THE OATH OF THE MOON

See also "Oath of the Moon; a Blood Talon perspective", which is a look at the Oath from a veteran Blood Talon (James Moody, WW2002021385).

The Uratha are not beholden to the laws of humanity,
nor does the spirit world have any code of laws that
binds them. Yet creatures of such overpowering fury cannot
simply do as they please without repercussion. Every
sin against their own nature weakens them, drives them
farther down a deepening spiral. Denying their nature
— or letting it take control of them — would turn the
werewolves into the mindless monsters human legend
already believes them to be. The Uratha recognize this
potential weakness, and they hold it in check by obeying
the taboos attributed to Father Wolf and Mother Luna.
The form this vow takes is the Oath of the Moon.

The Oath of the Moon is an oath of many parts, each
one of great importance. An Uratha is given the chance
to take the Oath during her initiation into a tribe, and
therefore into the People. The exact form of the Oath varies
between tribes, as each reinforces it with an additional,
special law — a vow sworn to their totem to affirm the
tribe’s purpose.

The Oath is part religious creed and part code of
law, but the most significant aspect is that it helps fight
against the rising madness in a werewolf’s soul. By taking
the Oath, werewolves swear to abide by the principles
that balance their instinct with their rationality, their
flesh with their spirit. Each clause of the Oath represents
a potential way to lose a bit more of one’s soul. The vow
“The People Do Not Murder the People” reminds the Uratha
how easy it is to degenerate into a monster by indulging
one’s bloodlust against his siblings. The price for ignoring
the Oath of the Moon is levied from within.

Not all Forsaken swear by Luna and the Firstborn
(and certainly, none of the Pure do). Some reject the
notion of the Oath entirely, while others swear to only
a portion, choosing certain laws over others. Those who
refuse the Oath become Ghost Wolves. Without a pledge
of loyalty, the Firstborn will not accept them as children.
Some Ghost Wolves still cleave to the tenets of the Oath
in spirit without formally vowing to uphold them; others
live as they choose, and laws be damned. Those who carelessly
transgress against the ways spoken of in the Oath,
though, find themselves slipping out of balance, succumbing
to their bestial side and forgetting their true nature.

THE WOLF MUST HUNT; Urum Da Takus

In the First Tongue, the first portion of the Oath
is phrased Urum Da Takus. Many of the Forsaken see
this as the first and foremost clause of the Oath because
it represents the duty inherited from their legendary
forebear and his First Pack. The Forsaken swear this portion
of the Oath first in Father Wolf’s honor, to reaffirm
their purpose and that of the Firstborn. The implication
is that as the foremost predators of both flesh and
spirit, the Forsaken must hunt their sacred prey — spirits
escaped into the physical realm, the Hosts, and other
threats to a pack’s territory.

However, this clause of the Oath also is at the heart
of many clashes between rival packs of Forsaken. If a
pack is failing to keep their enemies at bay, another pack
might claim that the first pack is “failing to hunt”, and
enter their territory with the claimed intention of doing
their jobs for them. Frequently this is a quick stab at
testing a pack’s defenses or perhaps just a formal way of
escalating an already bitter rivalry. But sometimes the
intentions are sincere — a pack sees that an infestation
of Beshilu, spirits or Ridden has grown beyond their
neighbors’ ability to control, and feels it necessary to
intervene before the other pack’s negligence causes the
situation to deteriorate further. Such an incursion usually
results in a blood feud between the two packs, regardless
of good intentions. But sometimes a brutal duel between
packs is preferable to a greater menace gaining strength
when one pack cannot keep it

Ironically, the Pure seem to hold to their own twisted
version of this portion of the Oath, though clearly not out
of any love for Mother Luna or those who honor her. The
Pure hunt as though it is their sacred duty to do so — and
the Forsaken their ordained prey.

THE PEOPLE DO NOT MURDER THE PEOPLE; Imru Nu Fir Imru.

The specific phrasing of this law goes back even to the First Tongue. It does not say
“Uratha do not kill Uratha.” It says “the People” or “the
Tribe” or “the Family”. And the verb is “murder” in the
oldest form, not “kill”. As a result of this ambiguity, no
traveling werewolf can be sure how this tenet is interpreted
from territory to territory. Some packs believe that it’s
taboo to slay wolf-blooded humans as well as Uratha, even
in the heat of battle. Others believe that a werewolf may
freely kill another one in open challenge but that secret
murder is forbidden. It’s commonly held that slaying an
already beaten but not dead foe is a clear violation of the
Oath. Once a werewolf is beaten and slowly healing, it is
murder to tear out his throat.

Judging by the ballads and oral histories the Cahalith
have maintained over thousands of years, this may be the
most violated section of the Oath. The epic Mountain and
Plain War, which dates back to the first centuries after the
fall of Rome, is the best-known piece of art that pertains
to this tenet of the Oath. Many of the Elodoth judgments
described in Mountain and Plain War serve as precedent
even today.

Elodoth argue further regarding the meaning of “the
People”, for no Forsaken werewolf is quite certain whether
this tenet includes the Pure. Some Pure werewolves
seem to adhere to a code of law that prevents them from
outright killing Forsaken, but most of them seem to have
no qualms whatsoever. Some Forsaken refrain from killing
Pure werewolves, just in case; others make a deliberate
choice not to include the Pure Tribes in this law.

THE LOW HONOR THE HIGH; THE HIGH RESPECT THE LOW; Sih Sehe Mak; Mak Ne Sih

Werewolves can see more
clearly than humans do that humanity has dominance hierarchies
of its own. Uratha society is not a democracy. It has
never been one, nor can it ever be. To reject the demands of
one’s station is to demonstrate a dangerous hubris.

Young werewolves often argue that this law isn’t
Luna’s at all, but rather an encoding of their elders’ desire
to remain on top and keep the young quiet. Elders, by
contrast, feel that they’ve paid their dues. They took their
scars when they were young, so they deserve the benefits
of their station now. Most elders point out that they give
the young (and low) the respect that this law requires.

Ballads that illustrate this tenet follow one of several
patterns: Young Uratha rails against his low status,
disrespects his elders and is brutally put in his place; or
well-respected Uratha mistreats younger werewolves, she
begins to fall into madness, she repents and regains her
heroic stature. (Firebringer’s Redemption, which ends in the
death of the Rahu Firebringer during the third century
CE, is the pinnacle of the latter.)

RESPECT YOUR PREY; Ni Daha

The Uratha have sworn to be responsible
hunters — not to overtax their territory or any neutral territory
in which they hunt. When they chose to supplant
Father Wolf as guardians of the two worlds, they vowed
to respect their prey in order to show that their intentions
were more honorable than those of the spirit tyrants they
oppose. The Oath commands them to respect all their
prey, and indeed any life or spirit they might end. This includes
humans — a truth that reminds young werewolves
just how alien a society they have entered.

Many werewolves exhibit no more remorse when
they must kill a particular human than when they hunt
down and kill a deer. The only real difference, to many
werewolves, is that the Oath forbids them to consume
the flesh of humans. Uratha pay the spirit of the prey the
same degree of respect in either case, and they do not kill
unnecessarily. A deer dies to provide food, while a human
usually dies for an unwitting violation of werewolf taboos.

Most modern packs give a warning to humans who
transgress against them, rather than killing them outright.
Such a warning might consist of an anonymous note, spirit
haunting, exposure to the Lunacy from the sight of Uratha
in Gauru form or terrifying stalking and property damage.
Such warnings usually prevent the human from continuing
to violate Luna’s law, thus saving the human’s life.

THE URATHA SHALL CLEAVE TO THE HUMAN; Uratha Safal Thil Lu’u.

No werewolves can be born
of mating with wolves, and one werewolf breeding with
another begets a true monster. Violating this tenet is a
sin of lust and a failure of self-control. When werewolves
— particularly packmates — succumb to physical desire,
they forget the true reason that Father Wolf led them into
the world. Some Elodoth say that Luna forces her children
to breed with humans in order to remind them that breeding
is a duty. Allowing love between Uratha, they say,
would distract those werewolves from their real purpose.

Other werewolves believe that unihar are “born” to
illustrate that no animal should breed too close to its
relatives, lest crippling weakness arise. By this reasoning,
all Uratha are siblings in the spirit-world. Many young
werewolves believe that Luna places no limitation on
intercourse, or on non-intercourse sexual activity; more
conservative older Forsaken take the opposite tack.

Ballads of tragic love strike a particular chord within
the hearts of werewolves. Often, as in The Song of Axebreaker
and Tamer, a violation of this tenet is redeemed by
the heroic death of one of the violators to save the other.
In the eyes of many more modern werewolves, this tenet
is a relatively minor one, but almost any female werewolf
who has gone through a “spirit pregnancy” stands firmly
behind the law.

DO NOT EAT THE FLESH OF MAN OR WOLF; Nu Hu Uzu Eren.

The Forsaken do not consume
the flesh of either of their closest relatives — or rather,
should not, though the temptation exists. Perhaps because
humans and wolves are so close to the Uratha, perhaps
because they simply retain a fraction more spiritual power,
their flesh carries a certain spiritual … nourishment. By
devouring human or wolf meat, a werewolf can quickly regain
a measure of spiritual energy to fuel his supernatural
powers — at a terrible cost to his soul. The People find it
frightening and disturbing that such a path to power exists
and that lore on the act is more than speculative.

Thankfully, most Forsaken are raised in cultures
where cannibalism is taboo, so they are loath to commit
what they see as cannibalistic acts. Some tribal elders even
refuse to teach new werewolves the reason some might be
tempted to violate this law. What the young ones don’t
know, they hope, cannot tempt them.

It happens, though. A werewolf who loses himself
in the madness of Death Rage might mindlessly devour a
portion of his kill. He might even remember the taste and
crave more. Also ancient rites of questionable provenance
rely on the consumption of human or wolf flesh. Only two
years ago, a pack of Mexico City Uratha was discovered
to have subsisted on human flesh for weeks at a time. The
werewolves were driven into exile, their pack name was
stricken from the histories, and their locus was destroyed
as they watched.

THE HERD MUST NOT KNOW; Nu Bath Githul.

Humans suffer terribly from the Lunacy.
The depredations of werewolves in the days leading
up to the Sundering and the humans’ forcible separation
from the spirit world have strengthened Luna’s curse.
Once torn free from their sheltering blanket of ignorance,
some humans cannot be pulled back, which makes them
pliable vessels for abusive spirits.

In reality, this law isn’t for humans’ protection as
much as it is for the werewolves’. Humans have been
dangerous in numbers since time out of mind. In the
modern day, they’re dangerous even in twos and threes.
The Forsaken do not dare give humans any inkling that
they exist. Humans know about silver’s effect on werewolves,
even if they don’t believe that werewolves exist.
The last few times humans went after Uratha in large
numbers — something that hasn’t happened since the
mid-20th century — the results were terrible and bloody
on both sides.

The rise of the Internet during the last decade of the
20th century made this law harder to uphold, but also
gave the Uratha a curious sort of protection. All manner
of gossip and lunatic “evidence” can be found on the
Internet, often doing more to discredit its author than
he might expect. Internet werewolf sightings — those
few that leak out past the Lunacy — are easily dismissed
as more of the same, stuff with no basis in reality. It’s a
peculiar sort of blessing, but the Uratha are thankful for it
all the same.

---

ANST Desktop ~ Enemies ~ Events ~ Places ~ Resources ~ the Spirit Courts ~ Tales ~ Venue Style Sheets ~ Who's Who

Edit this page