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In Hermes Portal #3 I presented an article on House Traditions. In that article I questioned how these traditions are maintained when all but a handful of Covenants are multi-House. In the end I believe that if the Houses, Covenants, and Tribunals of the Order of Hermes were all to be brought into play, that logically they would not fit. In the end you would end up either with single-House Covenants or the death of Houses as a concept, except on a very informal level.
Before I get further in, I would like to say that I am not pushing for this to be The Way The Game Should Be Run. Instead I am using this and similar articles as logic puzzles. To follow through on the matters I set forth in this article would greatly change several basic concepts in the game. Use it if you so wish, but you may also ignore it entirely. Sometimes it is important to take a deep breath and say, "It's only a game."
Probably the largest body of feedback to the article centered around the notion that the Master-Apprentice relation is much stronger than I took into account. For fifteen years a master forms his young apprentice into someone who follows a specific tradition. This seems like a sensible argument for maintaining the traditions within a multi-House environment. Actually there are flaws with this. First of all, the apprentice does not stay locked up (with rare exceptions) with his master for those fifteen years. Instead he is exposed to the Covenant as a whole; with a little luck he is exposed to other Covenants as well. That Tremere apprentice would see other apprentices passing their gauntlets and actually receiving their sigils without hesitation or further contest - how would House Tremere maintain the level of control they are said to have over their members under such circumstances? Equally the apprentice might not accept everything his master teaches him. Jung was a student of Freud, studied with him directly for years, yet he created a very different branch of psychoanalysis. I think in the end the environmental factors only reinforce my argument that the traditions of the Houses cannot really be maintained if you have multiple Houses in the same Covenant.
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Such a model need not break down the Order of Hermes as an overarching body. Just as there are Carthusians, Benedictines, and the like all under the auspices of the Church, so too could there be Covenants devoted to Bonisagus, Flambeau and the like under the Order of Hermes. They would all believe, at least in the general outline, in the same basic concepts: ten forms, five techniques, Parma Magica, Magic Theory, and so on. It would be a matter of approach in each of the Houses that would make each of them a little different.
Such a vision would make several large changes to the game as it is currently run. First of all, magi would be limited to all being from a single House. Secondly, Houses would become self-policing. Third, the importance of Tribunals would dwindle. Fourth, the creation of new Houses would be a matter of grave concern within the Order of Hermes as a whole, thus the Grand Tribunals would have a higher importance. I would like to deal with each of these thoughts in turn.
One Covenant, one House: this is the foundation point in the logical puzzle. Scattered across Europe would be a number of Covenants for each House, each one semi-independent and self-contained. The lore and traditions of the House would not only be preserved, but would actually deepen under this model. Magi of any given House would probably wear identifiable clothing. Perhaps specific spells, or at least types of spells, would become common in the education. Criamon studies of The Enigma would intensify, Bjornaer Covenants would look almost wild, and Flambeau Covenants... well, let's say that the "outside visitors" might be a rarity. Each House would preserve a history, one well-known to those of the House, with high points known to those of other Houses. House reputations would matter as much as Covenant reputations, as the two would be virtually indistinguishable. Equally a blot against a Covenant would be a blot against the House in toto. As such the each House would carefully regulate the activities of its members to maintain a certain amount of orthodoxy, or at least public restraint.
Following on this notion is the concept that the Houses would regulate themselves, at least to a large extent. The Primus of the House would have a lot of power over when and where a new Covenant might be created. Many points of discipline would become strictly internal matters, with a strong eye towards conservatism. Magi would not merely be individuals, but upholders of a greater tradition. As such they would be expected at all times as representatives of this tradition. There would be a great pressure to conform, to toe the line, to become a "true member of the House." This also gives the basis of a sort of cursus honorum in each House: apprentice to magus to master to office holder to Covenant leader to regional representative to Primus. Obviously certain individuals would be groomed to rise to the highest levels and these individuals would be the basis of factions within each House.
If these points are accepted, Tribunals would be less important affairs. While there might be some matters of jurisdiction, most of them would be on inter-House affairs. Certainly these meetings would continue, as it is good to have broad-based meetings as well as intra-House meetings, but much of this would be taken up with territorial disputes and matter of Order-wide discipline and doctrine.
The Houses of Guernicus and Mercere, in this model, would probably wither away as distinct Houses. Each of them would become offices instead, some of those few members of the Order of Hermes who are more interested in the Order as a whole, or their own careers and personal standing, than in a particular Covenant. These people would eventually become a core of a new and important career path, that of those devoted to the overarching hierarchy of the Order itself. This does not necessarily indicate a selfless devotion to duty; possibly these actions would be performed out of a self-serving nature. Just as with the Church, there would be the good apples and the bad apples.
The Grand Tribunals, conversely, would be quite different. In fact, I do not really envision the every-thirty-three-years Grand Tribunals at this point, but rather a permanent body overseeing the Order of Hermes in toto. Just as a king rules his barons, just as the Pope oversees his bishops, so too would the Primus Magus be in control of the Houses and Tribunals. A permanent leader of the Order of Hermes would most likely be created, with a staff of attendants drawn from a variety of Houses. Unlike the rather loose structure of the Order of Hermes currently presented in the rulebooks and supplements, this would be a much more organized and doctrinaire structure with specific offices, ranks, and hierarchy. Would certain Houses come to dominate the structure? certain regions? certain specific "lines" of magi? Any and all of these possibilities could arise.
The Mysteries would present an intriguing counterpoint in such a model. Whereas the Order would be more rigid and conservative, with each Covenant being a single House and magi expected much more to hold to specific actions and dogma, the Mysteries suddenly become a strange escape valve for the growing pressure. Mysteries would probably develop regionally. Cutting across the rigid House lines, they would provide meeting grounds for those of diverse training yet common interest or belief. In many ways they would also provide hothouses for intrigue within the Order. Many a battle over who would become the next Primus Magus of the Order would be shaped within these meetings. As such the Mysteries would be loved and hated, squelched and recreated. Certainly they would be monitored as closely as possible by the hierarchy of the Order whenever they were discovered.
This model I have created is based on several broad assumptions. I do not see it as the only way the Order could develop, but one that seems more fitting to the world of which the Order of Hermes is a part. In several ways it is a less "playable" vision of Ars Magica than the one currently presented. For this reason I am not advocating it as a "new canon" for the game. Still, I hope this provides some food for thought. Ars Magica tends to attract gamers who want to look beyond the rules of the game to find a stronger role-playing environment. Ultimately I would like to see this vision engender debate about the Order of Hermes, the makeup of the Houses, and the nature of Mythic Europe.
Text copyright © Angus Macdonald 2003. Artwork copyright © Eric Pommer 2003.