House Bjornaer is the only surviving non-Latin founding House of the order. Thus, it is a house little understood by the other Houses, and a house that doesn’t fully trust the rest of the order. It is fairly close mouthed about internal politics and disagreement. Given that the Primus is by definition the oldest living member of the House, and given the great secrecy with which the house conducts the Gathering of the Twelve Years, little of its internal politics becomes known to the rest of the Order. However, there are advantages to the structure from our perspective. The most influential Bjornaer of a tribunal is the eldest present, and if they can be persuaded to support an issue, they will generally sway any younger Bjornaer whose votes are not bound by their covenant’s charter.
The Primus at the beginning of the Schism War had a turtle heartbeast. Given that, the house’s decision to draw into a defensive, do-nothing stance is not surprising. Some observers whose political activity spanned decades before and after the war commented that even after the war was over, House Bjornaer never fully came out of its shell, and was more secretive than it was before the war. However, others have theorized that in a future crisis, its actions might be very different.
Magically, while Bonisgaus learned shape-changing magics from Bjornaer, he enhanced those magics to allow the transformation of other items than the magus himself, and to tie the magics to his system of the 15 Arts. Bjornaer herself was not all that impressed with the enhancements, and taught her filia to use the original methods. Some believe that this was because her abilities were not restricted to shape changing, she could also alter environmental tolerances and combat/survival characteristics of any form that she took with the original magics and without using the system of Bonisagus.
House Bjornaer continues to use what they retain of Bjornaer’s original magics. It is fairly common for middle aged Bjornaer to spend time learning additional shapes, if not for them to announce to the rest of the order what shapes they have learned. This is a very solitary activity, and almost always occurs in the wilds, far from other magi. Few are known to have been accompanied by grogs while learning other shapes. Having multiple shapes is a matter of respect within the house, but seems not to affect their age based heirarchy. One archmagus of the house set his challenge as requiring the assuming of multiple shapes quickly and repeatedly without the use of Muto magic, which may be the basis of that belief. On one occasion some magi of house Tytalus pushed to require Bjornaer to publish their additional shapes. This was refused, with an argument that it would be an unjust requirement, outside the provisions of the code, and that if it were imposed all magi should be required to publish all spells they learn, or at the least all shape changing or disguise spells – that notion was sufficiently unpopular that the proposing Tytalus was unable to gather support enough to bring it up as a grand tribunal issue or establish it in his tribunal’s Peripheral Code. It is not believed that any Bjornaer of the past couple centuries retain the ability to alter their environmental tolerance or their combat/survival characteristics using purely willpower. Recovering that ability would be a matter of much renown within the house.
The Quaesitores are silent about what the Bjornaer Quaesitores say to other Quaesitores about the internal affairs of the house. They do stand up for the right of House Bjornaer, and every other house, to keep secrets that do not involve violations of the code. The conclusion is that they are assured that no violations occur. Recall that only House Bonisagus must publish the results of their magical learnings.
Over the centuries, some things have become known about the magic of Bjornaer. For some reason, they can not have familiars, and few to none have demonstrated any great ability with the art of Animal in any fashion. When they have commented, or when magi of house Bonisgaus have taken Bjornaer apprentices, the conclusion has been that their magics are most closely kin to the hermetic form of Corpus. Marta of Bonisagus, a deceased Trianomite of the Theban Tribunal, suggested that the souls of non-Hermetic shapechangers, including Bjornaer, are inherently different from those of other men and magi.
The house rarely acts as a unified political force, and the Primus of the house does not often raise issues at the Grand Tribunal. Of late there have been rumors that many within the house feel that a change in relations between the Order and mundanes is needed, but no significant activity has been witnessed. Given the relative strength of house Bjornaer in the Novgorod tribunal, it seems likely that its actions can be seen as a sign of the house’s leanings – however, their most known actions are their closing of the borders against other tribunals, which doesn’t say much about the attitude toward the mundanes.