
Lodge of the Broken Pledge Member
The Lodge of the Broken Pledge is a Lodge of the Ithaeur.
The spirit patron of the Lodge of the Broken Pledge is Saghba-Zul, the Oathbreaker.
Overview[]
Conniving spirits, tricksome fairies, and vile demons of all stripes lurk at the fringes of the World of Darkness, and all of them and stranger things besides are happy to exploit human beings for their own ends. Sometimes, the motive is clear: the human grants them Essence, or power of a similar strip, or allows the creature to exploit an agent in the mortal world. Other times, the creature's motivation is esoteric, and seems to be little more than a sick desire to mess with human lives.
On the flip side, while most so-called "magic" in the World of Darkness is nothing more than superstitious hokum, practitioners of the forbidden arts can be found all over the world, and arcane tomes, scrolls, and even Web sites sometimes hold enough information for even a layman to perform some occult working. Sometimes, a human (or even another supernatural) calls up something he can't put down, or makes a devil's bargain at the cost of his own soul.
The Lodge of the Broken Pledge began as a lodge of Ithaeur that focused on breaking the power of spirit-worshipping cults in 15th-century Germany. The lodge spread across the globe along with European colonization, and everywhere they landed they encountered things from beyond this world preying on mortal men and women, snaring them in lunatic cults or trapped bargains. Most of the beings the lodge encountered were spirits, but many were mysterious beings not born of the Shadow.
Gradually, over the centuries, the Lodge of the Broken Pledge shifted its focus. While members still destroy spirit-cults where they find them, they also make it their duty to track down those entities that make Faustian deals with mortals and sever those bargains. Sometimes the human sees this as a merciful relief - other times the moral is too deep in the thrall of the supernatural and has to be put down. Either way, the Lodge of the Broken Pledge does what is necessary.
The Lodge of the Broken Pledge holds as its totem Saghba-Zul, the Oathbreaker. Other Uratha often look askance at the lodge's choice of a spirit of treachery as their totem, but Saghba-Zul revels in the breaking of bonds and pacts, and grants his children the power to sunder unnatural contracts with (relative) ease. Nevertheless, it's said that the most senior Ithaeur of the lodge devote themselves full-time to ensuring that their totem bond with Saghba-Zul remains strong and unbroken.
Membership[]
Membership in the Lodge of the Broken Pledge is open to Ithaeur or any tribe, although most of the tribe's membership is drawn from the Iron Masters and Bone Shadows. The Bone Shadows are drawn to the lodge by its regular contact with the stranger denizens of the World of Darkness, while many Iron Masters join the lodge out of a fondness for humanity and a desire to protect them from things they don't understand and are too stupid to run away from.
Joining the Lodge of the Broken Pledge is usually a matter of recruitment rather than application, since the lodge is not particularly large or famous. Incidents of werewolves interfering with demonic pledges are usually rare enough that, when a non-member does so, the local members hear about it in relatively short order. Many members maintain contact with Lunes, particularly the Ithalunim, in order to learn when a werewolf earns Renown for performing such a deed. If an investigation of the deed shows that the prospective member didn't completely bungle the job, an invitation might be extended.
Game Mechanics[]
The following are an overview of the game mechanics.
Prerequisites[]
Wisdom ••, Rituals •••
Benefits[]
The player may add the character's Wisdom Renown to the dice pool for any Gift or rite used to break a spirit's control over a mortal (including banishing a spirit possessing a mortal, breaking a spirit's Influence compulsion, or counteracting mind-controlling Numina). If the Gift rite already uses Wisdom as part of its dice pool, the player adds double the character's Wisdom Renown.
References[]
- WTF: Signs of the Moon, p. 64-65