The Blood Oath

 The Blood Oath was the ritualized self-cutting of a Jade Viper Neophyte’s body that served a number of ideological and cultural functions within the Astartes Chapter on Yuc’Anti Xiii. When performed by ruling Nakom Priests, the act of the Blood Oath was crucial to the maintenance of sociocultural and political structure. Bound within the Jade Viper’s belief systems, the Blood Oath was used as a tool to legitimize the dedication of the neophyte as they bound themselves to a position within the Chapter and, when enacted, was important to the perceived well-being of a given human society that dwelled on Yuc’anti Xiii.

At the Jade Viper Chapter’s core, sacrifice symbolized the renewal of divine energy and, in doing so, the continuation of life. Its ability of bloodletting to do this is based on two intertwined concepts that are prevalent in the Yuc’canti belief system. The first is the notion that the Emporer had given his life to humankind by sacrificing his body. The second is the central focus of their mythology on human blood, which signified life among the inhabitants of Yuc’anti Xiii. Within their belief system, human blood was partially made up of the blood of the Astartes which they viewed as Demi-gods, who sacrificed their own divine blood in protecting the of humans on their planet. Thus, in order to continually maintain the order of their universe, the Yuc’anti people believed that blood had to be given back to the Emperor.