Rosetta Society
The Rosetta Society is a Sworn faction who believe the Contagion is some kind of message.
Overview
The Rosetta Society has studied past outbreaks, and concluded that there's a pattern - though unlike Zero Hour, they don't think it's a sign of hostility. Rather, they believe the Contagion is an attempt at communication, though they're not sure from where, when, or who. Whether its reality-warping effects are the actual message or just an unfortunate by-product of the medium, the Rosetta Society does believe they can decode it. Maybe it's a warning. Maybe it's contact from a world utterly alien to our own. Whatever it is, once the message is understood, the Contagion can be controlled - and until then, the broadcast may just keep getting louder, and the effects, worse.
Members of the Society have a bad habit of getting absorbed into their research and losing sight of more immediate, concrete concerns. Their tendency to engage with Contagious informants can be risky, especially if - as some members fear - the message itself is a vector for Contagion. They're also very good at poking their noses into place where they're not welcome in search of information or resources, which has earned them more than their share of enemies, especially with Naglfar's Army.
Origins
The Rosetta Society claim to be the oldest of the Sworn, and trace their origins an outbreak of Contagion in present-day San Lorenzo, Mexico in 900 BCE. By the time Europeans officially "discovered" the Americas, the ideas of the Society had already spread globally. The present name is a reference to the Rosetta Stone.
Some of the Sworn suggest the Society has been duped by the Cryptocracy, and the patterns they're chasing were manufactured to steer them one way or another.
Methods
The Society brings a wide range of academic, philosophical, and supernatural approaches to bear on their research. Any sort of communication is a possible model for the Contagion, so one member might study dead languages while another practices dream interpretation and a third mines the Web for subliminal messages. When possible, they try to communicate directly with the Contagious, even if it means kidnapping them.
This broad curiosity means the Rosetta Society often knows the most out of the Sworn factions about the obscure, the rare, and the esoteric. If they don't already know, they probably know how to find out. In the absence of active outbreaks, the Society keeps working on data from previous ones. They gather like any other academic body, at regional and national conferences, along with mortal colleagues in relevant fields. Their Vector is Semiotics.
Membership
Unchained Messengers, Invasive Remade, Mystagogue of the Cryptologos Legacy, Aegis Kai Doru archaeologist, Bone Shadow ritemaster.
References
- CofD: The Contagion Chronicle, p. 20-22
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Sworn |
Cryptocracy · Jeremiad · Rosetta Society · Ship of Theseus · Zero Hour |
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False |
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