The Marcon Conspiracy

The Marcon Conspiracy is the term ascribed to the Gudersnipe Foundation's practice of momento mori regarding the Marcon Alliance. The term was coined initially in the early Second Age and originally referred specifically to the supposed deliberate destruction of the Marcon's language. It was later extended to the Foundation's suppression of Marconian culture as a whole.

Origins

Throughout the Golden Age, the cultural memory of the Marcon Alliance was as a band of vicious mysoginists. Though archeological and scholarly work on the Mage Wars began in about the third century, very little attention was paid to the marcons beyond logging sites. No effort was made to explore and understand their culture; and indeed places of specifically Marconian signficance were often left over to amateur's and treasure hunters, destroying any historicity of the site.

In the 148th year of the Second Age, amateur historian and linguist Eeb Fudd was helping with restoration work on the great Library of Arindell. In the process of moving old books to be stored in unused parts of the facility, Fudd happened upon thousands of clearly very old volumes in a script he had never before encountered. Believing them to possibly be Ancient in origin, Fudd attempted to garner the interest of his supervisors. Someone more knowledgeable recognized the script as clearly not Ancient and dismissed it as just another of the many quirks of the Library's eclectic collection. Fudd, convinced he had still found something, stole one of the books.

Fudd kept the book for over a year, attempting without success to at least identify the language. He eventually turned to the Gudersnipe Foundation, who had the largest linguistics database in the known worlds. The Foundation was happy to assist, and purchased the book from Fudd for a nominal fee, promising to provide a translation. Some ten years passed without a follow up, but by chance Fudd recognized the script from a sample of writing on a piece of Marconian jewelry on display at a museum in Arindell. Excited to finally have answers, Fudd contacted the Foundation regarding the return of the book, only to be told that they had never bought it from him and how no record that he had ever contacted them.

Perturbed, Fudd returned to the Great Library in search of another book from the same collection, only to be denied access to the storage areas. This in itself was standard practice at the time as only the Antiquarian Society had full access to the stacks. Fudd spend 4 years researching the Marcons while continuing to file motions for access to the collection. He was finally told that the books he was seeking could not be located, but as Fudd had moved hundreds of them personally he was convinced he could find the resting place. He was eventually allowed, under supervision to look, but found he could not get close due to enormous stacks of books blocking every path. It was deemed impossible to move all of them, so the Antiquarians let the matter drop.

Fudd's Findings

Fudd, however, had learned a few things during his research, and began putting together a book of his own. Namely, he had determined that while the Marcon Alliance once controlled roughly 70% of the known worlds, next to nothing was known about them. A basic description, some notes on ways they were bad, and of course the names and locations of various sites. Quite a lot of information described about fighting them, but very little was known. Even what they called their own language or how it sounded was completely unknown.

Throughout his research, Fudd believed he had identified a deliberate pattern of destruction and sequestration of all knowledge pertaining to the Marcon Alliance. A program which he attributed to the Gudersnipe Foundation. His notes focused specifically on the language, which the Foundation could apparently translate