. This binding contract can be voided if both parties agree with genuine intent to end the oath, or if they are in the presence of the Witness who must utter 'The Oath is renounced by the blood'.

It is obvious how this power may come in extremely useful during the auction. For extremely valuable purchases, it might be worth performing the deal under scrutiny from the subject. Likewise, other Cainites may wish to 'hire' their services for presiding over other deals tangential to the auction itself. The system of debt and favours that Cainites pride themselves in will certainly be strengthened by the subject's presence. That being said, this may also mean that the subject becomes a target for those slighted by their abilities. Like many of the kine subjects in our possession, it will be prudent to ensure their safety throughout the evening in case of Cainite ill intentions.