House Mystery

A House Mystery is a Mystery taught by one of the four Mystery Houses: House Bjornaer, House Criamon, House Merinita, or House Verditius. All House Mysteries are described in the ArM5 supplement, Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults.

Each Mystery House teaches more than one Mystery. The first Mystery, known by all members of the House, is called its Outer Mystery. Each Mystery House then has different terms and a different progression toward progressively deeper mysteries.

List of Mysteries by House

The Mysteries taught by each House are as follows. All of them, except the Outer Mysteries, are described in Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults

Bjornaer Mysteries

• Heartbeast (Outer Mystery)
• Secret Name
• Theriomorphy
• Sensory Magic
• Mystery of the Epitome
• Mystery of the Chimera
• Mystery of the Anima

Criamon Mysteries

• Enigmatic Wisdom (Outer Mystery)
• The Path of the Body
• The Path of Seeming
• The Path of Strife
• The Path of Walking Backwards

House Merinita

• Faerie Magic (Outer Mystery)
• Binding the Gift
• Arcadian Travel
• Animae Magic
• Becoming
• Charm Magic
• Story Magic
• Symbolic Magic
• Spell Timing
• Glamour
• Perpetuity
• Nature Lore
• Awakening
• Wilding
• Guardian of Nature

Verditius Mysteries

Verditius Magic covers the outer mystery of the house. The official inner mysteries are discussed on the Veriditius Magic page. Pinpoint cites are lister below here:

• Automata
• Bind Curse
• Bind Magical Creatures
• Enchant Casting Tools
• Item Attunement
• Items of Quality
• Reforging Enchanted Items
• Verditius Elder Runes

Publishing History

The terms House Mysteries and Mystery Houses were introduced in Fifth Edition. However, each of these houses has always had special magical knowledge and abilities, that constituted, to some degree, what are now the outer mysteries of each house. The past editions did not have anything that would constitute the inner mysteries, though Faerie Magic received some expansion from supplements. The mechanics for House Verditius's special powers, in particular, worked quite differently and in all the previous editions was far less beneficial than it is now. So much so, that "Verditius Magic" was a flaw rather than virtue from it's creation in Second Edition product Order of Hermes until the release of Fifth Edition.