HOUSE BONISAGUS
This is the House that claims the very founding of the Grand Order. In 767 AD the great philosopher-magus Bonisagus codified a set of magickal laws and methods that allowed wide ranges of magick to fit under the parameters of certain Arts and Forms -- what are today known as the Spheres. With the help of the maga Trianoma, Bonisagus gathered the remains of the Cult of Mercury, who had scattered throughout Europe after Rome's collapse, into lodgings outside the Germanic town of Durenmar; when they offered these magi a form of magick that did not require multitudes of participants and expensive components, many of the Mercurians agreed and took up study under Bonisagus. The first twelve who joined with Bonisagus were some of the most powerful magi in the land; a violent Iberian noble called Flambeau, the Roman transmuter Mercere, Guorna the Fetid's hot-tempered Norman pupil Tytalus, Guorna's clever but weaker Bulgarian pupil Tremere, the refined Roman noble Jerbiton, the Roman talisman-maker, a strange Bavarian riddle-mage called Criamon, the nature-maga Merinita, a Germanic barbarian shapeshifter-woman called Bjornaer, a reluctant Roman magus known as Guernicus, and a Hibernian Druid called Diedne. These twelve each took pupils eventually and taught them the Hermetic theories they had learned from Bonisagus; along with Bonisagus' later apprentices, these new magi made up the first bastions of the Grand Hermetic Order. They were the Twelve Houses.
As the other founders took their studies of Hermetic Theory in many direction -- warfare, exploration, enigmas and riddles, the search for power and status -- Bonisagus taught his students another way. He required diligent study and intense focus, not to mention high levels of intelligence and creativity, and guided his students along pathways whereupon they explored the very nature of magick itself. These magi alone understood how little that day's magi knew of magick -- even the powerful magi of the newly-arisen Hermetic Houses. They worked quietly, persistently, and often at great danger to learn more, to push the boundaries of magick and reality, to learn more about the magickal places and beings of Mythic Europe. They worked alone far more often than other magi, and were reclusive, often holing themselves away in towers or laboratories for months or years. But these quiet scholars were greatly respected by the other magi of the Order, since their learning was directly descended from the Order's Founder.
Certamen w/Tremere
Throughout the rest of the Order's history, which the other Houses filled with wars and intrigues, the magi of House Bonisagus worked quietly in the background, solidifying the Order's grasp of the laws of magick, strengthening and stabilizing the Order through careful political actions and diplomacy. They created powerful potions to lengthen lifespan, aided House Verditius in the perfection of talisman-making techniques, quantified and gained control over "vis" (the raw magickal energies that flow through the world), and developed many of the spells that made up the spellbooks of the next five centuries. Some in the 1200s, however, claimed that the Bonisagi became less and less creative and original as the centuries passed, and that they fizzled down to merely minor improvements and highly specific inquiries. in the late 1200s some radical mages in House Bonisagus, and from other Houses, began searching for new perspectives on Hermetic Theory, hoping to change some of the basic assumptions, such as the division between Techniques and Forms. This movement was much feared and opposed, but eventually led to the codification of the Spheres as they are known today.