Protectorate Rites

Protectorate Rites are rites for protectorates.

Every protectorate has a battery of rites it can perform. A clutch likely features one or several ritemasters, and their accumulated knowledge can help deepen the entire protectorate's spiritual know-how. That said, some rites can be particularly useful in making and maintaining a successful alliance. Below are just a handful of these rites, though certainly you should feel to come up with rites specific to your story's domain.

Rite List

• Rite of Luna's Acre: Protectorates with some level of history have seen their people come and go. Yes, some probably leave of their own accord, but many fall in battle (though a few certainly succumb to old age or disease) when the clutch goes to war. This rite simply consecrates a protectorate's graveyard (or, as some call it, "bone orchard") with Luna's blessing. Those who come to Luna's Acre to pray and reflect often feel recharged in doing so.
• Centering the Cairn: A protectorate's sacred cairn is, on the surface, a pretty straightforward thing. It's a pile of rocks and sticks (though, in cities some might use a small heap of car parts or even paint cans filled with rocks and sticks) that act as the focal point of a communal area.
• The communal area isn't just for socializing - it's a spiritually sanctified area made for mediating disputes and dealing with alliance business. The cairn radiates a kind of power, drawing down tempers and mitigating madness. Werewolves can come together and talk, negotiate, even swap stories with less fear of alliance-shattering events taking place.
• Some cairns are fancier than others: an elaborate circle drawn in ash and sigil-scored stones, with the center heap of rocks comprising ancient, river-worn boulders. Circles may be drawn within the circles. The whole affair might sit beneath a claw-etched willow tree. Others care little for pomp and circumstance - they throw a pile of rocks in the middle of some old rickety chairs and draw the circle with a clumsy claw. The level of devotion and preparedness matters little, only the function of the rite and capability of the ritemaster are relevant.
• The Oath and Fetter: Legends say that, long ago, the Forsaken gathered more easily in functional societies - more than just protectorates, they marked the mountains and forests with fortified city-states that kept vigil over the spirits and loci in an effort to guard the harmony of the land. Of course, many Forsaken think that such legends are just that, legends, and thus taste faintly of bullshit. The bestial urges of a werewolf would eventually override the solidarity of such a city-state, guaranteeing the eventual downfall of such a so-called society.
• Whatever the case, one rite may harken back to such a supposed time. This rite ensures that those who belong to the protectorate are quite literally marked and favored for doing so. They become tied to the land and to one another by swearing an oath (of the ritemaster's devising). The actual domain itself actually becomes spiritually protected, as well - outsiders feel the effects when they step into a domain that is not their own.
• This rite is by no means simple to perform, but its effects are lasting, more so than many rituals.

References

• WTF: The Rage: Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 178-181