readers digest condensed version:
old pagan sacrifice- the crops are bad, the gods demand a sacrifice, choose a person and kill them.
Christian inquisition: the crops are bad, a witch must be cursing them, pick a person, accuse them, have a show trial, then kill them
very similar from my perspective.
The bonus from a sacrifice is probably better in the Christian version since they are probably Witch Hammerer infernalists.
Of course, if you condense two things enough, they tend to be seen more alike, since differences use to lay on the specifics.
That's the key point here. From our (not just yours: I do share it) perspective, yes, they are pretty much the same. There are also other details that make sacrifices and inquisitorial executions the same: they both were barbaric, and end killing a human being, which is morally bad. Even from our perspective some key differences may rise, though. Think that sometimes the victim of a sacrifice was a willing and proud one. The news are frequently showing people that in the name of their beliefs kill themselves (and usually some other people in the process), or at least don't mind dying for their faith and the punishment of infidels.
But we shouldn't use our perspectives. In the setting are Faerie and Magical gods, which can actually make rain happen if you do sacrifice a victim to them, so people doing that kind of sacrifice may actually be doing the right thing, saving lives in the long term. And there is also God. And I bet you that if the inquisition does that thing of picking someone at random and burning him will generate more infernal than magical auras.
Anyway all this discussion about sacrifices made me wonder that it seems that Diedne Magic could include as part of the virtue a sacrifice bonus, as Cthonic Magic does (maybe not getting an extra benefit if you sacrifice a black animal, to leave it less infernalish). And also I'm starting to toy with a story idea: what if some magus discovers a breakthrough that allows to get access to sacrifices bonus in hermetic magic?
There is such a breakthrough, it's called Hermetic Sacrifice in The Mysteries, Revised Edition, page 117
But it saves vis in ritual magic, not adds to casting of formulaic and spontaneous magic, which would be probably something closer to what Diedne magi may have used (that virtue as it is seems actually like a tool of their rivals). What I'm toying around is releasing into hermetic magic a tool of the ancient enemy and the implications of that.
There is HoH:TL p.113 box Why Did They Care, which mentions the Diedne wicker men as fact.
In sub rosa #13 The Storyguide’s Handbook: Unearthing the Thirteenth House p.17 Gerald Wylie elaborates on it, and some approaches to Diedne in sub rosa #13 take it up: especially Erik Dahl's Díedne the Theurge (p.62ff), Mark Baker's The Cult of Belenos (p.78ff) and Christian Rosenkjaer Andersen's House Diedne:A Chthonic Path to Corruption? (p.88ff).
I thought I'd read it somewhere, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up.
As for the sub rosas, I have sadly not read any.
Keep in mind that not everyone in mythic europe will be making judgements based on RAW- in fact most people in mythic europe are unaware of RAW. The church does not distinguish magic from faerie and rarely distinguishes the infernal from either of the previous. The success of the various Mallus sects of infernalists suggests they aren't so great at distinguishing the infernal from the divine either...
Tremere in their past committed human sacrifices, either to magical gods, faerie gods, or both. It also states in the house description that they have little use for christianity, seeing it as just another god they expect to betray them or let them down. I expect that could be a significant plot point once the inquisition starts to pick up...
IIRC, it's also that they think that gods aren't worth it, like they require sacrifice, but they screw you.
I could see a saga having it framed as the tremere having dealt with false gods.
It's the line "Tremere magi understand, with absolute clarity, what happens to a person when they are murdered to please a god."
Which brings up all kinds of questions, both in terms of a) what it is they understand b) does it apply when the sacrifice is willing, and c) will they apply this understanding to executions of the inquisition?
Because the idea that Christianity is an acceptable religion because God ets his worshipers murder him 1) ignores a number of pagan religions in which gods were sacrificed, from Odin sacrificing himself to Dionysus being sacrificed and resurrected, and 2) may not continue to apply when the Christians start killing people outside of war to appease God.
No one in the Spanish Inquisition thinks for a moment that killing accused witches, heretics, or secret Jews will appease God. So it is not a "sacrifice" in a mystical sense. At most - assuming that the Inquisitors themselves actually believe that the victims are guilty, and aren't simply seeking seized property or terrifying the populace into behaving - the dead a) stop the offending behavior and b) are punished for offending. That's it. It won't restore damaged crops, heal barren cattle, or bring the rains.
The Tremere don't have some secret knowledge about eternity and the Divine. They merely have a long, tragic history of poor choices in patron.
First of all I am thinking first of the French Inquisition before the Spanish.
Second if you think that not one single person in either inquisition believes that killing the condemned is pleasing to God, I think you are very much deluded.
Third if they believe the crops are hurt y the curses of witches and that killing the witch will break the curse then they very much expect a recovery as a result.
Fourth nobody claimed that the Tremere have some secret knowledge about the divine, however it is entirely possible that they believe they do on this subject. An understanding with absolute clarity is not inherently an accurate understanding. It is however a motivating understanding.
I agree that some think that their actions are pleasing to God, but none of them think that their action will have any specific benefit in this world. That sort of bargaining simply isn't part of the theology - pleading and making promises are common (e.g. please let me survive this and I will be a better person, honest) but don't make the action a sacramental rite. Which would be necessary for it to be a sacrifice for power, rather than simply an activity that is like to be seen favorable by God.
Further, the implication that the Christian faith was engaged in human sacrifice would have been (and is) wildly offensive to just about everyone in it. This, like the slur that Communion means that Catholics engage in ritual cannibalism is Protocols of the Elders of Zion level outrageous. I get that a game based in history is going to deal with actual Christianity, but the casual level of fairly noxious garbage that would never be tolerated for any other topic needs to be addressed. No, neither the Catholic Church or the Eastern Church in engaged in human sacrifice. Full stop.
I'm not sure what the heck you mean by "Which would be necessary for it to be a sacrifice for power" What does something being a "sacrifice for power" have to do with whether or not something is a human sacrifice?
Sacrifice:
an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure
So the only real question is whether the human being slaughtered is an offering to God.
The other question, which was the actual point of the discussion, is who will agree or disagree with whatever the answer is. Asking how the Tremere will see something is hardly asking for a theological judgement or pronouncement of authority.