Metaphysical Oaths

The Dreamvale bleeds into the material plane, through the Ethereal, and binds much of the world in oddity. Within Thin Places, places of high emotional power, or moments of strong feeling, a person may by purpose or happenstance bind their very soul to aspects of the Dreamvale.

The Astral Hand refers to these as "metaphysical oaths", or "emotional oaths", which see people of certain walks bound by soul to ideals and rules in a similar walk as a faithful cleric or paladin. However, these oaths are not bound to entities of the outer planes or beings of arcane potency. Instead they are the very concepts of those ideals, manifested within the dreamvale.

A popular example of this is a life cleric. While many believe all clerics of life are devoted to God's of life, many are devoted to life itself. All manner of people have faith and belief, or dream in, the idea of helping, healing, and life. These very thoughts and dreams flow out as energy into the dreamvale, where emotional that are similar drift together into the sea. These seas are volatile places of pure magical energy, forming demi planes and even elemental beings on a whim when extreme emotional energy or the folding of the seas strikes right. This very powerful thought of life can be connected to under the right circumstances - moon cycles, places of magical power, thin places, or magical ritual can connect a soul to the these patches of sea or demiplanes. The oaths sworn in these moments are just as powerful as a religious oath, the words become a contract attaching a persons essence to that of the plane beyond and even opening their door.

Metaphysical oaths still require the one connected to perform tasks promised, the very words and ideas one had while making the oath have weight in the dreamvale - real, tangible, weight, and breaking that connection by breaking that oath can cause serious backlash. Often, deadly backlash.

Metaphysical oaths can open the Doorway, allowing one to cast magic. This manifests in a way of the emotional connection they made - colour, images, and light one may see as spiritual.

With there being no entity on the other side of a metaphysical oath, getting out of said oath is extremely difficult. Some groups have methods to escape them, but they are often trying rituals almost as dangerous as the backlash.