The Understanding
The Understanding is a common term used by faction members to refer to the unwritten code of conduct they have regarding interfaction conflict.
The factions are very much enemies, every faction would be extremely happy if everyone if the other two suddenly had a fatal accident. They are all drawn to Haven in part of pursue using the Gate for their own purposes and in part to prevent the other factions from using it for purposes which interfere with theirs.
However, they also have certain goals in common, such as preventing other groups and individuals from using the Gate to destroy the world, for this reason they understand that open warfare between them is undesirable for everyone. Over time this understanding has been codified into a sort of code of conduct that they refer to as simply The Understanding.
The Understanding states that while faction members can and should fight each other and try to push their own faction into a greater advantage that certain lines should not be crossed. This boils down to that they should not kill each other, permanently disfigure, cause severe physical or psychic damage. There is an element of Sportsmanship in The Understanding, it makes a lot of conflicts more of a sport of competition than a real deadly battle.
Embarrassment is the normal currency of the conflict, it's common from a Faction member who gets caught by the opposing factions to be beaten up, robbed, stripped and left handcuffed naked to a streetlamp or something similar.
Examples of actions that clearly violate The Understanding are: Murder, Torture, Rape, Maiming, Inflicting serious wounds, using vampire blood to brainwash someone, holding someone captive for more than 24 hours.
Spells woven in and around Haven will taint the aura of anybody who violates the Understanding, against other faction members or even civilians as long as they normally reside there. Effective faction leaders have the ability to turn this taint into a full blown mark or blood aura. This aura is visible to all non civilians, it prevents the one with it from entering their faction base, removes all protections from them and means that people cannot be tainted themselves by whatever they do to them.
This means the only way to get away with committing one of these crimes is if either nobody knows it occurred, or all the faction leaders are content with it. This may happen if for instance a faction member turned terrorist is killed. The Understanding also extends to the human population of Haven. This is something that was put in to appease the Haven Sheriff department, part of a deal struck so they would not report the presence of the supernaturals to the outside world. Even if something does not break the understanding if it is still against the law and is against a civilian there is a good chance the police may get involved.
Taint (self) Will mark you with the taint if you think the RP you have done should warrant it, a lot of actions automatically apply the taint.
Taint (target) Will send the target an anonymous message suggesting they taint themselves. If you use this, the person doesn't taint themselves and you're positive they should have, contact the immortals.
BloodAura (target) Turn a taint into a full blown Blood Aura, only usuable by faction leaders, if it's used on someone who isn't tainted it causes a painful and damaging magical backlash.
When a faction doesn't have a current, active leader members may ICly note the immortals, who'll RP out of town faction leaders and may make blood auras if they deem it appropriate.