Lets not forget , that by the RAW , there are no Diedne survivors/heirs.
Or if any turned up , they would be Marched on sight.
So , officially , there is no "opposing side" from which to get a viewpoint.
I suspect this particular chamberpot will remain unnailed.
That is based on the assumption that there were actual sacrifices.
That might just have sounded more serious if not for the very vocal and not so small minority of americans who as late as in mid 1941 wanted USA to join the war on the side of Germany (because it had now attacked USSR, although the faction in support of Germany was never small). Polling at the time gave this minority a size of somewhere around 20-35%... Its probably more than the % that wanted to join the war against Germany ( and much less than those who wanted to stay out of the war, period, end of story ).
And as mentioned previously, USA didnt join the war. Japan attacked it (its declaration of war was supposed to be delivered shortly before the attack, but the Japanese foreign ministry messed up the timezones) and then Germany declared war.
Perhaps "a peacemaker would be "blessed"" if he got the north to accept the confeds as a separate nation on the condition of getting rid of slavery? Not that the north cared THAT much about it even if some did. And it wasnt the primary issue for the south either as industrialisation was starting to show slavery as being increasingly ineffective.
If they wanted to be able to stand up against the later invasions, which was what big bad Palpatine was trying to prepare a unified powerful nation against, well...
That he was being stupid about doesnt make him evil. Though being a vicious evil bastard DOES make him evil. :mrgreen:
Well, USA/UK/Holland in cooperation was technically waging economic warfare against Japan since 1934 so its more like USAs undeclared war just got a bit hotter when Japan kicked back after USA confiscated Japans assets in USA.
Yeah, painting Tremere as 100% good an innocent and Diedne the opposite just makes it look like parody.
To say the least! Cortez probably killed far more people than the Aztecs ever got close to having sacrificed.
Tremere and Diedne once were friends, but Diedne was against the fact that Tremere becomes a founder, so he found a way to destroy her house...
"Qui veut tuer son chien dit qu'il a la rage" (who wants to kill his dog says it has rabies... I don't know the equivalent in English).
I don't believe that house Diedne was so bad...
But the other houses who were mostly latin take house Tremere's arguments as a way to destroy a non latin house, it is also why Merinita were with Diedne and Bjornaër remains neutral.
I think that destroying the house Diedne has been the biggest mistake of Order of Hermes, even if it was probably a way to make the Order stronger in a way.
Did the Diedne druids human sacrifices? I don't know... Even if ancient druids were doing human sacrifices, I am not sure that Diedne did, as they accepted to join the Order.
In my saga, Diedne were not infernalists, at least not as a House. They were just very insular, and practiced strange pagan rites including human sacrifice (hey, Crintera is happy with that too...).
For some reason, some spark of animosity between some Diedne and some Tremere flared up. Perhaps there was some conflict about magical resources. Perhaps a Diedne apprentice that the Tremere snatched with certamen after the parens died. Perhaps some Tremere found evidence that the Diedne were behind the Sundering. Perhaps it started as nothing more than an unconfirmed suspicion. A certamen turned into a wizard's war, a wizard's war into a covenant war, and the Tremere, who were outmatched at this level, ask for the help of the House to escalate the conflict. The House entered the fray and butchered everyone.
The Quaesitores entered on the side of the Tremere for some cynical reason. Perhaps they always resented the fact that the Diedne told them to stick their noses elsewhere, and that the magic of the house was to stay in the house. Perhaps the Tremere bribed them, with resources or with silence about something like the Duresca scrolls. Perhaps they just figured that if the acted resolutely and ruthlessly helped destroy one of the two contestants, damage to the Order as a whole would be reduced. Or perhaps they just took the cowardly way, and instead of telling the Tremere "you know, you broke the code, we'll bring you to justice" they thought it smarter to say "Hey, good job, that's exactly what we where about to command you to do".
In any case, it boiled down to: Tremere and Guernicus ganged up on an innocent House, ruthlessly destroyed it, and then... hey, life goes on and that's it. The winner always gets to rewrite history.
Ah everyone knows diedne had all the cool vis sources and regiones
Tremere was jelous
Gurinicas switched sides when war was declared probably on the hopes of pillaging their vis ..and how ironic is it that one of the fencil rituals took the house down
As per the RAW, the Guernicus were shitting away in fear and running around without knowing what to do. Finally took the easy way out because they were too scared to do anything else and broke mightily the code of Hermes themselves. But hey, they are the judges so can do that!
Diedne magic probably was Chtonic. This is why they were purged. Same as with the Tytalus, really, only that the Tytalians were taking the next step up in the corruption ladder. Remember that if you are already mightily screwed and they are coming for you, you can unse CHtonic magic to cast mighty spells including stuff like sacrificing an inocent child to get more punch and desecrtating stuff to get free vis, as well as use infernal vis for free and live an infernal aura getting a bonus (while the other guys get a malus). I can see that happening and going downhill as "See, SEE!!! they DID use dark magic in the end!!! WE TOLD YOU!!". 
You only need one instance of this happening to build up all the evidence you need
Cheers,
Xavi
Bah house tytaluse had things well in hand and would have clleansed their own house easily if that traitor didn't go outside the house asking for help.
I think of Diedne as druids, an oral tradition, not written, so there's little need to go into it unless we get a theurgist or necromancer. They didn't share knowledge as others in the order... Few ever wrote in latin, due to a cultural disdain for conquerers.
They practiced what seemed to be human sacrifices to dark gods or demons noone will know any different.
However they were much like Criamon. Religion being animist with Ancestor worship and Reincarnation. Some ritual killings sent the chosen messenger into the spirit world to bargain with powers, talk to ancestors, travel deep into Magical or Fairy realms etc. This did have the unfortunate side effect of the body being dead. So communicating after the fact could only take place with those involved with the ritual. Many times being "the sacrifice" was an honorable duty, some rituals would require the willing. The unwilling were payments to Fairies or used as Vis substitutes to favor ancestor Daimons. Probably Cthonic elements as well.
Our saga?- about 90 years at this point....
Since one of the players is a Diedne, this became important....
The Twist:
The whole war was an infernal plot to destroy certain sections of the Order. A certain spider used his allies to bury the house that had, and still could, hurt them/him. (A certain spider that was a Grugach/Vitkar cross-Grugach hate Diedne). This also had the effect of reducing both Flambeau and Tremere as well. This made Exmisc the largest house. Exmisc has a lot of...interesting folk in it (including Grugarch)
So the Infernal has severely weakened the Order by removing the group that could most get in the way....
The Infernal is everywhere....
CONSPIRACY THEORY IN THE REALMS!!!! Me likes 
It has the "bad" side effect of making everybody "the fooled good guys" (I prefer the OoH being a bunch of schoolyard bullies, that it is what they really are IMO) but it is a cool idea none the less. 4 houses smashed (remember the corruption of house tytalus) and the nosy Quaesityors too ashamed to look too much into the activities of anyone in much detail just in case they messed things royally again.
Nice.
Xavi
Oh that IS a neat version!
It did solve a lot of the questions and problems....
Now if the magi can survive to the final scene...
Obviously, the Diedne weren't EVIL. Bonisagus spent a LOT of time with her, and would have picked up on something... 
As a side note: If the Diedne were so inherently evil, and their magic as well (Chthonic), wouldn't that make ALL Diedne magic evil (spont magic)? So by default, shouldn't the Order ban Spontaneous magic????
HHHHHMMMM?
They did not, so that puts that to rest.
Were there some bad apples...sure thing. In our campaign, I have used such against them...(didn't like it much)
Flambeau- Over-eager beavers, whose desire to help was certainly boosted by some Infernal backing...
Tremere- Do gooders, trying to make up for their own sins, but falling into the same old one... The demons haven't left the house yet...
Guernicus: Still screwing things up. Infernal influence to make them hesitate at the right/wrong time, causes the war... Then causes them to commit treacherous murder... Wow, sounds pretty evil to me...
The only thing that has changed, is the fact our group has managed to gain a Magus with Holy magic. The demons don't like him much. He has been able to clean out, and keep the demons out of the way...
What does the Code actually say regarding human sacrifice? I can't remember anything specific. How about animal sacrifice?
I think it is a lie to say that druids - and diedne - were making human sacrifices... historically, it is the romans who invented that to throw away the druids who had a to important political place into the celtic society... and so that latin hermetic houses believe that Diedne are doing human sacrifice is quite logical, but it doesn't mean it is true...
I am quite sure it is entierely false and that tremere and others invented that just to have a reason to destroy them... and later on at the end of the war, guernicus prefered destroy one house (diedne) than 3 houses (tremere, tytalus, flambeaux)
I don't know whether that's true or not, but I'd go with the notion that sacrifice was practiced back in the day. That's not to say that it continued into the Hermetic age - there's a lot of years in between. But anything that serves to throw suspicion on the House and could be a reason for their secrecy (which I think everyone accepts) and could be leveraged by their enemies is worth retaining.
House Diedne never existed.
Everything was fabricated by the Secret Masters of the Order and the Schism War did not actually take place.
Let's say for the sake of argument that they were sacrificing people to Dark Fay. What's in the Code that makes this illegal?
In the Code (edit: I mean "In the Oath"), nothing directly.
However, there is the strong possibility that "Dark Fae" are really demons (who may or may not have fooled the Diedne). The sacrifice of people is also generally known/thought/suspected to cause/strengthen Infernal auras. So, it is hard, in-character, for other characters to distinguish Diedne making "sacrifices to the 'Dark Fae'" from Diedne "dealing with The Devil".
Quite apart from that, "sacrificing people to 'Dark Fae'" is murder. Most magi should have a problem with it for this simple reason alone.
Most magi surely will. But the Order and the Code don't exist to enforce morality on magi, but rather to resolve dispute. Unless there's a ruling in the Code, you can't be Marched for being a murderous idolater any more than you can for dressing funny.
I feel like there must be something more relevant in the Code but I'll be damned if I can find it.
And rulings in the Code are made by Tribunals. There is a relevant ruling in the Perpherial Code. It is the Grand Tribunal ruling that Renouced House Diedne.
Having a whole House suspected of "doing stuff that other magi feel morally obliged to strongly object to" is a problem for the stability of the Order; as magi who "strongly object to things" declare Wizard War.
House Tremere and others declared [Wizard] War on the Diedne prior to House Diedne being Renouced. Obstensibly, this was because "the Diedne were murdering idolators". This may or may not have been true. This doesn't matter particularly. It is the legal perogative of House Tremere (and allies) to declare Wizard War on whomever they like. Their purported reason, "the Diedne were murdering idolators" is a convincing moral reason to declare Wizard War --- if you believe the claim. So, House Diedne was ultimately Renouced as a solution to prevent the Order falling apart due to the large numbers of Wizard Wars that were already being fought over this issue (and maybe similar issues).
Why did the Tribunal Renouce House Diedne and not, say, Renouce House Tremere for "being a bunch of de-stabilising zealots"? House Tremere had better political connections, and their position was certainly helped by the fact that they had the moral high ground (if you believed their claims).
Finally, if "people" really are being sacrificed, they are presumably coming from somewhere. The mundane authorities will feel such sacrifices are a bad/evil idea too. So, you arguably endanger the Order (through mundane interference) by creating a circumstance whereby the pope (or whoever) might feel it is good idea to outlaw the whole Order for " being [or harbouring] murderous idolater[s]". Which is another (maybe not very significant) point in favour of Renoucing House Diedne.