Oaths
The Covenant is the game's one formal alliance. Everything else — blocs, pacts, schemes, lies — is just talk, and talk is free forever.
Swearing
A Covenant is pairwise: offered by one Warden, sworn by the other. Offers cost nothing and stay between the two of you; swearing is public — the whole Fold sees the oath. One live Covenant per pair. Larger blocs are woven from pairs, and hold only as firmly as their weakest oath.
What the oath does
- No raids, no sieges between you — the commands are simply refused while the oath holds.
- The trade favor: send Grain or Coin directly to your oath-fellow — 1 Watch, off the market, no spread. A fair trade is two grants and a handshake in the diplomacy you already had.
- Hostile Whispers are not blocked. Draw your own conclusions about anyone who needs that in writing.
There is no mutual-defense mechanic. If your oath-fellow is besieged, the game will not march for you. Covenants make peace enforceable; they do not make loyalty automatic. That part is you.
Breaking
Either party may break a Covenant at any moment, unilaterally, for free — and may attack immediately. That's the point of breaking. The cost is not mechanical; the cost is that everyone saw:
- The break is recorded in the Fold's chronicle and on your account's lifetime record, visible wherever you go. The game never forgets an oathbreaker.
- The wronged party burns with the Wrath of the Wronged for a day: +25% defense against you, and their strikes against you cost 1 Watch less.
Betray whom you like — but know the knife you hand them.