When a man swears an oath, and having sworn it finds that it impels him to do Evil, who can be said to benefit but the forces of Evil? It is Asmodeus who profits if men feel they must keep their word even unto diabolism or murder, and the innocent subjects of Cheliax who must pay the price. For it is the work of Asmodeus to convince men that Lawfulness commands them to do Evil, and a service to Asmodeus to convince men that they therefore have no other choice.

No good man ought ever swear an oath, save only if necessary to trick the forces of Evil into making grave mistakes. And any Good man who finds that an oath (sworn presumably before he turned towards Goodness, for no Good man would so bind himself with the tools of Asmodeus) is leading him towards Evil should cast it aside as worthless. The people of Cheliax are not owed rulers who would sell them to Dispater for the sake of their oaths; they are owed rulers who would break even the gravest oaths to save a single soul.

An Oath is Sworn to Another

An Oath is not merely sworn in a God's sight, it is Sworn To Another.

Honor demands that a Man Holds To His Oaths, but, before this, Duty demands that He Honor Those He Swore Them To. To Break an Oath one Could Keep is Lawless, or so Pharasma may say, but it is Much More Lawless and Despicable when you break an Oath Toward One You Know.

An Oath to a Superior is weighty, but if the Superior Be Gone, Such is the Oath Gone Also. Your tie to that Man, be He Priest, Captain, or Queen, was bound to His Office, not to His Self, and it is No Iniquity to Abandon It. With the Office Empty, Likewise is the Oath. A Subordinate generally is Required to Offer Trust to their Superior, and Trust Demanded Lasts Only As Long As The Demand; when he who demanded it departs, or loses the power to demand, No Trust Then Exists To Betray. And if a Superior Does Not Fulfill Their Duty, to command well as a general or rule well as a monarch, The Trust May Then Depart Early.

But an Oath to an Ally, whether that be a Friend, a Partner of Business, a Wife or Husband, or the Soldier Beside You In The Ranks, this Oath is not merely weighty but Sacred to All Honor and Duty. For you have Sworn to a Man or Woman, and this Oath will last For As Long As You Live. The Trust you Offer with your Oath is Not Dependent, and so it Cannot Be Rescinded, unless by The Other Breaking Oaths First.

And Asmodeus certainly Knew this: Not for Nothing did Hell discourage Marriage, for a Marriage Oath is of the type which is Inviolable, and Greatly Anarchic to Break. To Swear Marriage Oaths in Infernal Cheliax was to Choose between Evil and Law; for all the old forms of Marriage require that a Man be Decent to His Wife, and a Woman to Her Husband, and this may Not Always be Good but it Forbids most Evil. Only the Rich and Noble, who Signed Lengthy Contracts rather than Swear Personal Oaths, and those from Villages and Farms who Avoided All, Kept Marriage, and we may conclude that is because it Denies Asmodeus Souls.

An Oath to a Subordinate is a Trickier thing, because it is again to an Office, but Not Entirely. A Captain's Oath to a Sailor is required Only By His Promise to Sail Wisely. So with a Queen's to her Dukes and Barons. Trust of a Duke to his Baron may be Required by his Oaths to his Queen, or a Ship's Wizard by his Oaths to his Captain, or a Judge by his Oath of Office whoever it may be Sworn To. I would say it is Much Like to An Ally, but a Dutiful Superior must keep in Mind Past Oaths, and an Honest One Confess to their Subordinate how those Oaths Bind, or Refuse to Make Oath if they cannot Explain.

So I would say, of those Lords and Ladies described in 'Against Rulership by Anarchic Oath-Breakers', that if they are Described Rightly, then certainly Count Urgell is a Despicable Oath-Breaker; the Trust of Confidential Advice is a Very Great One, and if this was Required by his Vassal's Oath he had Duty to Confess or Refuse. Countess Ribagorça I would look upon as Shiftless and Untrustworthy, to exalt Iomedae as greater than the dead, but Not Truly Despicable. Count Gandisa is a case as I said of Superiors: That the Lord Protector of Molthune, whose Office was the Preparation for Reconquest of Cheliax, had Refused to Aid the Reconquest, made the Trust Depart. He may be said to be Somewhat Shiftless, but Not Despicable, for he Performed His Superior's Office Better Than The Lord Himself. And of the many nobles who Swore Once to the Thrunes and Swore Now to Queen Aspexia, why, they are Not Oath-Breakers At All, for the Infernal Oath Perished With the Infernal Queen.

And to our Other Interlocutor, who is Against Oaths Entirely, I say, Do Not Swear Them. But if you do swear, Swear Faithfully and Hold it Honorably. Thus will Others Trust You, In Marriage or Business or Else. And if you have No Need Of That Trust, well, then you must be a Wealthier Man Than I, to Never Need Trust for anything you Desire. Myself, I need to take loans and secure documents with Abadarans, to agree prices now for contracts of months to come, to plan events with many people on specific Sundays, and to use currency without checking if it has been adulterated. For these things I require Trust and to Be Trusted, and so I find Making Oaths Indispensable.

On the Count of Gandysa

My esteemed fellow-pamphleteer writes in "An Oath is Sworn to Another" that because the Lord Protector of Molthune had forsaken the war against Cheliax, he thereby freed the Count of Gandysa from the obligations of his oaths. Yet let us briefly contemplate what might happen to the institution of military oaths should all men betray their oaths if they believed their commanders to have forsaken their purpose. A soldier can see but a small portion of the battlefield; it is not uncommon that his commander's orders will seem strange or ill-advised to him. But should every soldier cast aside his oaths merely because he perceived his commander to have violated that trust that led him to pledge himself in service, there is not an army on Golarion that would not collapse in a moment. Indeed, it can be said that in the case of Molthune, the Lord Protector saw further across the battlefield than the Count of Gandysa; for before his armies could fight a single battle, the war had already been won. To excuse the actions of the Count of Gandysa is to undermine the very nature of oaths.

On Military Oaths

If it is the case that every army on Golarion would collapse in a moment if soldiers found their Trust in their superiors lacking and hence Broke their Oaths, which very well may be, I say that then, No Army On Golarion is Well-Led. If a single moment of confusing orders is enough to destroy the morale of an army, the Army Never Trusted Its General in the first place.

Not being a general, let alone a skilled one, I cannot tell you how best to Secure The Trust Of Your Soldiers. I observe that Lastwall asks a great deal from its soldiers and does not, as far I have ever been told, see them try to shirk; relatedly, the Trustworthiness Of Paladins is famed to all, even in infernal lands. Marshal Cyprian or whatever title he has currently taken has been accused of many things, even of Oath-Breaking, and many of those accusations are likely true, but no one disputes that Cyprian's Armies Revere Him. Perhaps it is simply because he WINS, or perhaps his arts of rhetoric are as exceptional as his strategic skill. Other armies, such as the Pure Legion of Rahadoum, secure trust by recruiting only volunteers whose trust comes Already Established. I am sure other methods exist, and it seems to me that these methods work.

Myself, Were I So Unfortunate as to be pressed into a military command, I would attempt to solve this in the most direct way: Swear To My Soldiers that I would not waste their lives without good reason, and then do as I had promised. By the end of my first campaign, I would perhaps be Defeated, possibly Forsworn, and otherwise Believed.

In short, my friend, you are asking that Oaths sustain an institution that they Cannot In Fact Sustain. It does not undermine the nature of Oaths, merely the nature of Armies, and that only armies as you have seen and experienced them.