This Tremere guy sounds like a bit of a jerk!
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Itâs kind of a tossup whether he or Tytalus are the biggest one.
âŚor Diedne I guess.
Tytalus and Tremere, you see, were both students under the necromancer Guorna the Fetid, who lived under the city of Naples. Guorna was unquestionably the best necromancer of the age, perhaps the best ever - the only one that might surpass her is the Witch of Endor, told of in the Bible. Trianoma sought out Guorna for the Order, albeit with some worry and fear, so that her magic could be added to Hermetic theory. Trianoma didnât know that Guornaâs three students - Tytalus, Tremere and the young girl Pralix - had fled from Naples to Dacia after discovering that Guorna intended to use one of their bodies as a vessel to transfer her soul into, fleeing her own leprous, pus-filled form.
Tytalus, eldest of the three, took charge of their efforts to kill their mistress. Heâd studied under her for thirty years, after all. He sent Tremere to find allies against Guorna among other magi, while Tytalus descended into the Greek underworld to bargain with the spirits and gods there, from whom Guorna drew power. He found, deep in the underworld, the ancient Titans of lore, whom he made pacts with. Between this power and necromancers Tremere recruited, the two murdered Guornaâs fellows in Naples and waited for her to return from the Black Forest, where she was meeting Bonisagus. Even with the teachings Bonisagus had given her, their trap was too well-planned, and Guorna died facing the two wizards. (Pralix had not yet learned any magic, so she was of little use.) Tytalus claimed ever after to have been the one to rip Guornaâs heart from her chest in the killing blow - and in doing so, he inherited her curse of leprosy.
After defeating their master, the trio went to Durenmar, Bonisagusâ new home, to destroy those they saw as allies to their vile teacher. However, Trianomaâs quick words and care convinced them not to fight and instead to join the Order. Tytalus found the new magic difficult due to his substantial training and power in Guornaâs tradition, but he did master the Parma. Pralix became joint apprentice to both Tytalus and Bonisagus, receiving a full understanding of both magics. When the wizards Trianoma gathered began to plan the Order, Tytalus assumed Tremere would serve under him, as Tremereâs magic was inferior to any of the other Founders. He was wrong.
Tremere had always chafed under his magus-brotherâs yoke, and with the support of his Dacian necromancers and several of the Founders, he gained the political power to lead his own House. This was the birth of the long rivalry between Tytalus and Tremere. Tytalus was also a skilled politician, and he spent much of his time arguing with the other Founders, especially Guenricus, over the structure and law of the Order. Much of the early Code of Hermes was born from their public debates, and House Tytalus now believes their Founder convinced the Order to become democratic solely to cut down on Tremereâs power base.
Tytalus was an infamous schemer, often in attempts to weaken Tremere or his mundane allies. It is believed he might even be responsible for the Frankish annexation of Brittany because he thought the Saxons of the British Isles were unstable. However, House legend also claims Tytalus interfered with the British succession; many of the stories of Tytalus are contradictory in this way. He was never accused of Code-breaking, but he was also more than skilled enough to evade detection by House Guernicusâ Quaesitores.
Eventually, Pralix introduced Tytalus to a young woman, Hariste, who was very beautiful. She intended to raise Hariste as her appretnice, but Tytalus immediately fell in love and stole Hariste away, training her himself. Pralix, furious, was left to lead House Tytalus while Tytalus locked himself and Hariste away. He became obsessed with her, but he refused to ever touch her for fear of his leprosy tainting her perfection. Eventually, Hariste became deeply frustrated b y this and decided to punish Tytalus for hsi cowardice, leading to the tradition of rivalry between master and pupil that is now practiced by the entire House.
In 807 AD, Tytalus left his home in the covenant Fudarus, armed only with a staff and a leperâs robe and veil. He visited each member of his House and gave them advice, ending with Hariste, whom he stayed with for a full month and, at last, had sex with according to House rumor. Then, he declared that he was heading to Bohemia to win his âheartâs desireâ from the Queen of the Faeries. He was never seen again. Hariste took over the House, with only Pralix refusing to bend knee. She had always seen Tytalus as a father figure and Hariste as a thieving strumpet, and Pralix eventually gave up trying to take back the House and, instead, turned outwards towards recruiting new magi.
Hariste and Pralix are renowned as the first âbeloved rivalsâ of the House. Hariste was jealous of Pralixâs time with Tytalus, while Pralix resented Hariste for studying under Tytalus instead of her. Eventually, Hariste led the Order to send Pralix to go, alone, to fight a war against the druid Damhan-Allaidh, and only once Pralix was gone did Hariste realize how much she missed their battles and how much she had admired her âelder sister.â Thus, she later worked to protect Pralix from being killed for her later actions - but thatâll be a story for much later.
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Guernicus the Founder is one of the main reasons the Order did not die with the Founders. Without his House, the Order would tear itself apart even now. Guernicusâ master was of a lineage of Mercurian wizards, similar to Bonisagus, but retained different arts - arts tied to earth, stone and metal. They were known as the Terrae-magi, and they even retained the knowledge of immensely potent rituals that could call down earthquakes or volcanoes, but lacked the numbers and resources to use them - not that they had much practical use, especially as the Western Empire was dying. However, they used this knowledge to develop smaller spells - including the power to conjure gold freom the air.
Rumors of their legendary wealth grew among other magi, and the Terrae-magi were forced into hiding in underground chambers, accessible only by magic. They could fight, and their works were never stolen, but attrition slowly killed all of them but one. In 756, Guernicus was the final Terrae-magus, having returned home from Mass to find his master being tortured by two other wizards. He killed one, but despite his best efforts, his master never recovered. Guernicus spent seven years trakcing down the other attacker, becoming a terrifying and powerful wizard in the doing. Despite his Gentle Gift, he was often attacked, but he was never defeated - and even after winning his fights, he never stole magical secrets, he asked only for information about his quarry. If he found a wizard suffering from unjust persecution, he would aid them, and his honor and charity became as famous as his skill, though he never came to trust other wizards.
Eventually, Guernicus did track down his masterâs killer, trapping him in an underground vault containing all the texts heâd wished to steal - but no food, no water and but a single candle. Even in his old age, he never revealed where the so-called Thiefâs Tomb was, as he never wanted it disturbed.
When Trianoma sought wizards for the Order, she heard about Guernicus and his amazing reputation, both for honor and earth magic. She met with him in 762, and even her diplomacy was tested by Guernicusâ cynicism. While he was happy to live in peace, he did not believe other wizards could. He knew there were exceptions, but saw immortality as part of Gifted nature. He would keep an oath, but did not believe the others word. However, Guernicus did accept to join the Order so that he would not be disadvantaged by the lack of Parma, and agreed to share his knowledge with Bonisagus for the same reason.
When the Hermetic Oath was debated, Guernicus held that all members should have the same weight of vote, with not even the Founders holding precedence. They could rule their Houses, but not the Tribuals. The Order agreed to this, and the House system was established. Even after this, however, Guernicus and Trianoma argued constantly over whether the Order was viable system. Guernicus held it could only be so if the Code of Hermes was strictly enforced, and in his early years in the Order, he spent all his time hunting for those breaking the spirit of the Oath and challenging magi to duels over ambiguities. He looked for offenses not covered by the Oath - and in this, Diedne was his strongest ally. House Diedne were a pagan cult that believe their ritual sites sacred, and Diedne complained that other magi descrated her sacred places by intruding. Criamon also found the privacy his teachings threatened.
Guernicus, Criamon and Diedne thus demanded that the privacy of sanctums must be protected, and this and a number of other rules were agreed on, forming the Pripheral Code - a set of rulings that clarified, expanded and embellished on the basic Oat of Hermes. Satisfied, Guernicus believed that the Order might now last perhaps 50 years. Trianoma asked what else he thought was needed, and Guernicus said that magi needed to be dedicated to keeping the peace and the law. In response, Trianoma challenged Guernicus to be the magus that did that.
Over the years, Guernicusâ students came to share in his responsibilities, becoming the Quaesitores. Magi of other Houses complained that they had no say, so Guernicus adn the other Primi agreed to allow other Houses to join the Quaesitores - traditionally one member of each House, and only the most objective and honorable magi, to avoid favoritism.
In his later years, Guernicus worked to guide the Peripheral Code, often unsuccessfully. He wanted the Order to be purely voluntary, but no one supported him in this. He did manage to convince them that magi should offer membership to other wizards rather than just kill themâŚthough few Tribunals did much to enforce it against those who gave even a flimsy pretext for killing a hedge wizard. The final victory of Guernicus was in helping Hariste protect Pralix when she set up a rival Order, negotiating their induction as a new House. His final appearance in public was in 817, to protest the ruling instituting the magical duel of certamen as a binding way of solving disputes. Rumor has it that Guernicus forswore all magic, went to Rome and eventually seems to have died of old age in Magvillus, the headquarters of House Guernicus - or perhaps not. Wild rumors circulate all the time that Guernicus still lives, sleeping, beneath the earth, waiting for the day when the Order fails so he can say âI told you so.â
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The work of Mercere the Founder and his House are and were no less vital to the Orderâs survival than that of Guernicus. No one has any actual idea who Mercere the Founder was originally or where he came from, nor where he learned magic. All stories that remain have been exaggerated by the time and hero worship of the HouseâŚand Mercereâs own embellishing. Some say he was the child of Circe and Odysseus, others Perseus, Orpheus or other heroes. Some believed he was the reincarnation of the god Mercury. House Mercere firmly believes that he had been everywhere in Europe before he was 20 years old.
It is believed that Mercere was the first to join Trianomaâs cause, and House Mercere believes they had an affair, though some believe Trianoma rejected Mercereâs advances. In either case, he swore that he and any followers of his would serve the Order and Trianoma, and they worked together for years both before and after Mercere met Bonisagus. He assisted in finding the other Founders, several of whom heâd met previously or heard about, and was Trianomaâs frequent traveling companion.
What he gave Bonisagus was an understanding of Mercurian fertility ritual and shapeshifting. However, Mercereâs Gift was never especially potent - it was Gentle, but Mercere could barely do magic on his own, and what he could offer was not much. He was so grateful for the Parma that he instead swore to give Bonisagus the chance to take any future apprentices Mercere had, should he want them. Bonisagus, in turn, swore not to abuse this, and they became great friends.
Mercere established his home in northern Italy, then seen as the center of Europe, at a place named Harco. He planned his home to become a great crossroads and trading center of magic and information for the Order, as he saw it as his job to keep the Order from fragmenting, as the Cult of Mercury had done. Thus, he made arrangements to have portals built in Harco to link it to the homes of the other Founders.
Unlike all of the other Founders, Mercere never took apprentices from the Gifted children he met. He sent all of these to Bonisagus instead, and it was said that Mercere was a member of House Bonisagus in all but name. The only two apprentices he ever took were his own children, and House Mercere was as a result quite small. (Even now, magi of House Mercere are only ever children of other members of House Mercere - and almost always descendants of Mercere himself.) However, Mercere worked tirelessly to keep the Order together, spending most of his time either traveling and delivering messages between magi or working with Bonisagus and Trianoma at their home, Durenmar.
It was during one of his visits to Durenmar that Mercere was struck by tragedy: during an accident while helping in Bonisagusâ lab, Mercereâs Gift was entirely destroyed, removing any ability to use magic whatsoever. Some believe this was purely accidental due to a flaw in the Parma or his Gift, while others say Mercere gave up his magic willingly for some reason. Records show that while Bonisagus tried to restore his Gift, he could not, and it is known that Bonisagus considered this his greatest failure and a sign of the inherent evil in the world.
After the accident, Mercere changed drastically. At first he was desperate to regain his power, seeking out stories of men becoming gods and even neglecting his followers to try to restore the magic. He traveled constantly when he was not locked away in his own labs at Harco, and many believed he died or went mad after he locked himself away for more than a decade. However, he emerged after that time, calm and even happy. He began to adopt mundane followers, requiring that they study under him for fifteen years as any magusâ apprentice would. He taught them all he could, but especially that their duty was to support Trianomaâs vision of a united Order in any way possible. He never acknowledged that these apprentices were any different from his two others - all were his children, he said, though the mundane ones were not literally so.
There was a massive conflict at Tribunal over this, of course, as the other Founders believed that the ability to do magic was implicit in the Oath, and that taking un-Gifted followers was a very dangerous precedent, which would allow Houses to swell their numbers for votes or other purposes. At first it seemed the Code would be altered to explicitly require the Gift, but Trianoma argued on Mercereâs behalf - the first time she had argued for any position in ages - and it was reluctantly agreed to allow the recruitment of mundane humans exclusively by House Mercere, and no ruling would be made to prevent this. Mercere, in turn, promised that his âyoungerâ followers would swear the Oath and selflessly serve the Order as he did - and that he would ask them, before the Tribunal, to always show special respect to those with, quote, âpowers more apparent than your own.â
Shortly after the ruling, Mercere died. His body was cremated at Harco by the ancient rites of the Cult of Mercury in the presence of several of the Founders, including his great friend, Trianoma. However, some of those present swore that rather than burn away, Mercere was carried through the smoke by the appearance of a man with winged shoes, and many of his House now believe that Mercere lives among the gods.
It would be a while after that before it became clear what the mundane members of House Mercere would do - several decades, in fact, during which they were an unimportant and insular group with little influence or respect. Eventually, however, they worked to emulate their founder more publically - delivering messages, managing wealth and business dealings of the Order and, in general, serving as the administrators, merchants, heralds, messengers, mercenaries, guardians, minstrels, explorers and bankers of the Order. They are now known as Redcaps, as they often wearâŚred caps, in emulation of Mercereâs own favored red hood. The magical members of the House are rare - somewhere between one and three dozen for all of the Order - and, again, are almost exclusively lineal descendants of Mercere himself. Even if they arenât, theyâre lineally descended from a member of House Mercere.
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Tremere the Founder, sometimes called the Final Founder, was, as noted before, a fellow student of the necromancer Guorna with Tytalus. Their tradition originally descended from pre-Roman diviners who summoned the dead for their secrets and served the Etruscan god Aita. They transitioned to serving Pluto after that, and then joined the Cult of Mercury in his role as a psychopomp. They had no temples and met secretly in the places of the dead.
Anyway, you know what happened to Guorna. After her death, Tremere used the Dacian necromancers to force his own House rather than join that of Tytalus. While he would never admit it to others, Tremere knew he was the weakest of the Founders, and there are several contradictory tales about why he ended up deciding to raise a personal army. The truth will never be known, but the effect is: Tremere and his followers could use the threat of force to block aggression from either Tytalus or Flambeau. That is the core idea that Tremere built his House around. He settled in the Translyvanian Alps to build his fortress, now known as Coeris. From there, he worked to expand his power by force, attacking Byzantine wizards and sacking their places of power.
It didnât work. The Theban League was formed and joined House Jerbiton, retaking the territory Tremere had claimed, and he was forced to find other ways to gain power. He began working to subvert the Orderâs laws, helping to invent the certamen duel and propagating it with the help of Trianoma and Jerbiton. He mastered duelling to the level that, in this limited arena, he could match Flambeau or Tytalus without need for an army. By 817, he was able to convince the Grand Tribunal to accept certamen as a decisive solver of disputes, giving him great advantages. His planning stretched over decades, and he slowly took control of vast parts of the Order by use of manufactured disputes solved by key certamen duels. He also manipulated the respect others had for the Founders and their desire for strong leadership, spreading fear and doubt. In the final stages, he even used naked force and aggression to defeat or threaten his foes. He planned to have a special Tribunal called to declare himself overlord of the Order in 850.
In 848, however, a group of magi took it on themselves to thwart him. They shattered the minds of his lieutenants, leaving Tremere vulnerable, and the Primus of House Guernicus negotiated a truce - in exchange for promising to cease his efforts to take over the Order, his lieutenants would be restored. To ensure this happened, Tremere would also submit to having his memory wiped of the names of all involved and how he knew any of them, and to have his memories monitored to ensure they werenât restored.
Tremere lived on until 862, but he was never the same after his defeat, known as the Sundering. His House was turned over to his advisors, and House Tremere became deeply distrusted for many years, until they could reclaim their honor in the battles to purge House Tytalus of diabolists and the Schism War against House Diedne.
Modern Tremere do not venerate the Founder, unlike most Houses. They respect his power, but they can see the flaws in his works. Many see him as a tragic figure of total hubris, who reached beyond his grasp and was rightly doomed for it. However, they often have a sort of admiration for the ambition that drove Tremere and the audacity to try and claim it. Many believe they would go to war if they ever found out who performed the Sundering; this is untrue. Individual Tremere magi might try to take vengeance, but it is common belief among the House that the actual spell of the Sundering was performed by Tremereâs successor, Albanus, in an effort both to save the House and gain control of it. If they are wrong, then House Tremere at least wants to ensure it doesnât happen again - but thatâs all.
Some magi do still fear they plan to take over the Order. They donât. Tremere tried and failed and was a fool for doing it. House Tremere does still practice extremely long-term planning, and they do have a plan in action right now. Their plan is simple: they want the Order to take over the world. Not with House Tremere in charge of it, mind you - just, the Order, in control of Earth, or at least Europe.
I suppose next time I should probably explain why House Diedne is gone and House Ex Miscellanea exists.
So, House Ex Miscellanea. In the early 800s, the British warlock Damhan-Allaidh gathers up an army of Saxon rune-magi and shapeshifters to attack the Order of Hermes. Thanks to the manipulation of Hariste, Pralix of Tytalus is chosen to take them on - by herself. Pralix knows thatâs hopeless, so she decides she needs to get an army of her own. Pralix scours the British Isles for foes of Damhan-Allaidh and unites them under her banner before marching to Scotland.
In Scotland, she faces Damhan-Allaidhâs forces, chasing him through the mountains and down to England, and finally into Wales, where she traps him at Cad Gadu. There, they face off in the Battle of the False Sun and, despite the best efforts of the runecasters, shapseshifters and Damhan-Allaidhâs demonic allies, Pralix emerges victorious. She then decides to not leave Cad Gadu. Mercere is sent to meet with her, but is not allowed in. Pralix informs him that she has renounced House Tytalus and the Order of Hermes, and is now the leader of a new Order - the Ordo Miscellanea, which offered its protection to any and all wizards that were rejected or persecuted by the Order of Hermes, either for weak power or because they did not descend from Roman traditions.
The Order wanted Pralixâs head - and those of her entire order. Hariste and Trianoma, however, argued for a settlement. As the Order was paralyzed by debate, the Ordo Miscellanea recruited heavily in northern and western Europe. By 817, Hariste and Trianoma had won the debates, and the Ordo Miscellanea was offered a place as the 13th House, House Ex Miscellanea - a move that doubled the size of the Order of Hermes in a single stroke.
Under Pralix, the House was run by the Council of Four, each representing a different part of the Houseâs interests. They were initially a warrior House, thanks to their origin as an alliance of war and drawing tension from Houses Flambeau and Tremere. Pralix vanished in 863, however, while visiting House Tytalusâ headquarters. Many suspected assassination. Without her guiding hand, the House slowly lost its cohesion, with each of its member traditions pursuing their own goals above all else, and while they briefly returned to their old martial ways during the Schism War, today they are disorganized, disparate and essentially unable to organize on any real level.
So what is that Schism War, and why arenât there thirteen Houses?
Well, Diedne the Founder was a druid. When she joined the Order, she demanded that Bonisagus and Trianoma not recruit any other druidic groups. She was a fanatical pagan, and she and her followers were insular, secretive and never integrated well with the Order. Their specialty was known to involve flexible magic, allowing them to alter the spells they knew more easily than most.
Little else is known about Diedne the Founder or her life, save that after the founding, she made an effort to exterminate all other druidic groups. Hers was an English tradition, and she was deeply involved in English efforts in Ireland. It is known that House Diedne played a major role in exterminating the original Irish druids and scattering their remnants across the island, as well as decimating the Pictish gruagachan that served a similar role in Scotland.
It is known that House Tremere accused House Diedne of demonic taint and, most notably, of human sacrifice. It is known that House Diedne refused to allow Quaesitores to fully investigate the Diedne covenants. The matter eventually rose to a head, with House Tremere pushing to have the entirety of House Diedne declared outcast from the Order - and therefore to be exterminated. It is known that, in the final vote, the head of House Ex Miscellanea vanished while traveling to Durenmar to deliver the Houseâs votes. The total tally slimly favored House Tremere, and it is known that House Ex Miscellanea might have swung the tide the other way. (Or it might not have, given how many of Diedneâs rivals ended up members of House Ex Miscellanea.)
It is certainly possible that House Diedne performed human sacrifice. It is likely that some members did. Why did House Tremere care so much about this? Because of their history. Tremere taught them - their ancestors had been abandoned three times by gods. First the Etruscan gods, then Pluto, then Mercury. Never again would they bend knee to anything that demanded human worship and devotion. They favor Christianity even now because the Christ was a god that sacrificed himself for humans rather than demanding the other way around. They never liked the pagan Diedne, and the idea of human sacrifice to a godâs glory was and is repugnant to them. That said, there is also certainly an element of pragmatism. House Tremereâs reputation was not good before the Schism War, thanks to Tremereâs actions. They redeemed themselves in part by hunting down diabolists and demon-summoners within the Order, but the Schism War allowed them to cleanse their name in a way nothing else could, and gave them a way to unite the Order in a way nothing else ever had.
When the vote went against House Diedne, war was declared. The Diedne Primus was held captive but left alive due to oaths given before the vote. The Order fought House Diedne, long and hard, though there are rumors of House Merinita aiding the enemy. None confirmed, of course - any confirmed traitors are long since dead. House Tremere saw to that.
Ironically, the end of the Schism War came with human sacrifice. House Guernicus discovered a ritual that could end the fighting before it destroyed the entire Order, at the cost of a single human life. The fact that they performed this act is kept strictly secret by the ruling council of House Guernicus, but it worked. The final battle against House Diedne never got fought, because the final Diedne covenants were instead sealed away forever. While many magi died on both sides, the Schism War ended.
Any Diedne remnants that are left are now hidden so deeply that no one has found them in centuries. It is believed, probably accurately, that they are all dead. Still, House Tremere keeps an eye out for them, in case they ever come back. House Diedne is gone now, and it can never again rejoin the Order of Hermes.
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To finish up the lives of the Founders: Bonisagus and Trianoma decide that their shared House Bonisagus needs more structure, so they form a pair of councils in the House - the Colentes Arcanorum, or Collectors of Secret Lore, and the Tenentes Occultorum, the Tenders of Secret Lore. The Colentes are a council of magi Bonisagi - the research wing of the House - that collect and disseminate magical research. The Tenentes are four magi Trianomae - the diplomatic wing of the House - who oversee the Houseâs politics and ensure that any secrets remain secret if needed.
The research wing (and Bonisagus himself) mostly ignored the problems of the Order in favor of personal research, and Bonisagus was often accused of being self-centered and unaware of the world around him. The diplomatic wing, on the other hand, tried to solve every problem with peaceful negotiation and politics - a method that became a problem when they met Damhan-Allaidh, who beheaded every negotiation team they sent. Even now, the magi Trianomae prefer to act as their founder did - quietly and without acclaim.
Bonisagus continued to research magic through the 700s, teaching many other magi. He was an amazing teacher, accelerating many of his students through apprenticeship - most notably the magus Jovius, who finished apprenticeship in four years. His lack of maturity led him to severe Oath breaches, and Bonisagus was forced to March on and kill his own student. After that, Bonisagus left Durenmar and never took another apprentice. He attended the Grand Tribunals of 817 and 832, but contributed nothing to either, and his whereabouts other than that remain unknown. He was last seen at the Theban Tribunal of 836, recruiting young magi for a mission. He and they were never seen again.
Trianoma continued to wander the Hermetic lands through the 700s, always with an apprentice. After her apprentice graduated, she would immediately take another. She attended the Grand Tribunal of 832, dined with Bonisagus, and reportedly died peacefully in her sleep thereafter, in her private suite at Durenmar.
This is a lie that is maintained by the House. Trianoma knew that untimely death was a potential source of great power, and in fact, her final meal with Bonisagus had her asking him to murder her in order to increase Durenmarâs magical aura. Bonisagus refused her outright, and Trianoma forced her apprentice to perform the murder instead. The ritual worked, in the sense that Durenmarâs aura was forever strengthened, but Trianomaâs ghost was bound to her tower, tormenting all within. The top two stories of the tower were destroyed by the House in an effort to force her to pass on, but all that happened was the ghost was released to haunt the Black Forest surrounding Durenmar.
And now that we know the history, itâs probably time to discuss what Hermetic magic can do and what it cannot.
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My guess will be "an awful lot given enough time , materials and obsessive mages "
That is correct! Hermetic magic can do almost anything, assuming you learn the right bits and learn it well enough. All magical spells are performed by combining a Technique - that is, a verb - and a Form - a noun. Sometimes you might use multiple Forms or Techniques, but thatâs not that common and primarily means youâre working with the lowest of whatever Forms and whatever Techniques are involved.
There are five Techniques:
Creo - âI createâ, the Technique of creation and improvement.
Intellego - âI understandâ, the Technique of gaining information and knowledge.
Muto - âI changeâ, the Technique of alteration and change
Perdo - âI destroyâ, the Technique of harm and destruction
Rego - âI controlâ, the Technique of control and command
There are ten Forms:
Animal - âAnimalâ, the Form of all animal life (that is to say, if it moves around, is natural and isnât human-looking) and animal-based materials
Aquam - âWaterâ, the Form of the element of water and all liquids (but not weather)
Auram - âAirâ, the Form of the element of air, all gases and weather
Corpus - âBodyâ, the Form of the physical human form
Herbam - âPlantâ, the Form of all plant life and plant-based materials
Ignem - âFireâ, the Form of the element of fire, heat and light
Imaginem - âImageâ, the Form of the senses, including visual images, sounds, tastes, texture and so on. (This relies heavily on medieval physics - all things emit a sort of sensory particle that various parts of the body intercept and interpret, so an illusion cast on a thing affects the thingâs emission of particles rather than the person perceiving the thing.)
Mentem - âMindâ, the Form of intelligence, the human mind, thought, emotion and ghosts. (Does not apply to animal minds, which are covered by Animal.)
Terram - âEarthâ, the Form of the element of earth, metal, minerals and in general non-living solid materials.
Vim - âPowerâ, the Form of magic. Covers metamagical spells that affect other spells, as well as demons and several other supernatural beings.
Hermetic magic can essentially do anything covered by a combination of those Techniques and Forms, with a few notable exceptions. Weâll talk about the Limits of Magic soon. Any given wizard will be able to use only a fraction of the possible combinations, as each wizard has different scores in each Art. It is possible, if difficult, for wizards to unify their skills via ritual magic, so that they can perform spells that would be beyond any individual member of the ritual, but even then, theyâre limited by the total abilities in the relevant Arts of the group.
The Limits of Magic are well known to the Order of Hermes. They have discovered that certain other traditions are able to break some of the Limits, though never all, and some cannot be broken, period. All derive from the two Fundamental Limits of Magic - two things that magic can never do.
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The Limit of the Divine: Magic cannot affect God. Anything that tries fails, period. This is why Hermetic magic cannot stand against miracles, which of course are the reified will of God, and why for example the transubstantiated bread and wine at a Mass are immune to any form of magic - as would be any similar materials for other monotheistic faiths. Saints, angels and other divine agents are protected from magic to some extent, but unlike God, they rarely have complete immunity unless God specifically grants them that protection. Which God rarely does. Essentially: if a being other than God does something, you can oppose it with magic, though it may not be easy. Godâs direct action and will, however, will beat magic every time. God is the single most powerful force in Ars Magica and you do not want to start a fight with omnipotence.
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The Limit of Essential Nature: Magic cannot permanently alter the essential nature of a thing. It can temporarily do so, can even do so for arbitrarily long periods if maintained properly, but when the magic ends, the essential nature will reassert itself. A thingâs essential nature is to do with what it is, not what it looks like, as a note. The essential nature of a human is to be human - a mortal creature with reason, senses, motor skills and the ability to reproduce. Any individual human may have varying degrees of each of these traits, but they all have them. The basic human body plan is also part of the Essential Nature of humans, but you can cut bits off just fine. Some traits may also be part of someoneâs Essential Nature - some blind people are Essentially blind and so cannot be permanently cured by magic, but for example someone whose eyes are gouged out probably can be, as blindness is not part of their essence. Mechanically speaking this usually translates to âmagic cannot remove the Flaws you took on your sheet permanently and effortlessly, but can fix acquired problems.â
Nearly all other Limits of Hermetic magic draw on one or both of these. It is possible, however, that some Limits instead derive from lasting flaws in Hermetic theory as formulated by Bonisagus and his successors. These are known as the Lesser Limits, and unlike the Fundamental Limits, it is theoretically possible that Hermetic theory might one day develop to the point that they can be broken. (Anyone who succeeded at doing so would become an instant celebrity in the Order, on par with Bonisagus himself.)
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The Limit of Aging: You can neither halt nor reverse natural aging, only slow and mitigate it, and you cannot remove the effects of natural aging by magic. Most believe this derives from the Limiot of the Essential Nature. (The magic of the Arabic sahirs of the Middle East is capable of circumventing this Limit.)
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The Limit of Creation: You cannot permanently create anything by magic without use of raw vis to fuel the creation. This affects all Creo magic; however, because being created does not violate the essential nature of what is created, vis can be used to permanently create objects. It is unclear if this Limit is derived from the Limit of the Divine, the Limit of the Essential Nature or a flaw in Hermetic Theory. (The ancient, lost magic of the Hyperborean Hymns of Apollo was able at one time to circumvent this Limit.)
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The Limit of Energy: Hermetic magic cannot restore physical energy, fatigue or mental stress by any known means. The closest you can come is to donate some of your own fatigue to another person. This is a flaw in Hermetic Theory - Bonisagusâ original theory was capable of it, but when trianomaâs sister Viea fled, she stole the section of Bonisagusâ notes on doing so, and Bonisagus was too arrogant to admit that he could have lost anything to Viea. Several other forms of sorcery are capable of breaking this Limit, including folk witchcraft and Amazonian sorcery.
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The Limit of the Infernal: You cannot use any form of Intellego magic to learn about demons or the Infernal, as any attempts will only reveal what the demon desires you to learn rather than the truth. More optimistic magi believe this is a flaw in Hermetic theory, while pessimists believe it is a result of the Limit of the Divine, and more moderate magi believe that it is the Limit of Essential Nature that provides this, as deception is essential to the nature of demons and so magic can only detect their deceptions. Particularly edgy and heretical (and kind of stupid) magi point out that as a result of this Limit, it cannot be proven that God is not in fact a very powerful demon.
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The Limit of the Lunar Sphere: You cannot use magic to affect the lunar sphere, nor anything beyond it. This is largely believed to be a result of the Limit of the Divine, as God placed the lunar sphere in its orbit as well as the celestial bodies beyond. However, because there is very little of interest on the moon or beyond it, no one is especially bothered by it.
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The Limit of the Soul: You cannot create souls by magic, and as a result can neither create true human life nor resurrect the dead. This is widely believed to be a result of the Limit of the Divine, though a small but not insignificant minority believe itâs a flaw of Hermetic theory. Animals, faeries and certain magical beings do not have immortal souls, and so can be created by magic. However, some magi believe that the spells which appear to do this instead summon existing beings rather than create them outright. Angels and demons are composed of nothing but immortal soul, and so cannot be created by any means.
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The Limit of Time: You cannot alter the passage of time with magic. It is impossible to use magic to alter the past, and the future can only be changed by altering the present. As a result, Hermetic magic is incapable of scrying on the past or future as well. Most magi believe - probably correctly - that this derives from the Limit of the Divine. It is believed that at one point, prophecy of the future was possible by magic, but God made it impossible at some point. Now, it is believed that the only true prophets that are known to exist receive their revelations directly from God.
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The Limit of True Feeling: Certain people possess a love, friendship or faith in God that is so strong that magic cannot touch it. (Generally speaing, this will involve a Virtue or Flaw.) Magi believe this must derive from at least one of the Fundamental Limits, as most emotion is easily manipulated by magic, but it is unclear which of the two is involved.
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The Limit of Vis: Magic cannot alter the attunement of raw vis. All raw vis is attuned to a specific Art, and this cannot be changed by any means. Most believe this derives from the Limit of Essential Nature.
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The Limit of Warping: Magic cannot affect any changes caused by Warping - that is, prolonged exposure to powerful magic. In Hermetic magi this manifests primarily as Wizardâs Twilight, a sort of mystical journey through a not-place that can produce positive or negative magical shifts and knowledge. In normal people, it primarily results in unpredictable mutations. Most magi believe that this derives from the Limit of the Divine because it makes them feel good to believe magic is a manifestation of Godâs power. Others believe itâs from the Limit of Essential Nature.
âDonât try to fight Godâ is a pretty darn good rule
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So, what can a starting wizard do? Obviously, given enough time to study and develop, a magus can do practically anything. But out of the chargen box, a magus that focuses on a few Arts is still terrifyingly potent.
Depending on their focus, a chargen magus might be able to call forth bursts of flame that can kill an unarmored man, create a sphere of gold worth enough to feed a family for two centuries, make a forest lose all its leaves until spring comes again, remove a word from someoneâs memory entirely, call lightning down from the open sky, force the dead to speak and reveal their secrets, speed the healing of any wound and prevent it from being fatal, or create a wall of thorns too thick to pass for all but the strongest men.
Even with basic training, most magi will be able to ward an area against all normal animals, ensure that rain never falls on them, light a room without fire or heat, or make any food taste however they like. Magi are absurdly powerful, though they are often incompetent at any task outside their specific area of magical interest - especially talking to anyone that isnât also a wizard.
SoâŚwhat do you guys want to learn about? Medieval life? Demons? Angels? Other magical traditions? Faeries?
Ther magic tradition, like how the Sahir defeat the limit of aging.
So whatâs up with this âGodâ guy? Why canât Thor just punch this annoying upstart out?
Does a magusâs tradition influence how they interact with the other characters run by the same player? Are some better to their grogs than others, for instance?
That varies by person, but Houses do have tendencies. Jerbiton and Tremere treat their servants better on average than, say, Tytalus (who are often jerks) or Bonisagus (who often forget servants have names).
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Anyway, letâs tackle the big one first, in part because understanding the difference between the Divine and other gods is actually important to understanding Solomonic sahirs.
The simplest answer as to whatâs up with God is that God isnât an upstart. The world was created by God. Monotheists are explicitly correct, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Abrahamic faiths even moreso. (God is still down with Zoroastrians, mind you, and there are a number of angels that are reflective of Zoroastrian faith.) Within the game, the Divine exists. It is real, and God protects Godâs worshippers and guides them - though God doesnât seem to care if they are Christians, Jews, Gnostics, Muslims or whatever, so long as they venerate a single great Creator. This works because all conflict between religious teachings is derived from mortals, rather than from God and the Heavenly Host.
The Divine is transcendent, and it is more powerful, by itself, than the entire realms of Magic, Faerie and the Infernal put together. If God wished it, God could singlehandedly destroy Hellâs armies, all the courts of Arcadia and all the spirits of magic. For reasons known only to God, this does not happen, and even the Infernal is permitted to exist, though the Divine opposes it endlessly. The truth of the Divine can never be truly known due to its transcendent nature, however, even by the greatest angels. It is true that the Divine seeks to improve the human condition and to save souls, and attempts to get humans to embrace goodness out of their own free will.
Hermetic theorists hold beliefs that would be heretical to any standard Christian, Jew or Muslim, of course, but theyâve developed their own attempts to explain the relation of the Divine to the other three realms of power. They know that, should God wish it, they would be destroyed utterly, and most magi make an effort to avoid pissing off God or angels. Overall, the Order maintains distant but not usually unfriendly relations with the Church, and there is actually an organized peace treaty with Judaism as a whole due to the clever trickery of a small group of Iberian kabbalistic rabbis in convincing the magi attempting to fight them that they were more numerous and considerably more powerful than is actually the case. Peaceful contact with Islam is rarer, not least because House Flambeau traditionally hates Muslims and House Tytalus likes to join crusades as an effort to gain power through conflict.
Anyway, Hermetic theory holds that the realm of Magic is inherently and intimately tied to the Divine, and hold as proof the fact that angels and magical creatures sometimes resemble each other. Angels tend to be distant but not usually hostile when they meet magi. However, because the great powers of Magic are powerful and often arrogant, they are also often associated with the sin of Pride, and have occasionally demanded worship - though this is rare, as magical beings tend to be aloof and isolated. Thus, magi theorize, the reason that magic is weakened in the presence of Divine auras is an attempt by God to remind beings of magic of humility.
Most other âgodsâ, however, derive from the Faerie realm - they are beings born from the stories told by humanity. Magi hold that the realm of Faerie is a sort of dim reflection of the divine spark within humans, and for this reason, there is no essential conflict between Faerie and the Divine, though the fae do tend to avoid great places of Divine power, as their nature as deceptions, illusions and appearances tends to fare poorly in the light of perfect truth. Some faeries - such as Thor, Odin or Zeus - crave worship from humans as their means of gaining the vital essence that they feed on, which lesser fae might gain from obeying traditional wards, taking gifts of food or stealing from human blood. The Divine opposes this practice of pagan worship, and so the Divine is more likely to conflict with Faerie than Magic - for this reason, and because certain fae are prone to tempting people to sin, such as those that encourage sexual misadventure for whatever reason - that kind of legend is all over Europe, so that kind of faerie does exist, after all. That said, itâs also possible for faeries to worship God, sort of, and some make their homes in places of worship, balancing their actions between helping the faithful and causing mischief in order to gain vitality.
The forces of the Infernal realm are in eternal conflict with the Divine, and the Devil is Heavenâs great foe, seeking forever to overthrow God despite the fact that it is really an impossible end. Angels patrol those areas that are guarded by Divine auras, and saints and those sorcerers who possess holy virtue challenge Hellâs servants and their plots. This is what Godâs forces spend most of their time on, actually.
The Divine is, and it is very powerful. There is no canon âhistory of Godâ or anything because all the monotheist religions disagree on some things, and the game actively avoids aligning itself totally with any single religion in an attempt to avoid offense or belittling any faith. You can play a divinely-aligned character, but you cannot play an angel. Angels are too perfect, good and powerful for any level of PC. There are rules for playing one of the descendants of or even one of the Nephilim, however - holy giants of immense power but immense hunger - or you can play a human who wields divine power by virtue ofâŚwell, extreme faith and virtue.
Nephilim take up a magus slot, though it is possible for their mere descendants to just be Companions, if very rare. Holy men can be magus-level powerful (Cathar Perfecti, Sufi Zahids and Jewish Kabbalists are all magus-level Mythic Companion types) who wield miracles with relative ease (relative being the operative word - theyâre never easy), or Companion-level characters who generally can only perform minor miracles, often with great effort. Or you could just be someone who has deep and abiding faith which offers them some magical protection, or perhaps the owner of a minor or even major relic of some kind.
Iâll talk about the fae and what makes a faerie god so very different from God and so much more like Rumpelstiltskin next time.
So, Faerie. The realm of Faerie is tied to human belief in a way the others arenât, though itâs not so simple a connecton as âbeing believed in gives power, disbelief hurts.â Once a faerie exists, whether you personally believe in it or not doesnât particularly matter.
Faeries are fundamentally spirits - they possess no true body of their own, but instead construct their forms from incidental matter, holding it together with a spiritual energy that the Order knows as âglamourâ and moving them with the force known as âvitality,â which is stolen from humans in various ways. All faeries interact with the world through a role - a set of symbols that define what the faerie can and cannot do, which the faerie cannot change. Rules set by a role cannot be broken. These rules are the glamour, and they define the nature of a faerie, its powers, how it appears to humans and how it can gain vitality. Faeries are instinctively drawn to seek out humans and follow the nature defined by their glamour, because humans possess strong, passionate emotions and faeries donât, but can experience them through humans. By doing so, they are able to grow and, to some extent, change. However, many faeries are entirely unaware of the process and do not know why they do these things. Rarer faeries, known as cognizant faeries, are more aware of why they are so drawn to humans and how they can use it.
Vitality can be gained in many ways - causing humans to express emotions in some manner, particularly bravery, fear or love. Having artistic works dedicated to their stories can feed the fae. Traditional offerings - milk and so on - can feed vitality, and magi theorize that sacrifice and worship of pagan gods was similar, but on a much larger scale. Stealing certain traditional objects can also provide vitality, as can killing and eating humans or threatening violence.
The gods of old are Faeries by definition, for the most part - beings who are drawn to human interaction, who gain sustenance by some traditional method, and who are bound by the nature defined for them by their roles. The god Hermes/Mercury/Thoth may or may not be an exception - it is believed that several faerie versions of that entity exist, but are seperate from the theoretical magical entity.
Faeries are most often formed along weaker lines - child thieves and killers are common, as are protectors of small groups or areas, monstrous creatures that exist solely to threaten othersâŚbut most often, faeries form along liminal places. Borders - the border between childhood and adulthood, the border between wilderness and civilziation, the border between night and day. Humans have always told stories about the liminal, and so most faeries are formed from these stories. It is a matter of some debate whether faerie or story comes first, but ultimately both feed into each other, as the faerie latches onto the story as a glamour in order to be able to interact with humans, and thus reinforces the story by acting it out.
The pagan gods are, thus, simply extremely powerful faeries - and quite rare these days, as faeries have generally speaking been deeply weakened by the spread of the Divineâs power on Earth thanks to the spread of monotheism. They once had much greater latitude, as monotheists werenât so plentiful at one point. Now, such beings typically are locked away to their traditional strongholds - Zeus rules in Olympos, but he doesnât often show his face outside that place, or in other areas where fae power still holds sway. (The Norse gods are somewhat stronger still, as there are still a few, if not particularly numerous, pockets of pagan worship in the far north of Scandinavia.)
Some magi, such as the more ambitious Merinita, attempt to expand pagan worship or at least ensure the old stories are still told and the old ways kept up, in order to empower the faerie gods and allow them to interact with the world more, because they like faeries and/or want to study them.
You can, as a note, play a faerie. A pagan god would likely be a Magus-level character, if your GM allowed you to play one at all, but it is possible to be a Companion-level faerie as well - a knight of legend, perhaps, or a black dog of the marsh, or a gnome that can spin straw to gold, or a valkyrie. Faeries are easily one of the most diverse types of charactersâŚbut also have some of the more involved and confusing rules, as they need to define a lot of things about their nature - how cognizant they are, how easily they learn from humans, what powers they have, and so on. It is also possible to play humans granted power by the fae, or even able to perform magic based on a connection to the fae.