Editing Lineage:Rebellion Lineages (section)

=Order of Copernicus=

[[Image:Silverstar.jpg]]

Positive Stereotype:  Scientific visionary.

Negative Stereotype:  Deranged dreamer.

Symbol:  Silver star.

Signature Spell:  Flight.  “Freedom of a Bird”.

Magical Style:  The Order’s magical symbolism is medieval Italian, with some elements and symbols borrowed from modern science.

The Order of Copernicus is composed of scientific mages who dream of a new order to the universe, with humanity, not Heaven and Hell, at the center.  They seek to use education to liberate mankind and to use science to reorder society in a more rational manner.  They also hope, in time, to rewrite magical theory as a true science.  Apprentices are first trained in the sciences and only then in magical theory.  Magical training focuses on informational spells and on flight.  The official grounds for teaching flight are purely practical; the world is full of danger and the mage who can fly can get away.

Niklaus Copernicus was a Polish mage of House Medici who went rebel and became perhaps the greatest revolutionary in history.  When Copernicus proved that the Earth orbits the sun, he shook the faith of Christian mages everywhere, which was already on shaky foundations due to Heaven’s incomprehensibility.  It was his discovery that sparked the revolution bringing the Rebellion out of hiding after thousands of years and forcing The Houses to make a truce with the rebels.  Copernicus founded the Order in his own name in the hopes that they would use science to enlighten humanity and free them of the tyranny of the supernatural world.  Copernicus’ followers soon became convinced that helping humanity required reorganizing it along “scientific” lines, with scientists holding ultimate political power.  The Order has had little success on that front, with their ambitions mostly manifesting as resistance to whatever political forces happen to be in power.  They have historically been anti-imperial, anti-monarchical, anti-clerical, and in the modern day, anti-corporation.  They worked to protract the Wars of the Roses, eagerly watching the Houses of York and Lancaster grind themselves down against one another, and earning the resentment of both Houses in the long run.  They sided with the Roundheads in the English Civil War, earning them the hatred of the House of Stuart, with the revolutionaries in the French Revolution, earning them the hatred of the Houses of Capet and Hapsburg, with the revolutionaries in the Americas, earning them yet more hatred from the House of Stuart, and with the communists in Russia and East Asia, earning them the hatred of the House of Romanov and the Houses of the east.  They supported the Union in the American Civil War, judging slavery to be morally abhorrent.  While some had Nazi sympathies, most felt the Nazis were too cruel and dogmatic and supported the Allies in the World War II.

Mortal Politics:  The power of the corporations must be checked as must US imperialist activities in the middle east.  Public education must be properly funded as must the universities and other educational institutions.  The dictatorships of the world must be overthrown and replaced with democratic states, with the power of the people carefully constrained by a strong constitution and an independent supreme court.  Ultimate power must lie in the hands of those with the greatest scientific understanding, otherwise government is blind.


Cost:  17.

Skills: Atronomy, Mathematics, Occultism, Physics, Symbol Drawing (Western Hermetic), Thaumatology, Theology (Christian).

Spells:
Air:  Purify Air, Seek Air.
Knowledge:  Divination (Astrology), Know Location, Measurement, Tell Position.
Movement:  Flight, Great Haste, Haste, Levitation.

Relations

The Houses

House of Anjou:  Does it really need to be pointed out that someone with a need to eat human flesh has psychological problems?

House of Cain:  Animals.

House of Capet:  A visit to the guillotine would do them the world of good.  They serve no purpose other than to engorge themselves.

House of Carolus:  You lost your little European empire.  Deal with it.  Why don’t you find something useful to do?

House of Flavii:  Corrupt, officious bureaucrats.  What a waste of intellect to use it to count coins.

House of Hapsburg:  The cancer at the heart of the European economic machine.  They don’t care about poverty and waste as long as they get the most money and power.

House of Julii:  The only thing these dogs of war understand is force.  Magic is nothing more to them that a weapon.

House of Lancaster:  They think that people are just machines, there to make money for them.

Order of Lilith:  By their own admission, they are assholes.

House of Medici:  They have opposed the advancement of human knowledge at every turn, but they always lose in the end.

House of Romanov:  Shooting them was the best idea the Russians ever had.  They hate everything new.

House of Stuart:  The great family mega-corporation of the western world, more powerful than a nation-state and twice as ruthless.

House of Trastámara:  Universally hated yet too feared to be exterminated.  They should be opposed or avoided.

House of Ummayad:  They are knowledgeable, but they are too mired in the past to learn more.

House of Warwick:  The media is a corporate tool, but we knew that, right?  All the truth they could spread if they had just a fiber of honesty!

House of York:  Bloated pigs, living off the fruits of other people’s labor.  And what will happen to those people when there is nothing left to take from the ground?

The Rebellion

Order of Boudicca:  They’ve never worked out what they really believe it, except that they see themselves as heroes.

Order of Darwin:  Being brilliant scientists does not make them experts on what is good for humanity.

Order of Eve:  Uh, the Earth is four point six billion years old.  Time for a reality check.  How can they help humanity when they won’t face the truth?

Order of Jesus:  Are they rebels at all?  How can they serve Heaven and also mankind?

Order of Judas:  Natural born killers, for good or for ill.  They can be dangerous and unpredictable, but they understand force.

Order of Siddhartha:  They look inward when they should look outward and so see only themselves.

Order of Solon:  They put too much faith in the wisdom of ordinary people.  People have to be educated before they can make judgments.

Order of Spartacus:  Every war needs its soldiers.  Ours may be impulsive and preachy, but they understand violent resistance.

Order of Thales:  A fount of untested theories.  Useless.  What is the point of learning that never takes you anywhere new?

Order of Utnapishtim:  Mythology is only going to mislead.  They are trapped in an illusion Heaven built for us all so long ago.