Editing Mage: The Ascension (section)

====[[Order of Hermes]]====
The old-tyme wizards, with the beards, staffs, and so on. Used to be the top dogs and run the world, but they were such dickheads that they more-or-less forced the modern Technocracy into being to keep them in check. (Or so the Technocracy and modern books claim. The books actually set in the Dark Ages admit that one particular cabal of mages was out of control, but doesn't actually deliver on a whole lot of dickery, and the narration actually defends their behavior; this is likely down to either retcons, unreliable narrators, or WW getting their heads out of their arses. Though the thing about them not giving a shit about non-mage quality of life is at least consistent.) Their upper guard is extremely bitter about this, and while they're more united than most Traditions their hidebound ways prevent them from actually getting anywhere. In fact, they are divided into stiffly rigid and systemized "houses" with harshly defined specialties, now more prone to infighting than combating the rise of other Traditions and the Technocracy. Just as well: they didn't do a great job ruling the world the first time around. 

They use hermetic magic, which involves old Medieval stuff like Decanic Trappings, Sepiroth, and the Seal of Solomon. They master the sphere of Forces. Tend to be pretty fun, but Hermetics also tend to explode into giblets due to Paradox pretty easily if they stick to tradition, and the politics of the Order demands that they do. They also have an embarrassing tendency to fuck up everything in the back story and create terrible splinter groups. The most infamous and important of these are House Tremere, who became Clan [[Tremere]] over in "[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]."