The Founding of House Derleth: 416-418

By 416, Bethelion graduates accounted for just over ten percent of the mage population of the Order. Members of the University's first graduating class of 385 had by now raised students of their own to magehood; a few of them were fast on their way to becoming grandparents. The University had created a new type of mage: sophisticated and urban, well-educated in oratory and the liberal arts as well as in magic, accustomed to living and working alongside non-magi, and capable of dealing effectively with the higher ranks of mundane society. While they may have accepted membership in different Houses upon their ascension to magehood, Bethelion graduates resembled one another far more than they resembled the other members of their adopted Houses. The more Bethelion's lecturers and graduates discussed announcing the formation of their own House, the more sensible—and even inevitable—the idea came to seem.

What seemed logical and inevitable to the Bethelionites, however, was not necessarily what would seem proper outside of the University. The magi of Bethelion were well aware that their campaign for recognition as an independent House would be likely to meet with hostility from the rest of the Order, many of whose members were already beginning to resent the University both for the speed with which it churned out magi and for the undeniable efficacy of its training methods. Some magi had already expressed concerns that the University might in time come to overrun the Order completely, sweeping aside its most cherished tradition of the father-son bond of magical apprenticeship. Attempts to claim status as an independent House, the Bethelionites realized, would undoubtedly speak to these fears, prompting a vocal opposition.

The University also realized that its cause was weakened by the fact that the Order had only one University covenant: Bethelion itself. For a single covenant, no matter how unique, to claim independent status for its own students seemed a tad arrogant even to the strongest advocates of Bethelionite independence. The solution to this particular problem, however, was close at hand: a group of Bethelionite graduates were already hard at work founding a new University covenant far to the south, in distant Gaetan.