Wow! Just, wow. Now I am stunned 
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I'm liking this thread.
OK, some random bones to chew on
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The schism war. House Diedne almost certainly weren't diabolists, but they were a unified and geographically close house with large numbers and considerable power. So why did the other houses go for them? Maybe they were manipulated. Maybe someone wanted the diedne gone. Maybe it was to destroy the single biggest power bloc around at that time. Maybe the Diedne knew something dangerous and their enemies declared war knowing that anything said after combats starts would be seen as propaganda. Maybe the Diedne had plans of their own and other factions got wind of some kind of coup or great magical work and decided it needed to be stopped.
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The Sundering. The guernicus have held the order together for centuries, whether it wants it or not. At times, they remove particularly dangerous or chaotic magi. At others, they come together and perform vast and powerful rituals, in this case, to break the power of House Tremere. Acting as one, and acting in secret, they effectively rule the order and only get away with it, because their agenda serves most other magi just fine.
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Damhan'Allaid. Why only him? He was wizard of incredible power, but can he have been the only one in Europe to oppose the order? And what gave the spider his power? Did he know things, powerful things, and if so, did others learn these things upon his death? IMS we had a returned DH know a ritual that allowed him to harvest a single pawn of vis from a human sacrifice. His massive vis surplices made him very powerful with remote cast rituals.
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Mystery cults. Powerful groups formed and acting in secret. Surely some of those groups must have wanted to rule, if only to take the resources of other magi. Maybe behind the scenes the orders history has been one of battling mystery cults, a furious shadow war that's ranged for hundreds of years.
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Most of the mystery cults have no interest in ruling. And ruling isn't easy. Instead of trying to seize power it would almost always be better to just progress into the mysteries. Plus if you are a mystery cult and you want to rule? Probably not thinking grandiose enough. Try and become a god. Maybe that's a good sink for the megalomaniacal? Of course, if one of them succeeds...
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You cant handle the truth...
All of Mythic Europe, Order of Hermes & everything, is one big Faerie Realm sandbox. Your lives are all driven around stories and time keeps ebbing back and forth across the year 1220.
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That gave me an idea: Where are Fae copies of the founders? They've gotten so many stories their must be something like that. Some Fae imitation of an archmage. Some Fae magical genius. They have Fae who create beautiful works of art even if the inspiration is ultimately stolen from dreams, so why not with magic or the supernatural? Why are all witches crappy peasants tales? Why is there a Faerie King Aurthor, but no Faerie Bonisagus? And secondly, where are the effects of Hermetic Research? The branches and roots never seem to be updated, but Bonisagus magi are constantly doing research. Something seems off...
Simple: Fae don't have that pesky limit of time. The stories that the Order of Hermes tells have created time traveling Fae. This is what happens when theoretical Faerie researchers from House Merinita get too much to drink. And they took the roles of the founders. As their actions rewrote time they grew more powerful. They became the founders. Whenever some magi in the present makes a new breakthrough and it spreads through the Order it also spreads through time. As time distorts history is changed and instead of making a breakthrough you just end up confirming some detail of Bonisagus theory.
As the Order grows in power so do the Founders. So does Arcadia. You think it doesn't matter? Everything you are is Faerie tricks. But that's not the problem. That's just a existential crisis. The real problem? House Merinita wants to integrate Faerie and Magic. Infuse Fae with their own sparks of creativity and humanity. And spread that through the Order. Back to the Founders.
What will happen when the Founders get free will? What happens when they find out what they truly are? When they really do have the power of magic? Can you stop it? Do you even want to try?
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One of the biggest 'lies' (in my opinion) is the age of the Order.
There is a massive discrepancy between the official time that the Order has existed and the size of it. How did a handful of magi (the founders plus a few others) get to be so large that they needed multiple Tribunals, each with enough covenants, in so few years? And how did all the founders' magics get integrated so quickly?
Even if you factor in the 'join or die' conversion missions, how did these newly joined magi suddenly become fully trained Hermetic Magi? There was no house ex Miscellanea available to join, yet the True Lineages aren't noticeably smaller than the Societates or Mystery Houses. And all their apprentices also became fully Hermetic...
I personally think that the Order must be much older than it claims, perhaps being simply a renamed version of the Cult of Mercury. There seems remarkably little Mercurian magic around, despite a lot of the founders being Mercurian. Bonisagus and his magic theory could have been around for centuries, with or without Parma, and only became the 'Order of Hermes' after they lost the backing of the Roman Empire and needed to be seen as independent (for whatever reason you want; or perhaps Parma was invented at that point). And the official, 'join or die' mantra becomes simply 'die'.
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Or perhaps Bonisagus was also really good at Mentum magic, and join or die wasn't the only form of coercive persuasion being used.
Personally I was always under the impression that the Diedne house was destroyed for not becoming officially Christian- the Order tolerates non Christian magi but could not tolerate a non-Christian house. It also leaves me wondering what the role of the Church might have been... it also follows the timeline when Roman Catholicism was competing with Irish monastic Christianity for domination of Europe- did the two conflicts intertwine?
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This seems like a case of blatant gameplay/story segregation. (I would link TV-tropes, but that's bad.) Its like when the characters can take bullets and get healed up 5 seconds later in a video game, but in a cut scene point a gun at someone is a deadly threat. In cutscenes all the founders can go around learning magic from each other no problem! But in the actual game you don't want magi to learn new traditions willy-nilly. Its the same reason why there aren't any half integrated major breakthroughs. Inventing a new Hermetic Virtue would be awesome. Unless it totally sucks it would probably become like the Aegis. A spell (virtue) everyone learns. But who in hell is gonna bust their ass so magi can save a season of time? Not even a full season, a well made Summa could easily get Q20+.
If you want a "real" explanation, either go with yours, or Boni is a genius. When he integrated their magic, it wasn't just integrating their magic into Hermetic Magic, it was integrating Hermetic Magic into their magic. So if you found Bonisagus and sat him down with a folk witch not only would he learn folk magic, the folk witch could learn Hermetic Magic without opening any new arts. This means the founders were able to teach all their friends in similar magic traditions how to do Hermetic Magic. It was able to grow so quickly because most people got invited in without the 15 year apprenticeship. Plus that wasn't even hammered out at the start.
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So IYC Bjornaer and Merinita are officially Christian Houses: interesting. And Ex Miscellanea is officially Christian, too?
Cheers
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I've always wondered about Merinita. Is it a Christian House? Is it a Latin House? It doesn't get put in with the Non-Latin Houses. OTOH, it was a friend of House Diedine during the war. Is it just too non-threatening and fractured to go into any category? Case in point, the Cult of Vesta is reasonably non-threatening, a remanent of a Roman Cult. However, neither Quaendalon nor Merinita as far as I can tell are Latin in origin. Maybe just no one wants to bother a 300 year old goddess-maga who is doing the equivalent of tending sheep?
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Officially yes, as in "okay sure, we're Christian, just like the rest of the order" as opposed to Diedne, which insisted on being specifically pagan. Even if 80% of their members aren't Christian,the house is officially Christian.
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I never found any Hermetic House ever making statements like "okay sure, we're Christian, just like the rest of the order" in any kind of official context - whatever that could be. So this must be specific to your campaign, with which I will not interfer.
Cheers
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Interestingly enough, in my game, my PCs managed to push a clarification on "join or die" to "join, be enslaved, or die." A Hermetic wizard can capture a non hermetic wizard and have them be considered "magical property of the Magus" provided they don't cause any problems. The intent being to enrich hermetic theory by mind-mining the non hermetics for their powers.
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Do you really think any house would not declare themselves as at least nominally Christian following the schism war?
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Why should any declare that? Even House Jerbiton and Tremere will in most campaigns - yes, not yours - at least have Muslim and likely Jewish members, and would by such a declaration obviously disavow valued sodales. See e. g. BaS p.103 for Sharaf al-Din 'Umar of Jerbiton and Amber of Tremere. And who would even care or check for a House to be 'nominally' Christian? (Apparently you got mixed up officially and nominally before, did you?)
Cheers
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Interestingly enough, in my early order game, the PCs had a similar, but different idea: Find Non Hermetic Wizards, integrate their magic, then charge other Magi from other covenants to learn this new magic for profit.
Interestingly enough, I'm setting up an adventure following a similar idea, only on a smaller scale.
Something my players' magi did gathered enough mundane attention that it was talked about in the area. And those stories are being repeated often enough that it's caught some fae's attention. Soon, those stories will be sufficiently known in the local area that some faeries will take up the roles of the magi player characters in their reenactment of their story, and playing out a similar role in other stories involving local peasants.
Once the player magi notice something going around with some purported local magi and investigate, it will be quite fun for them to find faeries copies of themselves made to be caricatures of how people viewed them due to their known actions during that incident.
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Regarding this I'd like to point out that, according to TSE, it was probably House Jerbiton at work here more than House Guernicus. At least in the Sundering itself, if not in the later negotiations with Tremere. I'd like to invoke serf's parma about it, though.
Edit: Edited to add that I was completely wrong. After checking TSE, it does indeed point to House Guernicus, and also House Tytalus, as rumors kind of point at Hedyosmos for this. The rumor can be found in TSE pages 66 (third column) and 67 (insert), and it's also mentioned at the beginning of page 22.
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Even Mythic Europe has its myths.
There are no Latin wizards. Associating with Rome is prestigious, so wizards gave themselves a Roman heritage. That kind of thing is pretty common in medieval society, and magi are not immune. Rome wasn't really big on magic to begin with and the city had been Christian for a long time by the time the Order was supposedly founded. The idea of the Order begins to glimmer only after Rome falls. All wizards have "Germanic" or otherwise non-Roman beginnings, which is why honest voting and real Tribunals of all the people are held as ideals. This is also why the Order adopted "barbarian" law. Explaining this to a magus is a sure way to be toasted.
There was no Schism War. There never was a House Diedne. Druidic traditions and lineages were exterminated a millenium ago! The very idea is silly, so silly that magi believe because it must be true, since it would be too implausible a lie. What really happened is that the corruption of House Tytalus was a much bigger affair than people let on, that it encompassed every House in the Order rather than just House Tytalus, that eliminating the (obvious) problem took a long time. By the time it was over, with so many magi dead and so many lineages tainted, magi found it comforting to posit a secretive House Diedne acting to corrupt the Order from within. Over two hundred years, covenants ruined during the conflict became associated with "House Diedne." But was all the corruption eliminated? What is House Guernicus hiding at Duresca and Magvillus? Or Tremere in their fortified fastnesses? Is the Ritual of 12 Years really about Bjornaer checking each other out for symptoms of corruption? And what happens when Faerie House Diedne "come back?" Or when the real magi of "House Diedne," sustained by infernal rites that even remove their Decrepitude try something new?
The Order was founded by demons, or more probably by human Infernalists. The Code is pretty much impossible to live by, so magi are routinely oathbreakers. Magi tend toward pagan or pagan-like traditions, which taints them with sin even if the traditions are made up; it is the intent that counts. Non-interference with mundanes tends to keep magi away from confession and congregation. Only Pride can result from the belief that magi have access to secret knowledge. The Criamon are especially damned, for what is the point of works without faith, or the wages of believing in a man rather than God? Hell need only wait. The biggest flaw in this plan are demons themselves, impatient and quarrelsome, stirring up unneeded trouble. But hoplites address that problem nicely.
The dream of the Tremere the Founder never died but has been kept alive by the vexillation of the candle, always led by the primus. Over the past few decades, a wonderful opportunity has presented itself: House Tremere and the Mongols know about each other, and are aligned. The Mongol plan to bring order to the world and a single law works well with House Tremere and they share military doctrine. Tengriism is magic-friendly and the Mongols have a revered place for wizards on their side. It isn't quite what Tremere the Founder had in mind, but it looks quite workable. They need not even break the Code, what with Mongols happy to deal with mundanes. What will the rest of the Order do, when the time comes to choose sides?
The Order has long dismissed the warnings of House Bjornaer regarding shapeshifters as fanatic, barbarian ravings, even though House Bjornaer has defended the Order against assualts time and again over the centuries, receiving derision instead of thanks, being lectured about "real history" when the true shape of things is obvious. Things have been quiet for a long time; too long. Shapeshifters have infiltrated every corner of mundane society, able to change the shape of their bodies, the shape of their minds, and even the shape of their auras. The most adept and ancient shapeshifters can do even more unexpected things, changing the shape of other people and even -- slowly -- changing the shape of small societies. What will the Order, and especially House Bjornaer, do when (if) they find out?
Pralix is Dav'nalleous. So are all the other primi of Ex Misc. He has already destroyed one House through "Ex Misc incompetence" and massacred others, without casting a spell or lifting a weapon. True, no opportunities on that scale have presented themselves since, but a spider knows how to wait...
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So, to bump my own thread from nearly 8 years ago... I took the History is a Lie concept a step further and decided there was a whole other 14th house no one currently remembers at all, destroyed by a secret & hidden diabolic conspiracy within the Order of Hermes.
Also, there are lots of new folks around, so new/modified ideas are very welcome.
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