Conference Headquarters

[Hattish Thing]

Issued over seventy years ago, City of Inside Inter-Branch Directive 1111 reads as follows: “Research department heads, electrum agents: Maulbron Building, Gray Zone, 8–24. Conference Z." Inter-Branch Directive 1111 remains the only publicly leaked reference to Conference Z. This directive was compromised only when a power outage due to a now-forgotten cataclysm caused data systems across the city to malfunction. Since then, few verifiable details have been uncovered regarding Conference Z and its agents, operations, or purpose. However, Intersection field reports have linked the group to several obscure locations throughout the Nexus, many of which have since been vacated and are now little more than abandoned underground bunkers.

Only Cauvin Kramolagh, the current executor of Conference Z, has full knowledge of Inter-Branch Directive 1111. In this decades-old directive, Marciano Laur've, a wealthy and megalomaniacal businessman obsessed with asserting dominance over his many enemies, ordered the founding of an organization of brilliant minds to discuss radical new avenues for business and expansion. Laur've judged the conference such a success that he secretly dedicated a significant percentage of his yearly funds to backing the think tank, a practice that has continued long past his death.

From its inception, Conference Z has been clandestine, intended to free participants from the shackles of convention and taboo. Over the decades, its mystery has only deepened as a march of obsessive executors have burrowed the suborganization into the depths of obscurity. Currently, the only non-members aware of the existence of Conference Z are anonymous sponsors, whose identities are known only by Executor Kramolagh. These sponsors frequently share in the success of Conference Z's more lucrative experiments, and as such keep the work of Executor Kramolagh and his far-flung electrum researchers a closely guarded secret.

Deep inside stronghold laboratories hidden within a secret series of research facilities scattered throughout the Nexus, Conference Z studies bizarre topics such as advanced technologies, occult virology, biological hypnosis, extraterrestrial anatomy, elder sciences, enhanced cryptozoology, immortality, interplanar economics, mass teleportation, psychic enrichment, pyschotronics, revivified prophecy, temporal sciences, energy sciences, and artificial divinity, among others. Yet while a number of unmentionable programs have been officially suspended over the years; curiously, these suspended programs receive only slightly less funding than active projects.

Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the shadow organization is the cabal of nearly identical, black-clad agents who report directly to Executor Kramolagh, silently carrying out his orders, monitoring underperforming ventures, and hunting those who learn too much about Conference Z.

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In far-off section of Outside, a seemingly inhospitable strip of land abuts the Myrantis Mountains, providing only middling arable land too harsh for general cultivation. However, the same mineral signatures made famous by the nearby Brimstone Springs also leave the rocky soil uniquely suited to grow a range of rare medicinal plants. The plantation known as Wirholt’s Rictus—its grisly name a reverent tribute to the current owner’s great-grandfather—is one of several such specialized farms that produce a steady supply of harrowleaf, saw-edge heather, pathos berries, night nettle tea, unique strains of somnus root, as well as other, stranger things. While these all have legitimate medicinal uses, the mysterious researchers beneath the plantation value the unusual crop for far more questionable reasons.

Due to its incredible distance from the nearest civilization, Wirholt’s Rictus is a particularly isolated plantation, unaccustomed to handling visitors despite its great size. During the slowest times of the year, the plantation has a staff of approximately forty souls, swelling to five times that during the peaks of harvest and planting. The owner, a cruel and unforgiving taskmaster called Temarra, oversees the operation year-round, personally flogging those who do not meet their quotas, taking orders directly from the masters of the research facility below. The result of her cruelty is a loyal workforce that keeps its gossip to a whisper, asks few questions, and rarely challenges a new face, as it probably belongs to a replacement for an incapable employee.

The most notable structure found within the borders of Wirholdt's Rictus would be the expansive plantation manor which Temarra makes her home, sitting atop one of the higher hills, giving it a commanding view of the rolling rows
of cultivated bushes, shrubs, and grasses. Basic descriptions of each building are below.

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Manor: This single-story manor is just elegant enough to entertain visiting buyers and just modest enough to let the owner leverage her humble means to demand higher prices. A ten-foot-tall wall, gate, and perimeter of shrubs provide considerable privacy from the rest of the plantation—especially effective in allowing Conference Z operatives to conduct business without being observed.

Greenhouses: The elevation and latitude beget a somewhat chilly climate, so frost and reduced sunlight are often a problem during the winter months. A trio of greenhouses made of wood and glass shelters the most sensitive plants and fosters the seedlings for other species until they can be transplanted outside.

Warehouse: This is the principle storage site for the plantation’s tools, its food supply, baled leaves, and refined products. The northern wing also serves as an impromptu barn for the few horses and livestock.

Processing Facilities: These two buildings contain millstones, cauldrons, pestles, delicate glassware, and more. The plantation employs five skilled pharmacists versed in testing soil conditions, pulverizing leaves, distilling tinctures, rolling cigars, and a wealth of other tasks to create the finished products, which are then exported elsewhere or taken by the researchers below.

Residences: Three barracks house the field hands and skilled laborers. A kitchen house stands to the southwest. A dozen other houses are scattered throughout the plantation, but the most important workers reside here.

Smokehouses: Several of the leafy plants must be dried carefully before shipping or processing, all of which happens in these buildings.

Threshing Yard: This oval of stucco and aggregate is where the laborers bring dried berries and grains for threshing, removing unwanted husks, skins, and kernels.

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Beneath Wirholt’s Rictus, accessible only by three highly secure passages scattered throughout the plantation, extends one of Conference Z's two remaining satellite facilities: Slumbersun, more a tangled network of halls, studies, and artificial ecosystems than a compact laboratory. A majority of the compact walls, ceilings, and floors of Slumbersun are composed of treated starmetal alloys that resist rust and other degradation and the ceilings are almost universally ten feet high. Rows of technomagical orbs embedded along the upper edges of the walls bathe the rooms and hallways in green-tinted light.

Most of the doors within Slumbersun are composed of reinforced metals, allowing access to deeper areas of the facility by sliding into recesses in the walls after specialized keys have been scanned. Several important points in the facility are equipped with specially treated blast doors made to withstand extraordinary punishment, both to keep outsiders from accessing the more questionable experiments within, and as a fail-safe to ensure that escaped experiments cannot evacuate the facility. Basic descriptions of notable locations are below.

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Headquarter Entry: Accessible only be several pairs of reinforced blast doors, this greeting chamber is decorated with experiments too impractical for Conference Z's use, yet interesting enough to impress newly recruited researchers and sponsors. Objects include giant gears and tangles of strange circuitry pulled from enormous alien machines, mosaics made from colorful debris, and weird sculptures constructed from glittering starmetal. The walls and floor of the room are plated in metal, while harsh lighting glares from panels in the ceiling above.

Recordkeeping: Several long metallic objects covered with flashing lights and strange glowing panels fight for floor space in this room with large, boxy, cabinet-like metal objects. Here and there on the walls, panels flash images of buildings, rooms, and scenery from throughout the Nexus. This highly secure chamber contains over a dozen fifteen-foot tall silos of strange machinery and glowing circuitboard panels, connected by thick cables and hundreds of wires to a massive supercomputer which dominates the southernmost wall.

Employee Barracks: This large, utilitarian section of Slumbersun is split into dozens of relatively pleasant gray rooms which serve as places of residence for both Conference Z researchers assigned to Slumbersun and security personnel, many of which rarely see the light of day. Each room features rather comfortable bedding and hospitable furnishings, luxurious personal quarters, a powerful desktop computer, and an impressive library.

Meeting Room: This large egg-shaped chamber has smooth, seamless walls of silvery metal. Light gleams from numerous freely suspended orbs that slowly circle the top of the high, curved ceiling. In the center of the room stands a strange triangular-shaped metal table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Along the edges of the chamber trail several additional rows of chairs, all facing the center table. This room is used by Conference Z to hold meetings—the chairs around the table are for venture-heads and top scholars, while those against the walls are for aides and security personnel.

Receiving Laboratory: This area serves as a receiving room for new subjects and materials, providing a team of researchers a chance to vet any arrivals to ensure they’re fit and won’t infect the other experiments. This is also the farthest Temarra has ever traveled into the facility; despite her authority above ground, her only way to speak with lab authorities is to travel here and beg an audience. This room contains several unknown creatures from other realities kept preserved in fluid as well as several logbooks that describe sundry bizarre fauna, pieces of creatures, chemicals, and other supplies brought into the facility. Fluid-filled canisters attached to the walls contain a range of small creatures floating in stasis. Ominous operating tables line the southernmost wall, and several computers can be seen.

Production and Robotics: This industrial laboratory serves both as a chamber dedicated to technological experimentation as well as a fully functional starmetal foundry and contains a wealth of metallic workbenches for the crafting, repair, and dismantling of technological objects, overseen by several automated claws. Several partially dismantled mechanical creatures—some that resemble humanoids, others more like insects, hang suspended from the ceiling by powerful cables. Dozens of powerful computers line the walls here, and assistants scurry about within the area at nearly every hour of the day.

Alien Observation Dome: This expansive glass chamber is dedicated to sustaining several specimens adapted to life in warm, otherwordly jungles under a thick, heat-trapping atmosphere whose composition is slightly different than that of
the Nexus. The unfamiliar balance of oxygen, nitrogen, and other gasses makes this room appear misty and gives it a disturbingly tangy smell. Breathing this air for an extended period of time is deleterious, however, most researchers assigned to this laboratory are equipped with powerful protective gear. Blue-hued light emanates from the domed ceiling at the center of this two-story, artificial environment. Broad metal grates make a perimeter about the room about ten feet above the lush habitat below. Paths cross between strange shrubs and low trees, and vines cling to the walls and dangle in clumps across parts of the ceiling. At the center of the room stands a small metal pavilion, a small elevator that the researchers use to introduce live prey into the room and feed the strange beasts. Behind the thick glass in the southern corners of the room lie small laboratories filled with bookshelves, dissection tables, and workbenches. The ceiling rises twenty feet above the catwalk and thirty feet above the alien habitat.

Manifestation Chambers: This is the first of the laboratories built for the Arkanen Project, an initiative to extract the dreams from alien minds and manifest imperfect homunculi of their nightmares to better understand the dreamers’ beliefs and fears. The procedure requires powerful chemical sedatives and hallucinogens derived from the plantation crops above and is extremely harmful to the subject, causing patients to hemorrhage from the ears, thrash uncontrollably, and awaken with psychological scars. The chamber itself is composed of dozens of conduits and tubes, which run up and down the walls of this lab, connecting dozens of beds to a dozens of large glass vats to the west. Within the vats undulate formless blobs of organic matter that briefly grow arms, pseudopods, and faces before those features melt back into the roiling masses.

The Arkanen Laboratory: This lab represents the next generation of magical and alchemical technology for the Arkanen Project, distinguished by two major developments. First, the experiments conducted here make use of but one massive vat the size of an entire building, built into circular, elevated platform with a curving set of stairs, rather than a dozen smaller vats. Second, instead of tapping into a sleeping creature’s dreams, a creature can attach a series of technomagical sensors to its head and—with sufficient force of will—consciously shape the nightmare creature’s form. In order to maximize space in the room, most of the lab equipment is kept suspended in the air. Easily three labs’ worth of tables, shelves, and other heavy equipment hovers thirty feet off the floor, suspended by chains. By manipulating controls accessibly via computer along the north partition, a creature can raise, lower, or rotate any number of these fixtures. In this way, the room can be reconfigured from a small library to a lab to an operating room. Like a cathedral forged in the name of science, this laboratory has an arched ceiling that soars to a height of fifty feet. The room constricts near the middle where a low, stepped platform formally partitions the two halves. To the north, a narrow metal walkway hugs the walls about five feet above the open workspace. To both the east and west, the walkway terminates in twenty-foot ladders that lead to higher observation decks.

Far off the coast of Seaside, mere miles away from an extraordinarily powerful hurricane, a resigned pile of blunt black rocks endures the thrashing sea. Its shore is irregular and inhospitable, which might matter if anything of interest stood upon the barren heap. Not even worthy of being called an island, Wingless Rock rises hardly more than twenty feet out of the water—far less at high tide—and measures all of one-hundred feet across at its widest point. Aside from algae and the inhabitants of sickly tide pools, nothing naturally lives upon the eroded, volcanic heap.

The remnants of a gray, salt-blasted fishing shack occupied by a mad sea-hermit lean amid the boulders on the southern coast, but no other features mar the ugly pile. That’s not to say Wingless Rock is uninhabited, though. Its barren appearance and deserted, worthless reputation are all part of a subtly cultivated veneer, for hidden upon the island, a secret hatch can be discovered. The hatch, nearly impossible to open without a specific focus crystal and a passcode, reveals a massive shaft leading down almost three-hundred feet into the earth.

A short metallic access ladder leads to an elevator, which in turn hurtles down. As with Slumbersun, a majority of the compact walls, ceilings, and floors of Wingless Rock are composed of treated starmetal alloys that resist rust and other degradation and the ceilings are almost universally ten feet high. Rows of technomagical orbs embedded along the upper edges of the walls bathe the rooms and hallways in a harsh white light. Most of the doors within Wingless Rock are composed of reinforced metals, allowing access to deeper areas of the facility by sliding into recesses in the walls after specialized keys have been scanned.

Several important points in the facility are equipped with specially treated blast doors made to withstand extraordinary punishment, both to keep outsiders from accessing the more questionable experiments within, and as a fail-safe to ensure that escaped experiments cannot evacuate the facility. Basic descriptions of notable locations are below.

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Elevator Entry: Accessible only be several pairs of reinforced blast doors, this greeting chamber is composed of hundreds of pristine white tiles, the walls here lined with shimmering steel doors. Like a gallery display, a glass column stands near the center of the room, rising from floor to ceiling. Within, a nine-foot-tall mass of agitated multicolored material writhes through a bubbling fluid. One of the only parts of the facility not dedicated to research, this hall serves as a place for the researchers to step away from their work for a moment and to receive visitors—were the installation ever to have them. The specimen in the glass here is a curiosity that’s become something of an art display, an entity of scintillating color plucked from a comet, floating in the brine.

Facility Records: This chamber is the size of an entire warehouse, full of metallic boxes and labels. Thick glass columns filled with brackish liquid and masses of stringy flesh occupy numerous niches along this hall. At the end of the storage facility, books and sheaves of loose paper cram an enormous wall of shelves. This grim storage facility holds the remains of numerous experiments deemed failures, but valued too highly to dispose of. The majority of these are Executor Kramolagh's early experiments with unknowable creatures as he sought a process to distill their divine essence into a concentrated form. Rather than rely on a computer, the most clandestine research performed by Conference Z is recorded here, guarded by the best security possible.

Employee Barracks: This large, utilitarian section of Wingless Rock is split into dozens of relatively pleasant gray rooms which serve as places of residence for both Conference Z researchers assigned to Wingless Rock and security personnel, many of which rarely see the light of day. Each room features rather comfortable bedding and hospitable furnishings, luxurious personal quarters, a powerful desktop computer, and an impressive library.

Meeting Room: Banks of glowing quartz beams line the ceiling, illuminating this broad hall with a cold, clean glow. Like it's twin facility, this chamber is built with smooth, seamless walls of silvery metal. In the center of the room stands a strange triangular-shaped metal table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Along the edges of the chamber trail several additional rows of chairs, all facing the center table. This room is used by Conference Z to hold meetings—the chairs around the table are for venture-heads and top scholars, while those against the walls are for aides and security personnel.

Receiving Laboratory: This area serves as a receiving room for new subjects and materials, providing a team of researchers a chance to vet any arrivals to ensure they’re fit and won’t infect the other experiments. This room contains several unknown creatures from other realities kept preserved in fluid as well as several logbooks that describe sundry bizarre fauna, pieces of creatures, chemicals, and other supplies brought into the facility. Fluid-filled canisters attached to the walls contain a range of small creatures floating in stasis. Ominous operating tables line the southernmost wall, and several computers can be seen.

Nuclear Laboratories/Reactor Chamber: This branch of Wingless Rock is dedicated entirely to nuclear science, with one half serving as reactor storage, the other as a proper laboratory. The air in reactor storage chamber shimmers with heat, while five rumbling walls of glowing metal and tangles of steaming pipes fill the chamber with a thunderous rumbling sound. Five enormous nuclear generators rumble away in this chamber, acting as the primary source of power for the entire compound.

Surgical Theatre: Long glowing bars set into the ceiling fill this chamber with harsh light. A metal table sits in the room’s center, surrounded by cruel-looking machines with articulated arms tipped with saw blades, needles, cutting edges, and other surgical implements. Shelves lining the walls contain hundreds of unusual tools. This room serves as a work laboratory wherein some of Conference Z's most depraved and disturbing experiments take place, many of which involve the dissection of otherwordly entities.

Processing Laboratory: Metal pylons form a perimeter around several deep vats filled with eerie glowing masses, which bathe the room in an otherwordly light. A steel bridge crosses to a smaller workstation, and a series of tubes and conduits run from the vats to the ceiling to pass through various walls on their way to unseen destinations. Although the advanced stages of divine-distillation occur in Kramolagh's god lab, it is here that researchers perform the initial phases of divine deconstruction and recombination.

The God Lab: An acrid tang fills the air in this tall, painfully bright chamber. A series of metal rebar platforms connected by steel staircases descend in a counterclockwise spiral from corner to corner, leading into a mind-bogglingly large, bunkerlike laboratory filled with multiple workstations. The room’s steel workstations appear sterile and are impeccably arranged. The room's primary feature is a tiered platform crafted of glittering starmetal which supports a large glass silo that is partially sunken into the floor. Computers line the walls, alongside unnerving technological instruments. A heavy, riveted, industrial-grade door leads to a panic room, a necessity when it comes to the heretical experiments which take place here.

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This Division came into existence when the previous Executor of Conference Z, a woman whose identity has since been scrubbed clean of records, discovered that an alien spacecraft had crashed atop the Myrantis Mountains. With the use of powerful teleportation magics, the wreckage was transported deep beneath Wingless Rock, where Conference Z engineers began the arduous process of dismantling the vessel. Researchers belonging to the Advanced Technologies Division concern themselves primarily with the construction of powerful machines and supercomputers, hypothetical doomsday devices, and increasingly spectacular cybernetics. In addition, the Advanced Technologies Division ensures that the Nexus Surveillance System runs 24/7. Director Position: UNFILLED

Many years ago, a ravenous horde of undead marched across Riverside, resulting in many casualties before the invasion was all but fought back by the city defenders. Several specimens, the largest and strongest of the creatures, were abducted by Conference Z and taken far beneath Slumbersun for experimentation. The researchers there discovered that, although the creatures themselves were created using powerful magics, each of the creature's still carried within them a virus capable of spreading a powerful infection. Years of research have produced an even stronger alchenomagical virus, as well as an antidote, kept stored in large canisters beneath Slumbersun. Yet research continues, and a vast majority of Division resources are currently being spent towards the ominous "Sepulcher Project". Director Position: FILLED, Director Aluren Orvhelle.

Members of this obscure division perform questionable research and experiments in the name of understanding the effects of psychic and psionic magic upon the brain, the effects of prolonged enchantment upon the physical body, and the long-term effects of other mind-related afflictions. Of late, resources have been directed towards a mysterious directive known as the "Arkanen Project", a collaborative enterprise which researches obscure surgical procedures designed to enhance higher functions, as well as maximize the effects of dreams upon the real world. Director Position: UNFILLED

Researchers dedicated to the twin divisions of Conference Z known as "Extraterrestrial Anatomy" and "Elder Sciences" study mysterious creatures and seemingly unknowable entities which dwell within the darkness between the stars. While these branches of occult superscience were once considered fruitless and controversial even by other members of Conference Z, a recent breakthrough involving the capture and live vivisection of what is believed to be an elder creature before a panel of advanced Conference Z academics has ensured that funding continues to flow. Director Position: UNFILLED

While a vast majority of researchers dedicated to Conference Z rarely leave the fortified laboratory-bunkers they're assigned to upon acceptance into the organization, researchers belonging to this particular division tend to spend just as much time above ground as below. These individuals investigate the unexplained appearances of extraordinarily rare and possibly unique creatures reported all over the Nexus, many of which possess qualities which cannot be found in any other creature. Conference Z seeks to utilize the rare components possessed by these creatures, the acquisition of which could very easily lead towards miraculous scientific breakthroughs. Director Position: UNFILLED

This division has a rich history within Conference Z, for the results of their initial experiments allowed for Conference Z's original founder to greatly extend his lifespan. The Immortality division remains one of the more esoteric sub-organizations of Conference Z, for researchers assigned to this highly complicated branch tend to rely more on magic than any other division. These individuals aim to one day create an alchemical serum or machine fully capable of granting immortality without any of the unpleasant side-effects which tend to come with an extended lifespan. Members of this division work closely with the researchers assigned to the Artificial Divinity division. Director Position: UNFILLED

This particularly unusual division was one of the very first created by Conference Z in order to please its technical founder, Marciano Laur've. Members of this division focus entirely upon manipulating the currencies of extraplanar societies and civilizations, reaping the benefits of their subtle extra-dimensional manipulations through the use of puppet entities investing in these esoteric economies. While this division remains the smallest one, its operations carried through by less than a handful of researchers, it remains a lucrative division of Conference Z. Director Position: UNFILLED

Over thirty years ago, a wealthy sponsor of Conference Z was subjected to a paranormal experience which promptly caused him to dedicate enough currency to fund an entire division focused around his peculiar experience. According to this sponsor, whose records have since been deleted, he was reportedly getting ready for bed when he heard a strange voice calling out, which sounded as if it were speaking in a strange and otherwordly language. Upon looking around for the source of the mysterious voice, which he said had sounded “hollow,” this anonymous sponsor tracked it to the window of his manorhouse, but when he looked out there was no one out there in the night, and it would have been odd if there had been, as his window was a full seventeen feet off of the ground. This would be the last thing he clearly remembered before he mysteriously vanished, only to be discovered over three hundred miles away, unconscious in the middle of a road. Individuals assigned to this division dedicate themselves to investigating particularly eerie and unusual cases of spontaneous human teleportation. Director Position: UNFILLED

Members of this division are generally experienced parapsychologists who specialize in the study of paranormal and psychic phenomena which include telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. While most would consider parapsychology a pseudoscience, this division has produced alarming results which suggest something more. Director Position: UNFILLED

Researchers assigned to this division, often known as etheric scientists, dedicate themselves to the creation of psychotronic weapons, which utilize electronic machines to send beams of energy or frequencies directly into a target's brain and body through the air. Research has suggested that the same technology being utilized as a weapon by Conference Z could thereotically be used to brainwash entire populations by making subtle suggestions to them via electronic beams or frequencies. Director Position: UNFILLED

This particular division was founded by request of the now-deceased Marciano Lauv're in order to create a top-tier electronic security system capable of predicting violations and assaults before they even occured. Although Lauv're was murdered long before division research produced desires results, a recent breakthrough has allowed for the hypothetical creation of a machine fully capable of predicting the future, although researchers are still struggling with the practicalities and energy-requirements of such a device. Director Position: UNFILLED

Researchers belonging to this division dedicate themselves to experiments revolving around the manipulation of time itself through scientific means. According to their research, time is an illusion; entirely relative — for it can vary for different observers depending on speed through space. Those within this division tend to invetigate reports of temporal warps and other time-related phenomena in order to achieve a better understanding of the nature of time itself, and how to properly manipulate it. Director Position: UNFILLED

Scientists assigned to this division primarily conduct experiments which tap into the energy of life or death: positive energy or negative energy. While this division has ultimately produced little throughout the years, a recent experiment successfully resulted in the creation of an unusually potent canister of liquid negative energy, which many researchers of this division theorize will allow for further discoveries which could potentially result in the creation of a powerful energy-based weapon. Director Position: UNFILLED

Little is known of this highly clandestine division, headed by none other than Executor Kramolagh himself. This division receives an extraordinary amount of funding, all of which goes towards the mysterious "Apocrypha Project". Director Position: FILLED: Executor Cauvin Kramolagh.

From his observatory, Professor Calacazari studies the nature of the Nexus itself, along with its inherent link to alternate realities. Researchers dedicated to Project Ingress tend to belong to the Mass Teleportation and Temporal Sciences divisions, and involve themselves with the construction of technomagical gates meant to transport individuals across space and time. Currently, only one of these gates remains fully active, however, progress has been slowed due to the attempts of otherworldly creatures to pierce the barely-functional gate.

A particularly unethical scientist known as Professor Galuzo has been placed in charge of this sinister project, and through the use of careful diplomacy, steep bribes, and a dash of blackmail, he ensures that he and his agents (generally members of the Occult Virology division) are among the only living creatures allowed near a haunted valley dominated by a clan of barbaric undead, where they study the union of disease and necromancy, as well as perfect the creation of plague-bearing undead by alchemical and technological means.

Recently, a farmstead miles away from the isolated plantation above the Slumbersun Research Facility was visited by a creature from another world. It came from between the stars in a comet to feast on the mind of those below, harvesting their brains and reducing the small family of farmers working the land to a comatose state. The creature then used the still-living bodies of the unfortunate farmers as makeshift hives for its unspeakable young. In pursuit of the comet, Conference Z arrived at the scene, where they managed to extract a number of alien eggs which now exist as specimens beneath Slumbersun. This project centers around observing the growth of these horrific entities, and is generally overseen by members of the Extraterrestrial Anatomy and Elder Sciences divisions.

This eerie project, almost entirely carried out beneath Slumbersun, focuses upon the manifestation of dreams. According to its head researcher, Professor Tantis Mais, this project could potentially revolutionize how individuals interact with the world, for their frightening research suggests that by undergoing a particularly complicated surgical process, an utterly mundane individual's thoughts and dreams, under the correct conditions, could become reality as if by magic. This project is a joint operation overseen by the Biological Hypnosis, Psychic Enrichment, and Pyschotronics divisions.

According to Executor Kramolagh's research into deific obscurity, some deities form as pearls, wrapping a fragment of divine power in a pleasant sheath. Researchers dedicated to this extremely complicated project assist Kramolagh with his life's work, attempting to extract enough of that divine ‘grit’ from divine sources in order to combine it under exacting conditions in order to one day create what Kramolagh refers to as a stable "god-fount", which, if successful, would be proof of Kramolagh's heretical hypothesis, which states that divinities are nothing so sacrosanct that proper lab conditions cannot replicate the effects. Executor Kramolagh makes use of the entirety of Conference Z in order to carry out this project, meaning that any division could potentially be involved in his research.

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Although the organization itself has existed for decades, rarely seeking new members, a recent cataclysm which resulted in the destruction of a third research facility has all but forced Conference Z to seek out new recruits to bolster their ranks. While it is currently extremely difficult to contact Conference Z directly, Executor Kramolagh has spent the last few months researching potential recruits and contacting those who he deems worthy, and in due time, this once clandestine organization may very well become a less closely guarded secret.

After being contacted by Executor Kramolagh, individuals are interviewed and given a tour of one of the two active facilities. Provided they are accepted, once an individual agrees to join Conference Z, they will be assigned to a particular research facility as determined by their areas of interest. Top scholars and venture-heads funded by Conference Z are to make regular reports to Executor Kramolagh, keeping him apprised of their efforts and discoveries. Each venture keeps its own staff and security; most assistants and guards are unaware that a deceased madman funds their work and never hear the name Conference Z.

"A cruel and cold-hearted surgeon, Artephius remains one of the few individuals whose flesh has successfully bonded with alien organic material."

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NOTE: Currently, Slumbersun and Wingless Rock are inaccessible.