Pact of Fellowship
This ritual can also amend an existing charter, adding or removing names (up to the target limit) so long as all affected creatures are present for the ritual and give clear consent. To amend an existing Fellowship, at least half of the current Fellows must be present.
As a Fellow, you gain the following benefits that endure as long as the Pact endures:
- You innately learn the Locate Fellow ritual and may perform it even if you do not meet its prerequisites. As an innate ritual, you do not need a ritual book to use it.
- If you die, your spirit is bound closer to the mortal realm and can cross back to the realm of the living with greater ease. Halve the Material Component cost of any ritual or other ability used to restore you to life.
- The fates of Fellows are bound more tightly than normal. Once per Extended rest, you may spend 1 Karma on behalf of a fellow to allow them to reroll a die roll. This otherwise follows all the normal rules for spending Karma to reroll dice.
This pact is immune to any attempts to dispel, unmake, or disrupt it. It can only be broken if the fellowship members wish it so. A charter that is damaged or destroyed slowly reforms over a period of 1d4 days.
The charter does not change easily, but a fellow can leave the pact at anytime by spending 1 moment in concentration clearly stating an open, uninfluenced desire to leave. After that moment, the name is stricken from the charter and the creature immediately looses all benefits. If the fellowship is left with only one member, it immediately dissolves and this pact ends. A Fellow can belong only to a single Fellowship at a time; joining a new Fellowship causes them to leave their existing fellowship automatically. Whenever a fellow leaves, their name is magically removed from the charter.
The first night out of Eastgate, five travelers argued over what to call themselves. “We can decide later,” said Brannik, who preferred hot stew to hard choices. So they left it blank on the magistrate’s ledger and rode under no banner. By the second village, rumors ran ahead of them with all the shape of smoke. Were they mercenaries, pilgrims, or bandits who liked the look of each other’s boots? Prices crept up. Doors opened slow. A hedge mage tried a sending and it fizzled, because her charm needed a name to find. The group slept in the stable with a cow that snored and learned that “later” could be a very long road.
On the third day, they found a copper lantern tangled in river reeds and took it as a sign. They cleaned it, set a wick, and spoke it aloud together. The Copper Lanterns. The ferryman recognized them two towns on and waved the toll. A steward in the next city heard the name and ushered them into the good chairs. A bard caught it and stitched it into a chorus that made farmers grin when they heard it. Their healer used a ritual keyed to “your Fellowship” and, for once, the magic knew exactly who to touch. Even their arguments got shorter, because the name was a promise they could point to when tempers ran hot.
Weeks later, a thief tried to pass as one of them to dodge a fine. It failed, because names have teeth. The charter’s mark did not glow for him, and the magistrate’s scribe had a neat list of signatures to prove it. That night, the Copper Lanterns watched the lamp hiss in the rain and laughed at how close they had come to being Nobody at all. They raised their cups to the name and to the doors it opened, and they agreed that a Fellowship without a name is a tale without a title. It can still be a good tale, but it is harder to tell, harder to follow, and much harder to find when it matters.