Help: Diedne

I was about to write up last night's character that usually plays a Jerbiton and he wants to be a Diedne. Can you have that Virtue -and- be a member of another House (since, by definition, it's its own house)?

Sphynx

They would have to be a member of another House to be member of the Order of Hermes in 13th Century.

Or lie, but in that case, they might as well lie about being in the Order at all...

Probably best to draw one up as an ex Misc, with the free Major Virtue being Diedne Magic...

V.

They get a free Major Non-Hermetic Virtue as part of the House package.
Diedne Magic would have to be the original Major Hermetic Virtue chosen.

Since you mentioned before you don´t play in Mythic Europe,make up something.
There are no real stats and merits since they are supposed to be the Bogeymen for the Houses...

That's just it, there IS a Virtue to be Diedne now, and it looks like it just stacks with whatever house you belong to. Handling it wasn't a problem, I'm more curious as to how it's suppose to be handled.

Well assuming one uses the setting as it is presented, I would say the Diedne virtue(being from a Diedne linage) does stack with the house. This might be considered a great advantage as you get both the Diedne virtue, and the advantage from the house. But among the Order of Hermes, being a Diedne is so utterly dangerous that it ways up the advantage by far.

If you play a saga where that disadvantage doesn't come into play, I would let players play Diedne without needing(or getting) to belong to a house, and without getting the extra house advantage.
However it would then be fair to allow the Diedne a free minor virtue, as all the houses get. So it sort of evens out anyhow. I just wouldn't allow Diedne to get the advanteges associated with the Mystery Cult houses. (Just maybe Merinita perhaps)

You could easily recreate House Diedne making that virtue their free house virtue on the Ex Miscellanea model. In the standard setting though, House Diedne ceased to exist as a house, so magi with Diedne Magic are full members of their official house (and thus get the free virtue) who happen to also belong to a secret Diedne lineage. The extra training and power they inherit is bought with the virtue, which does count for their one allowed major hermetic virtue, as well as by its associated Dark Secret.

House Diedne no longer exists. All members were marched and the house destroyed (more or less) see the Schism War in the rules p. 10. So if you have the virtue and you are playing in the official setting you have to first of all determine why you have the virtue. Then you pick a house normally since you get the house virtue as well, you are a member of the house in question but in secret you were taught by a member of house diedne who is also hiding in that house.

But if you are found out, and frankly you will be found out soonish if you are not very, very careful about how you spont cast well then you had best have friends, and political connections and you had better pray that the person who find out is inclined to keep the secret. As you will be marched once news gets out that you are a secret member of the house diedne since the war "ended" because all the diedne were dead (or so everyone thought) not through a "peace treaty" and you would become an addendum to that list of dead diedne.

What the consiquences are exactly depends on the story guide. So allowing someone to take that virtue well frankly depends on if the story guide is willing to go full out on this. Since it has exceptionally unpleasent consiquences for the player involved...fundamantally it is not a virtue that makes a lot of sense for a PC.

Though dark secrets are a good story hook, well frankly you have to watch what dark secret you take since when it kicks in (and it will always) that is when the real story of your character starts. So it would be best that the dark secret be one that is survivable. And it is highly unlikely this one is. Being marched by a vast fraction of the house of Tremere and any of the others that supported the schism war plus any odds and sods who just want your vis is likely to be rather unfun.

In any "offical campaign" I would highly recomend taking this virtue off the list for PCs.

I disagree PaulM. There's not an IC way of knowing how someone cast a Spont spell (heck, it's hard to tell if it even was a Spont spell, and not a Formulaic Spell). The only threat would be you letting the secret out, or someone successfully using a spell to read your mind on the matter. So, don't go blabbing to your friends, and don't do anything to get that info dragged from your head, and you should be fine.

From a story perspective, I'd find it interesting if the Paren was found out, thus giving rise to such a story, but in our games, the Covenant is far stronger than the House for a character, and I could almost guarantee the whole Covenant of Magi would run and find a more solitude-like place to reside than turn over the Diende

However, it doesn't really answer the primary question. How would the 'paren' have gained the House Virtue of the house he somehow infiltrated. Just because someone is apprenticed to the Diende who is in house Bjorn, doesn't mean he would get HeartBeast would it? Merinita is possible (all you need is to be touched by the Fairy in some way really), but not for certain other houses....

Anyhows, since there was no 'Official' answer given, I'm going to assume that learning Diende Magic is more of a Virtue like Flexable Formulaic, and that the other Houses would just falsely 'assume' that the magus is from a Diende lineage because of it, and thus want to March (should they ever find out), meaning that his Paren was NOT a Diende. That's the only thing that fits perfectly with the rules, without inventing new rules.

Sphynx

As i understand it the various House Virtues are 'Outer Mysteries'.
Some of these crop up spontaeously in bloodline lineages , but are not restricted to them.
So it is entirely possible to be taught Diedne Magic by a Parens who also has the House Virtue.

Hence, you'd not actually be Diende (and thus hunted by the entire Order), just having their 'Outer Mystery' which would be next to impossible to be found out about.

Since not all magi agreed with the marching of hous Diedne, it would be possible for a sympathetic magi to have taken a nearly finished Diedne apprentice and raised as his own. This way a lineage of Diedne descendants could have been hidden in another house.
It is also possible that there are survivors from the schism war and that the house secretly continues its existence. Maybe descendants of the house live on as members of other houses while secretly owing allegiance to house Diedne. The House goal could be to rewrite history... alter history books about the war and argue that the destruction of the house was a horrible and wrong thing. Their ultimate goal might be to change the orders opinion of the schism war in order to allow for a reinstatement of the house in a couple of centuries or so... Or maybe descendants of the survivors simply want revenge on house Tremere.

EX Misc. springs to mind.Half of the Ex Misc.Characters that I have seen seem to have that Virtue or some Diedne related Dark Secret.

This is how I picture it as well. There is of course a few good saga ideas in the scheeming of old Diedne. They make great bad guys, and at the same time they're not without traits you could sympatize with.

You obviously don't spont often. Not surprising given you don't actually play Ars. It would be trivial to tell the person was doing things they should not be able to do with spont spells. And unless you were convincing about why you can do things with no fatigue loss which are significantly beyond what other people with the same arts scores can do people will start to wonder. You cast roughtly 10 times as many spont as formulistic spells so sooner or later someone will see this. And a sponted spell is obvious, just like a ritual spell is obvious. And I mean IC obvious.

I see well frankly then what is the point of the dark secret? Why bother with "Enemy of the Order of Hermes" oh right there is no Order of Hermes in your game.

What are you talking about? The Parens is from the same house that the player picks. So an "insert house" PC would have a parens that was also in that house but also has the diedne magic virtue. Diedne magic is in addition as the house no longer exists. You can't be a member of house Diedne as there is no house Diedne...well actually in your case you can and then this is all irrelevant. Actually its all irrelevant anyway since you are not using the official setting.

You said it! :stuck_out_tongue:

Ok, first of all PaulM, forget about my games and how I play, that's not the discussion at all, and plays zero factor in it.

The problem is that you play Ars, and don't Roleplay it. Admittedly, if you knew your fellow Magus had the same scores as you, and saw his fatigue box, you would be a little more apt to wonder about how he's doing the Spont Magic he's doing. Considering such things exist such as Flexable Formulaic Magic, it's not going to be surprising that someone would have 'Strong Spnt Magic' to members who, without enough Hermetic Lore aren't even going to know what a Diende is, or what they can do. Even those that do know what a Diende is, isn't going to be aware that 'only' a Diende would have this sort of Spontaneous Ability, and on the assumption their Hermetic Lore is high enough to know that, as I've stated, unless the Magus keeps his personal character sheet attached to his chest, they still don't have reason to put two and two together.

As far as the average Apprentice knows, someone with Diende Magic is just casting a Formulaic Spell and is just unique in his own 'Flexable Formulaic', especially if it's used in an art like Imagonem.

As for 'knowing' IC that someone casts a Spont instead of a Formulaic, you'll have to give a page reference to me on that one...

As for Dark Secret, and being Hunted, that's a Story Plot, not a required Player-Enforced plot. Players have a right to choose, if they choose to ignore finding a Diende in their midst, that's their choice. Them doing that in no way negates either the Enemy or Secret flaw.

Regardless, the question was still not answered about how a 'Bjorn' or worse, a 'Tremere' could have the Diende Virtue. The answer was that Anyone can learn an 'Outer Mystery', so the character would not actually be a Diende, he'd just be treated as one, were he to be found out, hence the 'Dark Secret' and not an 'Enemies' Major Flaw.

Lastly, stop with the deragatory already. If I wanted some Elitest How-To-Roleplay attitude, I can log on to White Wolf forums, or ask you. I got that. But I don't care if you like the way I play, and frankly, don't want to hear your opinion on it. My questions were asked for future reference (since only games I 'run' are like that, not the games I'm in, which include some online games), and for newbies that might have the same question in the future. My question had nothing at all to do with how I run games, as stated, I already House Ruled for my own games, so don't need your advice for that.

Sphynx

Please to remember that my answer was not Canon.
As there is no Rules restriction for a member of any House taking Diedne Magic ,
then they can be a member of ANY House , and will have the House Virtue/s.
Why are you specifically asking about Bjornaer and Tremere?

The Diedne question and the Schism War have been deliberately left open
, afaik , to allow individual SGs to customize events to their particular campaign.

Bjorn and Tremere were mentioned because they are an 'Outer Mystery' house and a 'True Lineage' house. If someone were to assume that a Diende 'infiltrated' Tremere (a True Lineage House), that would seem like an absolute impossibility. To infiltrate a Bjorn is only slightly more probable since you'd have to solve their Outer Mystery first.

Ie: For Diende to be a Virtue, that could be applied to any Magus from any House, would require it to not actually be an 'Other House' Virtue.

If a magus of a house of true lineage were to take an apprentice that was eihter a surviving Diedne or a previous apprentice of a Diedne, then the Diedne has "infiltrated" a house of true lineage.
In order for it to work with house Mercere it takes that one of Merceres descendants at one point had a child with a Diedne.