Karma

Karma or Balance<ref name=":0">At the time, I weighed morals.  These days I debate questions of Balance.  Some call it karma.

I remain a careful man, these days, but it is human nature to make mistakes in youth.  I remember classmates racking up credit card bills in the tens of thousands, before reality caught up with them.

For a practitioner without parents to watch over them, it is easy to do the same with one’s Balance.

[...]

My agreement to join them was a cautious one.  I spent a full night and two days awake, writing and revising the written contract.  Jeffrey barely skimmed it before agreeing.

Among those terms were measures meant to protect my Balance in the universe.  I’d come from a good home and an honest life, I’d been generous and given back more than I’d taken, and I held to the rules that God gave to mankind.  It was in holding to those rules that I bettered my Balance, rather than God himself, but I remain thankful for opportunity He gave me.

[...]

Many diabolists maintain some means of tracking their Balance.  I use

a wooden ring.  For a long time, the changes in that ring and the 

perpetual reminder that I was in debt bothered me.  A lifetime bringing up my Balance, a few moments of outraged stupidity to spend it and subsequently plunge myself into debt.

My first big question, then, is whether we can manage the karmic balance.  Is it possible to walk away free and clear?

Most will say yes.  There is the slow growth.  Regaining an even or positive Balance by fits and starts, small oaths and large ones, through

Right, maintaining and keeping to a code.  The Universe will 

periodically seek to re-establish balance, and the practitioner, succeed

or fail, will find a portion of the debt spent to bring this about.  

Bigger oaths and restoring balance to reality can counteract the karmic weight that burdens the practitioner.

- excerpt from Black Lamb's Blood, quoted in Gathered Pages: 4 </ref> is an intangible force in the world of Pact. One's karma determines their luck, for lack of a better word, with those having good karma finding things going their way and those with bad finding everything that can go wrong going horribly so.

Effects

Karma rarely builds in surplus or negatives for humans, because it corrects itself, but some practitioners are able to monitor it and incur both good and bad karma in hefty amounts.<ref name=":1">Damages 2.4</ref> Practitioners such as Mason the Benevolent are known to focus on building up good karma; those who specialize in karma are generally a Law Magus. Conversely, Diabolists are frequently in extreme karmic debt.

Bad karma generally causes small, deniable bits of bad luck, with the occasional piece of extreme bad luck to balance out large amounts of bad karma.<ref name=":1" /> People with bad karma find it harder to convince others they are trustworthy.<ref name=":2">“That’s pizza.  Pepperoni and onion.  The coke might have gotten a little flat since we poured it.  You took a few hours to wake up.  I was

almost worried.”

[...]

Laird interrupted, “-I don’t need an explanation.  I know what shot shells are.  You’re offering hospitality with one hand and threatening to shoot me with the other?”

It was Maggie who spoke up, “The tried-and-true rules have a firm grounding in history,

officer Behaim.  The roads were dangerous at night, food was hard to 

come by.  You couldn’t turn away someone at your door, and you couldn’t refuse a guest amenities, or you were sentencing them to death.  You couldn’t abuse hospitality given for the same reason, because you’d be sentencing the next guy to death.  But, all that said, nobody’s

going to begrudge a man, a peasant, or a king their right to keep a 

weapon on hand if they know their guest is a potential threat.”

[...]

“Why would I want to open my mouth?  To give you hints?”

“You don’t need to, but you can give me answers for the same

reason you’re giving me food.  I can’t reciprocate your generosity, 

really, unless I give you answers.  It’s a win-win situation for you.  You get karma by playing by the rules, or you get answers.”

[...]

“It’s torture.  Psychological torture.  You’re setting me up to fall into the imp’s clutches, but by doing it like this, you defer responsibility for it.”

I glanced at Rose.  It had been her idea.

“To be entirely honest, I wasn’t aware that was actually a thing,” I said.  “Deferring responsibility.”

“It is,” Laird told me.  He’d gone very still, and looked very grim, the lines in his face making his age and stress obvious.  “You leave a man standing on a chair with a noose around their neck.  The powers and spirits that would decide where responsibility for the death rested don’t necessarily have the wits or the long memory needed to figure it out.”

[...]

“Don’t tell me you did the monologue, explaining things.”

“I did, kind of.”

“Damn it, Blake,” Ty said.

“It makes sense in context, the karma gain for fair play-”

“You’re telling me the universe encourages being the Bond villain?”

I hesitated.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Ty asked.

“Kind of?  Convoluted traps are generally better than just shooting the bastards, apparently.”

[...]

“It’s part of why we’re here,” Fell said.  “Helping him out.”

That seemed to be the qualifier the woman at the desk needed.  The joys of having buddies with good karma.  I

gave people the wrong impression, led people to expect the worst.  The 

goblin queen in training gave off a better vibe, and the hitman in service to the secret lord of the city was the pleasant, convincing one. - excerpt from Void 7.1 </ref>

Good karma leads to events going in your favour. People find you likeable, and those who have reason to dislike you are unlikely to compare notes. You tend to live to a ripe old age.<ref>“Longevity goes hand-in-hand with good karma,” Joyce said.  “Which he has.  In abundance.”

“He practices using Karma?”

“Yes.  I can see why people would be unhappy with him.  He made his wife miserable.  Tricked our family, even.  Neglected to mention that he

already had three wives, making his Duchamp wife the fourth.  Likeable 

in person, but less so from a distance, and those of us who realized that kept our distance, myself included.  We never had an angle or clear

excuse to retaliate for his deception, but that’s how he operates.”

[...]

“If it helps,” Lola said, “He’s probably done far worse than what we just described.  But events play out in a way that supports him.  There’s rarely enough people in the same place, talking about him in a way that would let them put the pieces together, at a time that we’d be free to do something about it.  If someone named him, maybe they have a stronger suspicion, but aren’t in a position to voice it?”

- excerpt from Execution 13.5 </ref> Some consider good karma to be more trouble than it's worth, however, as the constant good luck can lead to complacancy only for you to be killed by someone who finds a way around it.<ref name=":1" />

Rules

Sources of good karma:

• Keeping to a code.<ref name=":0" />
• Being generous and giving more than you take.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />
• When the universe inflicts a punishment on someone with bad karma, some of the debt is discharged.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
• Making and keeping oaths.<ref name=":0" />
• Punishing someone who has done you or your community unprovoked harm.<ref name=":0" />
• Being honest, the more honest and forthright the better.<ref name=":1" />
• Maintaining a Demesne.<ref>She notes, in a matter of fact way, that simply holding a demesne

generates good karma, bettering her position in the world so long as she

tends to the space. - excerpt from Demesne, quoted in Gathered Pages: 2</ref>

• Providing for guests, in accordance with Hospitality.<ref name=":2" />
• Announcing your intentions and "playing fair" by warning and explaining your actions to your enemies.<ref>“I’m not trying to reap any extra karma by sharing details with you,”

Andy said.  “Those other guys are doing the whole ‘play fair’, ‘see the whites of your enemy’s eyes before you doom them forever’, and that ‘announce your intentions before seeing them through’ garbage.  If and when I come after you, Thorburn, I’m not doing any of that.”

- excerpt from Breach 3.5 </ref>

• Some Others like Isadora are able to endow excess good karma onto others.

Sources of karmic debt:

• Lying. This even affects non-Practitioners to an extent.<ref>The Bane turned on Peter.

“Why me?” Peter asked.  “Third fucking time.  The fuck?”

“Karma,” I said.  “Apparently you’ve racked up more bad karma than any of us, except maybe me, and I’m inside a mirror.”

“Karma?” Kathryn asked.

“Lies,” I said.  “Lies are one.  Even if you’re not a part of all this, it adds up.  Wronging people, breaking your word…”

“I’m fuuuuucked,” Peter said, backing away from the Bane.  “Fuck me.  Kicking myself for ever thinking this stuff was cool.  Even with the scary stuff… if there’s karma, I’m so completely and utterly fucked.”

“More than you know,” I said.  “You inherit the house, you inherit all the bad karma dating back generations.  We weren’t good wizards, in case you weren’t aware.”

- excerpt from Duress 12.3 </ref>

• Some Others like Isadora are able to inflict bad karma onto others, while things like Demons incur a heavy debt because they poison the world with their very existence.
• When a person with an outstanding karmic debt dies, the debt can pass on to their heir(s).<ref name=":1" />
• Wronging someone without cause.
• Punishing someone unjustly, i.e. if they're innocent and you gave them no chance to argue in their defence.<ref name=":1" />
• Introducing an Innocent to the existance of magic, only for them to suffer harm.<ref name=":1" /><ref>“If it comes down to me, then that’s it,” I said.  “I’m responsible for you.  I’m pretty sure that if you die, then I take on a bit of that misfortune.  I go too.”

“No,” she said.  “Your connections moved to Rose, right?  Rose is responsible for us.”

I frowned.

What did it say that that bothered me?  I wanted to be responsible for them.  I wanted to have that tie to people I cared about.

“I’ve been thinking about it.  If we die, or if something bad happens

to us, Rose is probably going to suffer, because she adopted that 

responsibility.  The council members might have even figured it out,” Alexis said.  “It could be the advantage they need to get control over her, to defuse the dead man’s switch.  Or they call it a win and rely on

the karma swing to screw up Rose’s plan.  The dead man’s switch might 

not wind up working at all.”

- excerpt from Malfeasance 11.8 </ref>

• Damaging things in the Spirit World, forcing the universe to break their counterparts in the real world.<ref>“Your other friends are occupied or caught in traps by Duncan and his

sons, Rose is bound indoors, and I’ve broken most of the available and 

useful reflective surfaces in the spirit world.  Things are going to find an excuse to break in the real world in the coming days and weeks, but we can cross that bridge when it comes.”

“Sounds like bad karma,” I said.  “Giving the universe a lot of menial work to do to keep everything coordinated.”

“Well,” Laird said, “I’m hoping to make it up to the universe.”

“Borrowing against the future for the sake of the present?” I asked.

- excerpt from Subordination 6.12 </ref>

• Stealing, unless it's balancing something they stole from you.<ref>I retrieved the little stonehenge charm bracelet and held it up.  “Credit goes to Evan, for collecting this.”

“You stole it?” Fell asked.

“Evan did.  So yeah, I guess we did?”

“Bad karma, depending on how you do it,” Fell told me.  “Especially if the possession has power.”

“We were fighting,” I said.  “Going head to head.”

“Even if you’re fighting, certain objects belong in certain hands.  The universe doesn’t like that kind of disruption.”

[...]

“Look.  If that’s the case, then how come Duncan didn’t get bitten by karma when he took June, my hatchet?”

“Ah,” Fell said.  “If he did, then it’s only fair if you took something of his in return.” - excerpt from Subordination 6.9 </ref>

Techniques for Karma Management

Executions, ordered by local councils and carried out by Witch Hunters, are a common way to formalize karmic punishment. Those who aren't foolish generally include an opportunity for the accused to defend themselves; in which case they're unlikely to suffer karmic backlash for ordering the execution.<ref name=":1" />

Circuitous methods of murder, where the attacker isn't personally present or involved, can help evade karmic responsibility as the Spirits may not be bright enough to make the connection.<ref name=":2" />

Many Diabolists will maintain an item which reflects their karma so they can track it.<ref name=":0" /> This can also occur naturally when Awakening, as it did for Blake Thorburn's tattoos.

In addition to passively gathering karma for holding it, a Demesne's reality-warping powers can be used to change karma for raw power or vice versa.

Trivia

• Karma is an Indian word meaning amoung many other "action", it is a concept reflected across many cultures with things like good and bad luck.