Her Majesty the Queen's Right Puissant Society of Sages, Adepts, and Prometheans is a collection of Sparky scientists, with the Queen in question being Albia of England. Known more briefly as the Queen's Society and less formally as the Society of Fools, ✣ this organization seems to be an analogue of the real world Royal Society.
The Society's facilities are located in its own separate dome ✣ in the submerged metropolis of Londinium. According to Albia's minion Lord Womble at least, this location is for safety reasons…the safety of everyone not in the Society, that is. If one of the Sparks in the dome comes up with something really dangerous, the whole dome can be destroyed with minimal risk to the rest of Londinium. (Ahem..)
The Society's Society[]
Members of the society are reported to violently squabble ✣ with each other over the possession of the dome's top-notch laboratory facilities. It's also eventually revealed ✣ that the whole quarantine idea may have backfired horribly, as there is an ancient temple under the dome, allowing access to certain Extra-Dimensional Horrors. Unsurprisingly, a large faction of Society members AKA "the Shining Brotherhood" (also know as "the Grey Hoods") have been plotting to push non-members out of the dome via one means or another, and then assemble a large and elaborate device allowing the summoning of one of these creatures, along with constructing a modified copy of the Other's Summoning Engine, the ultimate plan ✣ being to mentally hook up with the visitor and boost everybody's intellect and Spark-power to Albia-levels and beyond. (Of course, when we say "everybody"... ✣ )
Lord Bunstable is the head of the Society until his unfortunate demise; he is/was evidently not involved in the summoning scheme.
Lady Ariadne Steelgarter is a generous supporter of the Society, though she does not appear to be an actual member. She also appears to be more concerned with Skifander rather than the Temple.
"Smokes" is one of the Society's more prominent minions, before he joins Bunstable in the "deceased" category.
Known Members[]
- Hippocrates Brunel
- Lord Frothing (deceased) ✣
- Professor "Tobber" Homlomium (murdered by the Shining Brotherhood)
- Quintillius Harmon (AKA Lord Snackleford, and an important Shining Brotherhood member)
- Parnassus O'Flynn
- Drs Crisp and Henkle
- Dr. Martha von Monopole
Agatha and the Society[]
The surviving wingbot that Agatha sends out from Sturmhalten with an uncorrupted message about her little Lucrezia-in-the-head problem is recovered by Ardsley Wooster and passed along a chain of English agents and/or citizens, ending with the sparky Doctor Francisia Monahan, who instead of informing Albia sends it to the Society/Shining Brotherhood, where it is eventually found being studied in Snackleford's lab..
Upon arriving herself in England, Agatha is given Lord Frothing's former laboratory complex within the dome by Albia, where she manages to do a little constructive research on all the problems she's dealing with (Lucrezia, the Baron in Gil's head, her Tweedle-poisoning..) but before long that all is pushed aside as she gets dragged into the aforementioned summoning plot, and swarms of monsters get turned loose, among them the Smakken. She and her coterie (along with Wooster and Hadrian Rakethorn) eventually make their way to the temple, where instead of thwarting the summoning, Agatha gleefully fixes some technical problems and Throws the Switch ahead of schedule, bringing around a momentous visitor. A mentally-revived Dr. Dimitri Vapnoople also pitches in, which ultimately leads to pretty much every current Society member either dying or being tossed into another dimension, leaving Agatha and Co. alone in the dome except for some of the more plucky Society minions.
The Dome's Destruction[]
The dome is then invaded by at least two sets of troops searching for any of the copies of Lucrezia currently in circulation. It's all very violent and complicated, and ends with Our Heroes (and the aforementioned minions) fleeing the dome as the structure's self-destruct mechanism is indeed activated. If Albia ever decides to recreate the Society, she'll be starting from scratch.