Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults Chapter Four: House Merinita

When we admire nature, in fact we appreciate how her beauty resembles that of humanity. We admire a fine, healthy tree as we admire a stout yeoman of the forest; we see a face in the clouds and marvel at his moods. We see the nature of the world in human terms, and the Fair Folk are merely these fancies given form — the tree becomes the man, the cloud becomes the face — and to admire them is to admire the essential truth that is the foundation of their being. No, I have not abandoned nature: I simply visit her now through intermediaries.
— Quendalon, first Primus of House Merinita

Kill the traitor! Kill the imposter! Kill the changeling!
— Myanar, former Prima of House Merinita

Provocative, playful, secretive, sinister: like the beings with which they associate, House Merinita defies concise description. As no two faeries are exactly alike, no two members of the House are exactly the same. They learn magic to study and serve the fae, or placate and protect them, or perhaps command and coerce them. There is no unity in the association of these magi; they are a collection of individuals with a shared Hermetic history, little hierarchy or structure, and nothing but their wild assortment of Mysteries in common.

These magi essentially serve two masters: the Magic and Faerie realms. They have The Gift and they practice Hermetic magic; yet they are drawn to the faeries, and appreciate their unpredictable and inspirational nature. Merinita magi thus maintain a delicate balance between this raw power of the wild unleashed, and the subtle charms and jinxes of Arcadian wonder. These are the secrets of the many cults that make up their House: theirs are the Mysteries of magic and faerie combined.

The House is named for Merinita, the woman who swore the Hermetic Oath to Bonisagus and joined the Founders when they first assembled, but many consider her follower Quendalon to be the true force behind its identity, and some erroneously refer to him as one of the original Founders. Most “Merinitae” are not given to keeping meaningful records or histories, but they do famously appreciate stories, and some that concern the Founder and the history of the House are still told among magi who have an interest, by those who claim to have them from others who were there. One with great currency reports that Quendalon normally wore a heavy cloak with a hood that covered his eyes, and many Merinitae affect this garb on occasion.

Key Facts

Population: 68
Primus: Handri, a secretive man who shares his plans only with his most trusted advisers
Domus Magna: Irencillia, in the Rhine Tribunal
Favored Tribunals: The Rhine and Hibernia
Motto: Natura veritas unica (“nature is the only truth”) — most Merinitae interpret this as concerning the essential natures of things, rather than nature as a place or state.
Symbol: Merinita’s sigil, an oak tree within a circle

Famous Figures

Merinita: Founder, introduced the enchantment that binds a familiar
Quendalon: first Primus, discovered the faerie Mysteries
Myanar: second Primus, disgraced, her line exiled
Alsia: invented the ritual for temporary familiars
Ambrosius: brought folk Mysteries to the House
Pendule: helped his followers develop the illusion Mysteries
Farrago: discovered three additional familiar cords
Mendalus: argued for a return to Merinita’s ways
Merinugalaudabila: renewed House interest in certamen

History

Before the Order of Hermes was formed, Merinita was already well known, at least by reputation. It was said among other wizards of the time that a white-haired woman dressed in green traveled alone through the wild lands of Europe, often vanishing into the great forests without a trace of her passing, a woman without equal in nature magic. She could see everything that happened in these places, she knew every bird and beast that lived in them, she could take any shape she chose, and she could command the spirits of the very trees themselves. Yet she was not savage, according to those who had met her, but wise; a woods-woman and healer at home in the forest and perfectly attuned to the wild. She was also intensely shy, and said to only speak when absolutely necessary.

Trianoma devoted an entire year to searching for Merinita, to invite her to come with her to meet Bonisagus and to join the Order of Hermes. Many times she approached one of the dark forests where Merinita was rumored to dwell and called out her proposal to the shadows of the trees, but never received an answer. Yet in 767, as the Founders gathered to discuss Trianoma’s vision, Merinita emerged from the forest and quietly joined their circle. Her reasons for joining were never clear; her followers say that she herself did not know why, but felt compelled by a will greater than her own, as if the forest itself required it of her.

Merinita’s oath to the fledgling Order was binding, and she timidly went to Bonisagus to teach him some of her powers in return for his Parma Magica. According to the few surviving accounts, this was a tedious process, for though Merinita obviously knew a great deal, especially about healing and nurturing plants and living creatures, there was little that she could find to teach Bonisagus, either because she was unable to communicate her mystic understanding, because he had already adapted the ancient healing rituals she practiced into Magic Theory, or because she was unwilling to share all of her secrets.

She eventually demonstrated the ability to join her mind, body, and spirit with an animal, and this was integrated into Hermetic teaching as the enchantment that binds a maga to her familiar. The first ever such creature was a great stag, summoned to Durenmar by Merinita. This beast, the maga tersely explained, was her kindred spirit, whose thoughts and feelings she shared. Magical cords bound him to her and her to him, and joined their hearts and minds as surely as if they were one person. She identified three cords that created this bond, though she indicated that there could be others.

After the Founding, Merinita did not immediately seek out followers as other Founders did. She became very close to Birna, the Founder of House Bjornaer, for the two of them shared similar philosophies. Where Birna had a deep, spiritual connection to the wild through her heartbeast, Merinita had a comparable relationship with nature through her familiar. Together they adapted rites from many ancient wilderness cults, creating the Initiation ceremonies that Birna and Merinita used to teach others their secrets.

As word of the new Order spread throughout Mythic Europe, many would-be wizards traveled to the Rhine from distant lands in search of the lady in green, to study her Mysteries and learn from her wisdom. She eventually accepted these disciples as her followers, and taught them what she could of Hermetic magic. She encouraged them to spread out and settle in many different parts of the world, and she often traveled among them, guiding and nurturing them as she had once done for the forests. In time, however, the duration and frequency of these visits dwindled.

Then, sometime before the ninth century, Merinita simply disappeared. Her followers had expected to see her at the Grand Tribunal in 799, but she never arrived and left no word, and it was only later that some of them recalled her having spoken about being on the verge of a discovery, what she called “the mystery of the eternal spirit of the wild.” She was last seen 14 years previously near Bohemia, and many guessed that she had gone south into Hungary or east into Poland, though others speculated that she had lost herself in one of the many great forests in the area.

In her absence, the House was to be guided by her eldest follower, a magus named Quendalon (Cuin-dallán, “little blind sovereign”), one of the first who had sought out the Founder to become her disciple. He was originally from the Ulster region of Ireland and had been raised among the fae, and believed that his Hermetic magic could be dramatically improved with their gifts. He had spoken with the Founder about this, and after the Grand Tribunal, he declared his intention to visit the faeries that lived in a certain forest in Bohemia. He announced that until he returned, Merinita’s next-eldest follower, Myanar, would be Prima.

Myanar took up governance of the House from her own covenant, also in Bohemia, at the site of Merinita’s first home. Several other magi joined her there, including three hunter-priestesses of Artemis who had traveled from Asia Minor to join the House, and a Roman master of shape-changing. Myanar herself came from Bulgaria, and was descended from a mythic lineage known as the Line of Muj; one of her ancestors had made a pact with a magical guardian spirit of the Balkans, which blessed him and his children with supernaturally great strength and power over storms.

The House Divided

What happened then is very difficult to piece together, as the next few years included some of the strangest events in Hermetic history, filled with terrifying violence and upheaval uncharacteristic of the House. What few details survive from firsthand accounts are contradictory and garbled, and even the dates are confusing and do not always make sense. Yet as far as can be determined by those who have carefully studied the House Divided (as Merinitae have come to call it), the sequence of events proceeded as follows.

Two years after Myanar became Prima, a stranger arrived at her covenant, announcing that he was Quendalon and had returned to resume control of the House. He did resemble the former magus, but he was obviously not human, having two bright rubies instead of eyes. Myanar questioned him about his supposed transformation; he claimed that he had become a faerie in Arcadia, trading his useless human eyes for faerie sight. He also said he had uncovered deep mysteries on his long journey that would revolutionize the Order of Hermes. This knowledge required him, he said, to guide House Merinita in an exciting new direction.

To Myanar, it seemed that this faerie being was an imposter, a changeling who had replaced Quendalon and sought to take over the House, and she refused to comply. This angered him, and he warned that she would suffer dire consequences if she did not obey him. Their conflict escalated into a magical battle, but Myanar was unable to prevent him from escaping. According to letters that Quendalon wrote afterward, Myanar opposed him on ideological grounds, recognizing him full well and swearing that “she would not allow him to deform the House with his distorted visions of the future.” Yet Myanar told her followers that the false Quendalon had bragged about having found and killed Merinita, and had threatened to kill all of them if they did not accept him as hierophant of their cult.

War broke out between the two factions. The faerie Quendalon traveled throughout the region, gathering support from Merinitae and others against Myanar and her followers. Most of them were curious about his new powers and anxious to learn what he had to teach, and so pledged to accept his leadership. He established a covenant called Irencillia near the faerie forest he had entered, and Myanar led a hasty strike against them. Her force was routed, and it appears that she was slain during the battle. Supposedly, those of her force that remained surrendered to Quendalon in 802. He cast them out of the House, but they were later accepted into House Bjornaer. All this was reported at the Grand Tribunal of 817; Quendalon came with two of his followers who supported his story, and while many questioned him, no one contested his description of events.

Other accounts suggest that the war was not so easily won. Some of Myanar’s followers later claimed that Myanar did not die, but rather was transformed into a snake during the first assault, and that in that form she led other attacks on Irencillia in 804 and 806. Some say that faeries participated in the defense of the covenant. It is also said that Myanar was distantly related to Tytalus the Founder, who came to Bohemia in 807 with the public intention of challenging the Queen of the Faeries, and who disappeared into the Maddenhofen Woods that same year. Some speculate that Myanar sought him out and asked for his aid against Quendalon — they reason that his presence in the turbulent region could hardly be a coincidence — and that she went with him into the forest to confront the false Primus and the faeries behind his bid for power.

Quendalon caused great ill-will between Houses Merinita and Tytalus at the 817 Tribunal by laughing loudly during their account of their Founder’s disappearance. He later explained that he was not mocking Tytalus’s ambitious attempt to defeat “the Queen,” but found it amusing that his followers would perceive his end as tragic. He gave them the impression that he knew more than he was saying, but would not speak of it further. Since then, House Merinita and House Tytalus have often been at odds, their poor relationship aggravated by the possibility that Quendalon might have known what happened to their Founder, or even been somehow responsible for their loss.

The Line of Muj

Before Quendalon introduced Faerie Magic to the House, Myanar and her followers focused entirely on Merinita’s Mysteries of nature and life, and many of these secrets came easily to Myanar, for she had a special affinity for nature through her family’s ancient tradition. Other magi descended from this ancestral Line of Muj still live in the Transylvanian Tribunal, and belong to House Tremere. To represent their hereditary magical powers and background, such characters should choose Close Family Ties, Affinity with Auram, Great Strength, and Mountain Lore (see Nature Mysteries, below) during character creation.

A rivalry has developed between a group of these Tremere and a nomadic family of Merinitae, led by a Novgorod maga named Merinugalaudabila. She takes great delight in certamen as a sport, and especially enjoys variations on “the game,” as she calls it. Because of her efforts, interest in magical competition is growing within the House, and a few of her followers have developed the magical focus in certamen that is typically only found in Tremere’s lineage. Together they have invented two unusual dueling styles (see House Tremere, Houses of Hermes: True Lineages, for details). These were designed mostly to embarrass the staid Muj, many of whom know the events of the House Divided and bear a familial grudge against faerie Merinitae on Myanar’s behalf. The two groups often fight for no obvious reason, spuriously challenging each other on what seem very flimsy pretenses whenever they happen to cross paths.

A Faerie Fraud?

Suspicions that the faerie Quendalon was not who he claimed to be seem more likely when considering the evidence of other instances when faeries have taken human shapes and tried to pass themselves off as magi. In the 1100s, for example, an unremarkable magus named Zurenzialle disappeared from his covenant in the Greater Alps suddenly and without warning, and when his sodales decided that he was dead and entered his laboratory, they discovered evidence that he was never human at all, but a Faerie being who had been pretending to be a magus.

To this day, the magi of House Merinita still speculate about whether it really was Quendalon who returned to govern the House. It is a moot point now, whether he was the former Primus or a faerie in disguise, as his legacy remains an integral part of their magic, for good or ill. In fact, it could be detrimental if it were to come to light that he really was an impostor; such a revelation might tarnish all they have done since, and undermine everything his followers have used his Mysteries.

200 Years After

Quendalon returned his attention to adopting faerie ways within his House, to accomplish. teaching his followers and others who came to learn from him the secrets of Faerie Magic. For years he acted as lead Mystagogue, performing hundreds of Initiations and teaching many promising apprentices throughout the ninth and tenth centuries. Sightings of him became much less frequent in the mid-900s, and he sent delegates to the Grand Tribunals of 931 and 964, though none of them could say what had become of him. There were many rumors that he had gone mad, and most suspected he had returned to Arcadia forever.

At the Grand Tribunal of 997, the assembled Merinitae finally decided they would have to choose one of their number to take his place, though they did not all agree that Quendalon was dead. By surprising consensus the leaders of the various groups named a timid young maga named Rhiannon as Prima; she was four generations descended from Quendalon, and they believed she would best represent the House’s interests. She hesitantly accepted the position, moved to Irencillia, and for the most part avoided other magi.

The outbreak of the Schism War came only a few years later. Rhiannon was not a strong orator, but spoke many times in defense of House Diedne, and openly voted against their Renunciation. Many think that she invited a number of Diedne to join her House to escape destruction, and during the war some Merinitae actually fought with the Diedne in battle. They did not ever join with Diedne officially, however, and the Order was anxious for peace during the aftermath, so House Merinita never suffered official retribution for these acts.

Rhiannon reputedly died of old age, and her bones were returned to her Hibernian homeland to be buried. The Primacy eventually passed to Vinaria of Irencillia, said to bear a striking physical resemblance to the Founder. She was much more politically active than her predecessor, and was most famously concerned about the Magic realm fading with the spread of the Dominion. She believed that wild places of power were becoming increasingly smaller and weaker as civilization encroached upon them, and often argued that House Merinita is as much magical as it is fay, that its members would surely feel the negative effects of the loss of the wilderness as keenly as other magi.

She made many overtures of friendship to House Bjornaer, as the relationship between the two Houses had been sour since Myanar’s exile, but she could give them no support for their actions during the invasion of Rügen in 1168, and much of the progress she had made toward reconciliation was undone. The next Bjornaer Primus, Urgen, declared that she was senile and useless, and refused to grant her an audience. Vinaria disappeared in 1202, much the same way as Merinita and Quendalon had done, giving control of the House to Handri, senior magus at Irencillia. Mystifyingly, she later returned in 1209, but has since made no attempt to resume the primacy.

More information about these magi and their domus magna, Irencillia, can be found in Guardians of the Forests: The Rhine Tribunal.

The Future of the House

By 1220, Merinitae have become a contrary crowd of disparate groups, rarely agreeing on anything and hardly interacting with one another at all. Outsiders suspect that this lack of unity is a front for other, secret goals and machinations. For example, they may be establishing good relations with faeries so that they may one day slip away to Arcadia, leaving the Order and Europe forever. Or perhaps they intend to side with the fae when they inevitably war against humanity, and so buy a place in the new faerie hierarchy.

Many Merinitae think that Faerie is permanently slipping away, that the golden age of the faeries is past, and that the Dominion’s slow encroachment over all human civilization is unstoppable. Others stridently protest, and rebuke those who say this, for if believing makes it so, those who proclaim Faerie’s ruin are themselves destroying it with their predictions. It is no wonder there is little agreement among them on these matters, since they are very quick to turn on themselves, and like the faeries do, often fight with each other more than outsiders.

If there is anything that the members of the chaotic House can agree upon, it is that in order for the faeries to survive, the Merinitae must preserve and protect the few remaining places given over to Faerie, or help those who dwell there to adapt to the landscape of the rapidly changing world, or else quit its boundaries entirely and accompany them to the lands beyond living.

Story Seeds

History Seeds

If Merinita is still alive, perhaps her familiar also lives. A group of hunters tells a story of a magnificent stag they could not fell in a nearby forest, and this might lead to an investigation, perhaps to track down the Founder by following the cords that bind her to the great beast.
Some say Quendalon went mad and tore out his eyes before disappearing, but that these precious stones were lost. They were invested with great magic, but also cursed to slowly transform the possessor into a faerie over time. Perhaps a companion purchases one of these gems from a jeweler who is anxious to be rid of it.
The grogs find a serpent hiding in one of the covenant buildings, but they cannot kill it. Hermetic investigation reveals that it has great power, but does not have any Might. Its thoughts make no sense but it burns with vengeance. Those who know the history of House Merinita might wonder: could this be Myanar?