Yeah. What about prohibiting hexes that are set to last more than a day without the consent of the hexed person, what would worry you about that?

You can definitely kill someone with a hex that lasts less than a day. Or permanently damage them, or torture them. Or, with some kinds of magic, hurt the people around them. Most of those are problems with other kinds of spells too, though.

And we can't ask people to swear not to use magic to kill anyone, people will be trying to kill them.

Yeah. Is there a good way to say they can't start it? "Only in defense of their or someone else's lives?"

What if they come across orcs who aren't, currently, attacking?

Nobody's actually explained orcs to me yet; why do you think there should be an exception for them like that?

All of them serve the Enemy. Sometimes his orders for them might be to not be violent, but that can change at any moment and his orders for them always serve his goals. 

That sounds unpleasant all around. Maybe I can find another empty world to put them in? And I kind of want to see if I can talk to a few first, to make sure there isn't anything about the situation that you've missed. But that does sound like a reason for an exception, yeah.

Putting them in another world would be great. You might get something out of talking to them that we don't, because they hate Quendi in particular, but you'd have to learn the language.

And that's not the best use of my time right now, she sighs. Well, that's a reason to prioritize the spell forms, then, if we can't safely do anything nonlethal with what we have now.

Yeah. If they die they go to Mandos and he claims he's trying to fix them, it's not irreversible.

...huh?

When Quendi and orcs die we go to Mandos. He's not very nice but he can bring us back. So killing us isn't the worst thing you can do to us.

...okay. That still sounds like we should be trying to figure out something nonlethal to do with them and then ask what they want, though. Depending on what you mean by 'not very nice', I guess.

Asking what they want won't get us anywhere, sending them to another planet might. And Mandos fixes things he finds objectionable about people before he lets them return to life.

I mean, I'm thinking send them to another world and then ask what they want from there, making it clear that 'come back and serve the Enemy' isn't an option. If they'd rather go to Mandos than stay in another world where they probably die permanently then we can do that, I just don't like making that choice for them.

I don't think you'll get a helpful answer.

Maybe not. I should still try, though.

Mmhmm.

But unless it's a lot easier to deactivate an oath and replace it with a new one than I'm expecting, yeah, definitely put in an exception for that.

It's not supposed to be possible at all.

...what happens if you swear not to do something until some other thing happens?

That works fine.

Okay, that's what I meant. We can make some mistakes, so long as we make sure they won't be too bad and there's some way to fix them, and that'd be a way. Spellcasting works the same way, I almost always include a way to deactivate spells I cast.

You have to be really careful with oaths because they can alter your brain if you're careless or manipulated.