Editing Order of Hermes (section)

===Former Houses===

- Both '''House Bjornaer''' and '''House Diedne''' were various doomed attempts to incorporate less organized druidic practices (shapeshifting and general druidic craft) into the Hermetic Paradigm. Diedne fell particularly hard, as the rest of the Order launched a crusade against them for what were, by all accounts, some pretty fucked up rituals. Of course it may or may not have been a scapegoat for [[Tremere]] (that little shit). Whatever the case, the [[Verbena]] have literally never let go of a grudge, so they're still pretty salty about this.

- '''House Golo''' is notable for being probably the shortest-lived of all Houses, only existing for about 17 years. It all formed around this guy who got obsessed with an Arabian physics textbook called the ''Kitab al-Alacir'', which he used to build [[magitek]]. Then his airship blew up and his followers scattered. Despite its short run, it was basically responsible for laying the groundwork for the modern day [[Sons of Ether]]. Go figure.

- Who watches the watchmen? Maybe someone should have asked that before the whole fucking debacle with '''House Janissary''' happened. They used to be the internal police and enforcers of the Order. Then some snoopy [[Euthanatos]] discovered that their roots could be traced back to an obscure assassin conspiracy called the Ksarifai... which just so happened to be a founding Convention of the Order of Reason. The Euthies accused the House of harboring secret Technocratic loyalties and smuggling intel to the [[New World Order]]. There's no canon answer as to whether or not this is actually true or if it was a power play by the Euthanatos. Whatever the case, the Council reacted with fire and bloodshed, scouring them from the face of the earth.

- '''House Luxor''' is not really elaborated on especially well. It was apparently the first predominantly black, American House. It seemed like it might have been something to do with syncretic blending of Victorian spiritualism, dimensional technology, and Charismatic Christianity, but that's mostly conjecture. 

- '''House Mercere''' was around from the beginning as the designated messengers of the Order. Initially derided as mere gofers, the House slowly increased in power through its mastery of the information trade. As better mundane communication made its official function increasingly irrelevant, several info brokers jumped ship to the seedier parts of House Fortunae as Mercere fell apart in the 30's.

- '''House Tharsis''' had its heyday during the Age of Exploration. These weather wizards and pragmatic sailing techniques were the golden boys of the Order when the high seas were the biggest frontier of the Ascension War. Sadly, the House was gutted after its leaders infernalist leanings were revealed to the world. 

- '''House Thig''' was the unholy lovechild of the Order and the [[Virtual Adepts]], channeling their magic through modern tech and manipulating the wired world. While unpopular with the older crowd, they were still on their way up until the Revised Metaplot kicked them in the dick and forced them to merge with House Verditius.

- Learn more about those fuckers in '''House Tremere''' [[Tremere|here]].

- '''House Validas''' were big adherents of the "God the watchmaker" school of thought, and as such were pretty good at divination. They also turned out to be infernalists like Tharsus, so they got purged. They might actually still exist somewhere in England as an obsure [[Nephandi]] sect.

- '''House Zirach''' was the house that took over study of "Ars Cupidae", the Art of Desire. Predictably, the House was sitting pretty until someone found out that it was full of rapists and hellfire clubs, at which point it was purged.

{{WoD-Traditions}}