My friend Toby and I have been sporadically adding material to our House Diedne blog. It is totally fan fiction, just our take on the big boogieman House of the Hermetic Order. My stuff is blather, but Toby has been working hard and putting up some very nice stuff. His most recent post, with illustration, is: wp.me/p1ZT1e-1y
Give it a look see.
Cheers,
Matt Ryan
Checked, but only one problem/disagreement; the Celtics people was very influential until the Spanish Muslim arrival on the ancient Iberian. More mixed on the east and south, and more "purebreed" on the north and the west, the Celtic Iberian (Caletics and Celtiberians) Roots were more powerfull. It should be interesting think about the relations with the Order from this celtic and Iberians remanents. The Catholic propaganda on Spanish History makes hard the ancient etnographical studies about the pagans here.
Obviously the project, work and material are great.
Very nice.
I look forward to the colleges, even if I do wish you'd settled on another word. Branches perhaps?
Curious, why don't you like "colleges"? I thought it nicely stepped outside the notion that the pagan druids were backwoods, superstitious, hedge wizards and implied that their magical tradition was rigidly organized, purposefully planned with a high degree of formality, and required a specific curriculum. I like applying college, with its urban connotations of structure, to the rural pagans.
Branches seems to Irish, what with the Red Branch of Ulster and all, and we are intentionally shying away from Irish druids, paganism, and mythology. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I mean, I love that stuff - but Toby and I are aiming for a Continental feel to the House. We know we are playing fast and loose with history, jumping from the height of Celtic occupation to the mythic 13th century, but it is fun.
Speaking of fun, has everyone seen this: gaulois.ardennes.culture.fr/ ... te/t=Visit
Matt Ryan
Probably mainly because I connect colleges with the universties only just comming into being around 1200 - much too late for the Diedne.
Still, you've put some thoughts into it, and to me that's more important than the actual choice of word 
The latin root Collegium, which has the right sort of meaning, dates to pagan Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegium_(ancient_Rome)
...which I actually know, making the whole thing even more embarrasing. 
Isn't it somewhat weird thst you refer to a LATIN root for a non latin house? What about coven? or does that sound too much like baddie-witchcraft?
It sounds a latin-derived word to me -- from COnVENire i.e. to meet, to get together (and by extension to agree). It's really the same root behind Covenant 
LOL. Too true 
Do we know of non-latin derivatives that could be used for something similar? Even if you are trying to go for continental diednes, a Celtic (Irish, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish) root might be adequate.