I am curious, how would you shape the Inner secrets of House Didne?
Without refering to Sub Rosa or any other fanzine, please. It would be fun to have a discussion without being told to buy one, just for once.
Is there an issue of Sub Rosa with House Deidne stuff in it? Because I would totally buy that!
Subrosa 13!
Well, I suppose it would depend upon how you envision the Diedne mysteries from a thematic standpoint.
I've never actually used the Diedne in my own saga, but rather like the idea of giving them assorted virtues that benefit spontaneous casting (Chthonic Magic, Life-Linked Magic, etc) coupled with flaws that penalize Ritual casting.
Edit: Uriel, Issue 13 is colloquially referred to as "the Diedne issue". I haven't purchased it yet myself, but plan to just as soon as my taxes come! 
Thank you for blatantly ignoring my polite request of not refering to any fanizine. Feels nice to be ignored.
We didn't refer to a fanzine, you did. A question was asked, and it was answered, but in no way did we refer you to any specific content within the issue.
Dunia, uriel222 asked a question and Jonathan.Link and Gremlin44 answered it. Gremlin44 also answered your original question.
I would also like to know what you see as house diedne, since they can be spirit masters, blood sacrifice stuff, charlatans with small power (but lots of social power), descendants o0f the tuatha de danann or even the remains of the original Cult of Mercury. Or maybe they are just faerie magicians. Depending on what stance you take with them the answer will vary broadly on what their powers should be.
Cheers,
Xavi
Oh, another idea I rather like is the idea of giving the diedne Homunculus Magic and a selection of Faerie M&P powers with which to supplement their hermetic arts.
Maybe the Diedne were just a well-organised house that block-voted once too many times against the Tremere.
That depends on what role you want house Diedne to (have) play(ed) I think.
I have ... 5 partial write-ups I think, for a saga I didn't even play in 
Yup, this. A House who's history has been re-written so many times by the winners of the war, to the point where Deidne could be almost any mustache twirling villains they are needed to be.
I've always liked them as a House based upon weakness in almost all magics, except for blood and nature related area performed as ceremonial magic - who were disliked more because of their highly organised structure and anti-christian ethos more than "risky or corrupted" magic. So I guess I'd use a lot of shared casting / ceremonial effects which were based upon the caster using the land against their enemies.
First I want to apologize, you should not write posts when you first have a really bad day at work and then home from a night out when you are intoxicated.
Secondly: I have been trying to divide them into a three-thonged way with bard, Judges and priests: where bards were the keepers of history and legends, judges were advisors and well judges in the society and the priest where conducting the sacred rites.
Bards:
Outer Mystery: Diedne Magic
Initation: Flaw: Passionate Personality: (Secretive +6) regarding their House, its secret and the magic they wield.
Inner Mystery: Magical Memory (Minor Hermetic) AM5, p 45
Initation: Spend 2 seasons per year, for three years to gather the old legends and teach them to the people. So that they do not get lost.
Inner Mystery: Spontaneous Mastery (Minor Hermetic) New. The bard gains +3 to Spontaneous Casting, after the Casting Total is halved.
Initiation: Difficult Formulaic Magic (Minor Hermetic Flaw), New. Just as Difficult Spontaneous Magic but targets Formulaic Magic instead
Inner Mystery: Druidic Story Magic (Major Hermetic) New. The Druid takes time to prepare a well thought out story and performs it (Communication+Language EF 12) about the situation and the spell he wishes to cast. If he succeeds he may count his lowest art score double (tripple if he has used fatige as per Diedne Magic.
I will continue the rest after I sleep some more.
As has been mentioned, you can apply pretty much any powers to the Diedne and get away with it. But in issue 13 of the resource that shall not be named there is an article that looks at the implications of the published supplements on House Diedne and its magic.
What's clear is that they must have had some means of improving their Spontaneous casting totals to account for their victories and the large numbers of casualties inflicted on some very organised Houses. We are also told that they controlled hordes of beasts and that they were able to trap their spirits in vessels (paintings, I believe) and those where important in that control process. It seems that while the control over animals lasted into the Hermetic age, the ability to create new paintings that trapped the souls/spirits of animals was lost.
Rituals are a problem. Early references to Diedne say that they are unable to conduct rituals or use Wizard's Communion. But we are also told that by working together they are able to create effects far greater than an individual magus. So it seems that there is an entirely separate mechanic at work there. Perhaps akin to the Ceremony Ability common across Divine/Infernal traditions.
Finally, we are told that the Gruagachan and early Druids that went on to become House Diedne shared similar magic. So you might find inspiration in that hedge tradition.
But as I say, you have to work really hard to get a treatment of House Diedne wrong. I once started a project to something very similar to the OP that would describe the House in three branches. I forget what I did and I think the file has been lost through various computer migrations, but my split included a warrior tradition within the House. I can't remember whether I split the law/lore-makers from the priests. I'll have a look for that file...
Okay, I found my old notes.
My Diedne split was:
A bardic tradition:
Main power was to do with storysong magic - they could enchant stories/songs just like devices and teach them to others, passing on the magic to them.
They were also able to give a place knowledge and even store permanent arcane connections, which others could then later study/use.
A lore-keeper tradition:
Some sacrifice bits including Votive Sacrifice, which allows enchanted items to be used in place of vis. It also allowed the magus to use a specially-created item in place of vis - i.e. a craftsman creates a masterwork sword across the season before the Aegis is cast and it is sacrificed in place of the vis needed to cast the Aegis.
They were also able to call spirits down and allow them to work their power through them.
A warrior tradition:
I don't have many notes against these guys but they could paint spells upon themselves in order to change aspects of their physicality and they could give their talismans a Confidence Score that then added to their own, which allowed them to use Confidence Points at a rate equal to their own Score plus that of their talisman.
So that's what I had quite a few years ago. Might do it differently now, but there are some ideas there that I still like.
Outer Mystery: Cthonic Magic
Hermetic Theurgy (Magical deities)
Names of Power (Magical pagan deities)
Non-Hermetic Synthemata (Faerie deities, and lesser faeries)
Hermetic Sacrifice
Unraveling the Chains of the Titans (Ritual that lowers Faerie aura while increasing Magical one)
Hi,
Diedne herself may have been a Breton druidess, but that doesn't mean that the rest of her house had to also be druids. The Contested Isle tells us that when Diedne offered the Irish druids "Join or Die", most of them chose the latter (that is, they fought and died). For me that negates any strong Irish influence on the House.
I prefer to think of House Diedne as a Societas rather than a Mystery Cult. Diedne herself was a rabid recruiter of hedge wizards at a time before House Ex Miscellanea existed. In particular, the house attracted those who espoused pagan belief at a time that such faiths were in decline across Europe. Thus the house may have consisted of wildly different magical systems, from Slavic cursers to Thracian theurgists, Etruscan necromancers to Scandinavian runewizards; but all worshipped the pagan gods and believed that their magic came from them or was a means by which they could be honoured. The Diedne Magic Virtue in my version is not the magical secret of House Diedne, it is the tradition of the founder herself. Other members of House Diedne had all sorts of other Hermetic and non-Hermetic magic, some of which is now lost, and some of which is now part of normal magical practice.
When Pralix came along, Diedne was one of her biggest detractors, pushing the Grand Tribunal to destroy the Ordo Miscellanea. She failed, and saw the new House become a rival to her own. However, the two houses were distinct: House Ex Miscellanea began with British magical traditions who had no strong pagan element. Many of the traditions were ones that Diedne had passed over as not worthy or not pagan. As new magical traditions were discovered and adopted into the Order they had a choice of which house to join. House Diedne protected their magic as a religious practice whereas House Ex Miscellanea promoted their magical practices alone. There may have been migration between the two houses, particularly for new traditions joining the Order. During the Schism War we know that many magi from House Ex Miscellanea fought against House Diedne, settling old scores against them. In conspiracy theory mode I might hint to players that there is a suggestion that Damhan-Allaidh and Diedne were in league with one another; and the secret purpose behind the Schism War was putting down an old and immortal foe. That would explain why so many members of House Ex Miscellanea chose to get involved.
That's just how I see it.
Mark
That makes ... a sort of sense actually.
I hope your signature is a reflection of that state and perhaps you will reconsider your signature. Subrosa is an excellent resource, written by line authors. I can respect that you don't want to purchase it, or perhaps you did purchase the Diedne issue, and want other sources, that's perfectly valid. But asking people to just not mention a source of information if someone has already invented that wheel, as it were, is just not realistic.
Note that a search of these boards is likely to be fruitful. Diedne has come up from time to time over the years.
I think you're wrong here. A wounded magus can't spend fatigue, which means no fast cast spontaneous spells. A Diedne does not need to spend fatigue for (Casting Total)/2 and may spend fatigue to add their lowest art twice. A fast cast defense must be half the level of the attacking spell, the penetration is irrelevant. So Flambeau magus comes up to you can casts Pilum of Flame with 60 points of penetration. Diedne magus casts PeIg 10 and quenches the fire. Diedne magus then turns around and spends 10 pawns of vis to send a spell through Falmbeau magus's parma (I'd suggest PeM: Leave a Person a Mindless Husk base 25, +1 eye, +1 diameter). Diedne magic is a defensive, not an offensive, art.
Oh, has anyone noticed that if the Curse of Thoth were cast just before Dawn in the Roman tribunal - it would be substantially before dawn in Normandy and the British Isles. If um the sacrificed Diedne tradition counted as a member of the Order of Hermes - then the order managed to curse most of the magi in its heartland. Given that the Diedne were into, voluntary, human sacrifice the Diedne who died for the ritual to take effect might have known what she was getting into.