Editing The Gift:Characters (section)

===House Rat Sniffing===

House Rat Sniffing was founded in 1916 by disaffected members of the Old Houses, who believed that the traditional mysticism should give way to reason.  They are dedicated to learning the truth about the universe, often leading them to neglect more mundane and practical matters.  The house has a reputation for both wisdom and foolishness and if their guidance is often sought, they advice is also often ignored.  The mages of Rat Sniffing, however, rarely care very much what mages from other orders think of them.  On the other hand, they have a tendency to become focussed on status games within their own House.  While many Rat Sniffing mages are idealistic, they are also particularly likely to burn out, becoming cynical, apathetic or corrupt.  Rat Sniffing vendettas, often founded on a disagreement over theory, are known for being particularly bitter and persistent.  The House is badly organized and House politics tends to be dominated by feuding cliques.

Apprenticeship requires a broad study of history, philosophy and the social sciences, to help the student gain perspective on the place of humanity in the universe.  While the house has no official religious stances, it does require study of the Christian religion, on the grounds that the faith plays such a significant role in Western history and thought.  Magical training focuses on spells that provide information.

Cost: 23 points

Skills:  History (Ancient European), History (Ancient Middle East), History (Any), Mathematics (Logic), Philosophy (Western Analytic), Philosophy (Any), Psychology, Research, Ritual Magic (Western Hermeticism), Sociology, Symbol Drawing (Western Hermetic), Thaumatology, Theology (Christianity).

Spells:

Knowledge:  Analyze Magic, Ancient History, Detect Magic, History, Identify Spell, Mage Sense, Mage Sight, Pre-History, Seek Magic, Sense Mana.


House Stances

Magic:  The reason that nobody can agree on what magic is and what it is for is that it gets defined a thousand different ways.

Themselves:  We are a group of seekers after truth.

The Council:  We are safer here than we would be anywhere else.

The Old Houses:  You don’t find truth by trying to prove yourself right.  You find truth by trying to prove yourself wrong.

The Young Houses:  We have much to learn from each other.  Snake Drinking understands the big picture better than the others do, though.

The Circle:  More dogmatic than the Old Houses.

The Cooperative:  The last thing the world needs is more religions.  They do raise a lot of good questions though.  The Human Society is particularly thoughtful and interesting to talk to.

Independents:  The Silver Mirror School are fascinating philosophers.  They aren’t always right, but they are always clever and interesting.