I'm starting to think about starting a new saga once things go back to normal-ish, and as always I'm happily jumping into the Diedne subplot: what are they going to be this time? What was the Schism war really about?
There are some core facts here and there that had been bouncing into my brain.
- House Tremere started the whole Schism war in Order to save the Order.
- That was not that much because Diedne were evil (they were quite secretive, so at best nobody really knew what they were), but because House Tremere wanted to join the whole Order into a common front against a shared enemy.
- That Enemy needed to be powerful enough to pose a threat to the Order.
- Probably Tremere are cold enough to assume a certain amount of losses to save the Order, and would take them into account, estimating pros and cons before starting the war.
- Diedne were a druidic tradition, and druids believed in metempsychosis. And dying isn't that bad if you really believe that you are going to return in another reincarnation.
- Diedne had a pagan cult nobody knows nothing about (at least I hadn't found anything browsing this forum or in raw).
- Diedne were in good relationship with Guernicus (at least the Founders where, but if Tytali still despite Tremere half a millenium later, why wouldn't Guernicus and Diedne still be palls by the Schism War times?), Bonisagus (whom had a lot of collaboration with them and shared research right until the Schism War) and Merinita (which took many Diedne apprentices into their House as refugees after the war).
- The pre-war Order was falling apart because of the paranoia and suspicion that grew like wildfires after the Tytali Corruption.
- House Diedne had plenty of opportunities to defuse the tension against them, but stubbornly didn't.
- This paranoia and suspicion could grow into untolerable levels because the Code, since it was first swore, makes explicit that scrying is a High Crime, so secrecy is dogma.
- Oddly that clause wasn't put in place by Diedne House or Tytalus or any other of he usual schemingly prone Houses, but by Criamon.
- And more oddly, Criamon aren't exactly written as secrecy advocates, as core said that they are happy to teach Enigmatic Wisdom to anyone dumb enough to ask, and also that they rely on the inherent confusion of their crazy ideas to keep their secrets safe.
- Criamon also believe in some kind of reincarnation.
So what I'm starting to think is: what if the Schism war was a plan designed not just by House Tremere, understanding that the Order needed to be join together, but also by House Diedne, offering themselves as that shared enemy?
So what are your thoughts about this? Is there any place where I'm stepping way out of RAW? Where are the diedne then, two centuries later? Why are the Criamon getting into my train of thought, what do they want, what did they want to hide, do they played any role in what happened two centuries ago?