Black Chicken Studio said:Project Update #5: Your Monday afternoon Ars Magica Update: The Schism War!
Posted by Black Chicken Studios19% and 13 days to go!
Now our Campaign has progressed to Autumn, and Winter is coming...and we have lots of ground to cover:
What, exactly, is this ‘Schism War’ we’ve been hearing about?
If you aren’t an Ars Magica fan already, you may be puzzled by the references to the Schism War which have been flying around. This major event, which occurs right at the beginning of our period, opens with rumors of diabolism, blood sacrifice and apocalypse, and ends with the utter destruction of one of the thirteen Houses of Hermes: an unprecedented event in the history of the Order.
For those of you who are Ars Magica fans, you’ll have the pleasure of witnessing these events on the ground, and may even have a hand in shaping a little piece of their outcome...
It's the devil you know...
In the late tenth century, the leaders of House Tytalus were found to be making pacts with demons, believing that they had the strength to compel the loyal service of the fallen without falling to sin themselves.
They were wrong, and they paid the price as the Order purged their House.
In the aftermath, magi became ever more suspicious of one another's activities, demanding to inspect covenants, demands that were refused. Tribunals froze into deadlock as magi who were not directly involved avoided taking sides, and frustrated individuals took matters into their own hands.
Whispers become Swords
The Order of Hermes recognizes Wizard's War, by which a magus takes himself and his opponent outside the protection of the laws of the Order for one lunar month. During a Wizard's War, a magus may do anything to his opponent that his power permits, and such wars were declared to force investigations of suspect covenants.
The target of a Wizard's War may, of course, defend herself in any way she can; many died in these clashes.
Enter House Diedne
Over time, more and more suspicions came to focus on House Diedne.
Most of its members lived in single-House covenants, it was fiercely pagan, and there were rumors of human sacrifice, even of diabolism. It protected its isolation strongly, and was possessed of many strange magical techniques unknown to the Order, and cloaked in a veil of religion.
Enter the Tremere
Then Cercistum, Primus of House Tremere, declared that his House had proof that the Diedne sacrificed people to their pagan gods, and called for the House to be Renounced. The Primus of House Flambeau, overruling the voices in his own House that called for peace, threw the might of the greatest warriors in the Order behind the Tremere.
In a last-ditch effort for reconciliation, House Bonisagus called an emergency Tribunal of the leaders of the Order.
It voted to Renounce House Diedne, casting them out of the Order, and making it the duty of every magus to slay any Diedne magi he found. House Guernicus, the judges of the Order, took the Diedne representative into custody.
He was never seen again.
The End...
With the rest of the Order turned against it, House Diedne was doomed.
Rumors said that some members found refuge in House Bjornaer, or House Merinita, or in realms beyond, but there was no doubt that the House was broken and destroyed, and most of their secrets lost or hidden.
...of the Beginning
It is in this time of uncertainty and fear that your Covenant is established in the Stonehenge Tribunal, traditionally strongly aligned with House Diedne.
When the time comes for wizards to march, a House to be destroyed, and proud Covenants to be reduced to rubble, you will need to chart a careful course between the hammer and the anvil.
Standing openly with the Diedne is an quick way to end the game, but will you instead help to hide the Diedne in secret? Will you insist upon neutrality, or, perhaps, will you join the Tremere as they march? The affairs of Wizards are a deadly and subtle game, but even the smallest player can make a big difference in the years to come...
An Interview with the Primus
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