It is known that Flamma Aeterna is a dangerous covenant, but it behoves us to remember just how dangerous it can be. Their dislike of non-Roman members of the Order they rarely care to hide, but `dislike' is barely strong enough for the strong feelings and emotions they truly have in their arrogance. Occasionally, this arrogance and hatred can lead to disaster.
Silverdown was a beautiful covenant. Founded before the Order imposed itself upon these shores, it nestled in the South Downs, and was named after the silver sheen upon the surrounding hills as the rays of the dawn sunlight lit the morning dew. It was not a Roman covenant, though its magi allied themselves with Pralix and fought together before joining the Order a decision they were later to bitterly regret hoping for peaceful co-existance and the passing of knowledge. Within their golden stone walls, these Ex-Miscellenea had a wild garden of plants; local fauna felt comfortable there, relations with the Fae were peaceful and the local people did not see their neighbours as people to fear or hate, but to go to in times of trouble. The Code, of course, said otherwise, but these magi did not see why they should change the way they lived for the Order, when it had never brought harm upon them.
But eventually, the old ways clashed with the new order, and Silverdown fell. A local leader of a small and poor nearby village asked for help from the magi, as his family had done for generations. A child, his young son, had been snatched from the village, and he wanted to stage a rescue: he had discovered where the boy had been taken and pleaded for the magi's help. The magi did not hesitate in their compassion: they gave the man and his followers some minor enchanted items, cast spells upon them to keep them strong and swift and silent, and gave them their blessing.
Little clear is known about that night, but it was maintained at the tribunal that, with the items and the enchantments upon them, the men of the village were able to rescue their little boy, killing only one person: a magus of the Order, who had taken the boy, who had the gentle gift, for his own. This magus was not of the tribunal, and had few friends, but somehow the magi of the damned flame found out and Aequus prosecuted the entire covenant of Silverdown at the next tribunal for breach of the Code.
Silverdown pleaded their case most beautifully: they could not know that their actions would bring harm upon their sodales, and indeed the manner in which this sole magus took the boy was dangerous to them. But to no avail. Aequus, long trained in the minutae of hermetic law and eloquent and slippery as a serpent, used half truths and real fear to coerce the tribunal to vote against the covenant.
Silverdown was Marched later that year by the forces of Flamma Aeterna, the Quaesitors and assorted Roman magi from this tribunal. The magi there did not stand a chance again those such as Livia and Scelus and their cronies, and were slaughtered like beasts, the golden walls of the covenant fell, the animals and covenfolk fled or were killed and, as summer gave way to autumn, the garden of Silverdown withered and died
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