Editing Lineage:The Houses (section)

=Human History in Brief According to The Houses=

History has been an endless struggle between great clans of mages for wealth and power, both temporal and magical.  The history that mortals think they know is a myth, a facade that hides the true causes of great political events.  The Roman Empire rose because the Houses of Rome made it so and fell again because they made war with one another.  The great wars of religion, Christian against Muslim, Catholic against Protestant, Sunni against Shi’ite, had their origins not in the spiritual lives of mundanes but in the ambitions of the magical houses.  The United States of America stands astride the world today not because of manifest destiny, but because that is the way that the rivalry of the great mage Houses played out.

Magery doesn’t just appear among the blooded, of course, and history has had its share of wild loners and mad cults, without the benefit of a House to call their own.  Without the organization and bonds of loyalty that a family provides, they very rarely amount to very much.  The worst and most long-lasting mage cult is that which in the modern west calls itself “The Rebellion”.  In ancient times, The Rebellion declared that Heaven and Hell alike were enemies of mankind who must be fought at every turn.  The Houses have almost always tried to put the mad crusade down, both because it tends to unexpectedly take on political dimensions that can be a direct threat and simply because it is a destabilizing influence in the world.  However, at around the time of the Renaissance, The Houses began to come to the conclusion that an open-ended war on the Rebellion is more trouble than it is worth.  It is a drain on resources to combat a problem that never seems to go away and since The Rebellion is not directly a rebellion against the power of The Houses, it tends to be tolerated unless it is necessary to do otherwise.