I personally feel that if a lord won't release you, too bad, you gave your word of honor, a pact was made. They SHOULDNT be easy to get out of without betraying your oath to King and Country as well to find a home in a different country. More likely is that a lord may become inactive or somehow miss the release request. I do like the idea of being able to go above their heads in the chain of command to get a duke or ruler to intercede, but that sounds like it would be very difficult to code. A potential compromise is giving oath tokens a counter the same way duel requests have.
For Example...
Let's say on the POLITICS tab we add an OATH OF FEALTY link. this is the "Token" Clicking the link leads to a new page that tells you who currently holds your oath, and who is above them in the aristocracy (Duke, King). This is where we could have the "REQUEST RELEASE" button. Opening it reveals a dropdown menu of the three people who could release you (Lord, Duke, King). You select whom you want to receive the request. If you select Lord, that lord will receive a notification much like the duel request where if it goes unanswered for a certain period, then the knight is automatically released. If you select Duke or King, they CAN release you, in which case a notification saying as much would be sent to the lord. However, the Duke/King will not have a counter/timer like the Lord does. if they ignore you, well tough luck, roleplay your way out and/or find a better realm for your character/playstyle.
To be honest, so long as we're brainstorming, i'd also like this Oath of Fealty page to hold a log of all the people you've owed fealty to in the past, and/OR all the knights who owe(d) you their fealty. I like the idea of players having this information system-logged to refer back to for RP purposes.
