Flambuae, the magi who enshrined WW in the Code. I suppose his final destination is fitting for a fire magi.
Back to the topic of altered history: This is hinted at in the books, Guernicus went on a pilgrimage to Rome and then decided that magic was sinful, developed senility and rumors flew about him cheating death and Twilight. Lets tie all these things together: He became a Holy Magus, his Divine Ascent was Divine Gloom. (Cheating Twilight). He used Holy Magic to either slow his aging or repeatedly return to life after death by old age. Its also possible he outright had his age removed by an angel.
Now Guernicus still lives, having forgotten all about the Order, only seeing if magi are good or evil. All he knows now is fighting the evil of magi.
House Merinita's history has to have something going on. How old is oldest magi of Merinita? Its got to be damn old if Quendalon handed out all his tricks so many times. So what are they doing? What is Quendalon doing? A bunch of the most powerful magi want to save Faerie? How do they plan on saving Faerie? Its possible they'll evacuate a stable mundane population to Faerie. Sever ties with the Mundane world. Its also possible they'll start Schism War II: Quendalon and co. kills everyone. Or threaten it if the other Magi try to interfere with their plan.
Tremere was a maltheist. Although to be fair the Fae gods are unreliable asshats. Sure they might be great fun. Until an artist changes their glamour to "eats babies". The magic gods generally don't bloody care about humans. The infernal gods... yeah. That leaves the Divine. And it takes a level in Divine Lore to go: "Really God? Really? You granted Divine Power to both sides of a conflict? What are you? A particularly powerful and asshatish Fae?" "And those Divine Auras? I'M TRYING TO HEAL PEOPLE! WHY?!?"
This is why you should worship 100% post-human Daemons. Join team Daemon. Ascend with us.
Something I'm working on is the idea that during the Join or Die phase, the martial Founders were stealing the secrets of the people they killed and shipping them back to Bonisagus for inclusion in Hermetic Theory. This means that in addition to the Founders, the almost-Founders like Berenice and Guorna, and the could-have-been Founders like Pendule, there are a caste of involuntary Founders whose secrets may not have been completely digested into Hermetic theory, and whose failed attempts at self defence may have left artifacts or intelligences operating in Mythic Europe.
Once necromantic magic (and the compulsion of spirits) was sorted out, they could also be shipping back the ghosts/corpses of the involuntary founders who "chose" the 'die' option. Potentially, these ghosts/corpses could still be archived somewhere.
Well, so much for the Founders who wandered off and disappeared then. Mercere became a holy magus? Not so much: his frozen corpse and chained spirit are standing in pride of place in the Bonisagian Museum of Recalcitrants. Maybe that's why Jerbiton and Tremere made darn sure they didn't stay in the world (Christian burial and physically carried into the afterlife, respectively). Maybe thay knew that someone was collecting Founders and this business about Tytalus going to the Maddehoffen Woods and Trianoma just wandering off and perhaps even Criamon holding open the Door To Twilight's just not true.
Maybe that's what the Sundering was about. Tremere wanted to make sure that whoever is harvesting magi stops? They won, which is why they are still doing it. Actually,in the 2nd edition, there were a group of guys who turned up to collect the body of an dead Archmagus. It was meant to be an honour, and a way of stopping demons getting ot the corpses. Actually though it was the spookiest place in Mythic Europe. I know it was meant to be a bit like the Popes stashed under the Vatican, but why would you let someone keep hundreds of unconsecrated archmagus corpses, complete with talismans, all in one place? Always sounded like a foolish idea, but now it sounds like someone who should have taken up stamp collecting as a hobby is doing something terrible.
I mean, if nothing else, the place must have more vis in it than the rest of Europe put together. Even as simple war materiel...but they are doing something worse than that. Are they building a new Axis Magica, not linked to Criamon's pacifism, so that magic will work better when killing and healing, and less well for understanding? Are they going to raise an army of these guys for some reason?
We are in the starting stages of a triamore saga using hedgies as the members of the OoH. Parma was the big invention of Bonisagus, and the AotH of Notatus is the other bonnie breakthrough (they were wards experts, the last of them died in a lab accident a pair of centuries ago). There is no unified magical theory or system, though. I can see the agents of a magus wanting to create a unified hermetic theory doing just that. Maybe the founders are not founders, but foundations that he is using to build his theory. Using a spirit master sounds good for that. One with Commanding and Ablating, of course. Higher purpose intentions, terrible implementation.
We are in the starting stages of a triamore saga using hedgies as the members of the OoH. Parma was the big invention of Bonisagus, and the AotH of Notatus is the other bonnie breakthrough (they were wards experts, the last of them died in a lab accident a pair of centuries ago). There is no unified magical theory or system, though. I can see the agents of a magus wanting to create a unified hermetic theory doing just that. Maybe the founders are not founders, but foundations that he is using to build his theory. Using a spirit master sounds good for that. One with Commanding and Ablating, of course. Higher purpose intentions, terrible implementation.
Jerbiton fled to Heaven, and that's a place of rest. The Necrocurators cannot reach him there. The other two were the first and last.
Criamon faded into Twilight, a realm he gave magi as an escape from death. He is the most mysterious Founder. No-one remembers his name: he called himself the laughable "Christ Amon" to hide it. He told his followers that the ritual marking and riddles he invented were to replace the cruel initiations he had undergone, swo no-one learned what his talents were. He escaped because his enemies could not imagine he was capable of smashing a hole in the wall of reality and stepping through into the World of Forms, then forcing a sliver of it to become a paradise. His followers say that he stands in the World Tree, holding open the gate that allows escape from Time, and that they reach out to him, hoping in time to lift his burden, and let him pass from the world. They are lying.
Tremere was carried bodily into Twilight on the shoulders of his army. The greatest schemer in the Order's history is reviled by his descendants. They say he was a madman, and that his failure fills them with contempt. They, also, are lying.
Criamon is still alive, and we know what that means: he's building a path from this paradise back to his followers.
Tremere is still alive, and we know what that means. He's building an army.
One day, very soon, the road to the Twilight Void will open. A legion from Twilight and an army of the enslaved shades of generations of archmagi will decide the fate of the world in battle.
The World Tree will flower and the Order will burn.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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'.
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?
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.
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?
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.
