This is the central rite of the Lodge of Arms, a rite which bonds a spirit to a weapon and both to the lodge member who will carry the weapon for the rest of his life.
Performing the Rite
The rite only takes place after days of preparation. Once all the elements are in place — the weapon built, a spirit captured and bound and the werewolf’s own spiritual aspect exhausted by days of endurance — the rite begins. Under the command of the ritemaster, the new initiate carries out repeated sets of practiced forms with the weapon. They can be anything from a series of guards, parries and attacks with a blade to different firing positions and target shots with a gun. As the new weapon-holder works, the lodge members who built the weapon and helped trap the spirits chant the words of the ritual with increasing volume and speed. The new initiate is expected to match these changes by increasing the speed and intensity of his exercises. This continues until the initiate is at the very point of exhaustion. Then, just before the young werewolf collapses, the ritemaster speaks the words of binding in the spirit tongue, and the spirits of the werewolf and blade momentarily fuse, infusing each other with new strength. Each of the participants in the rite, bar the initiate, spends a point of Essence to achieve this.
This experience is often traumatic for both the initiate and the participants, causing them to lose control and frenzy. For that reason, all the participants in the rite must be experienced lodge members who can easily restrain the new lodge members without doing any serious permanent harm. Then the rite ends and the werewolf’s new partnership begins.
