RPC-009

The Lich Pope

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Registered Phenomena Code: 009

Project Personnel Info

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Assigned Facility: Site-073

Director of Research: Dr. Abbondanzio Impellizzeri

Assigned MST(s): MST Bravo-6 ("Knockin' on Heaven's Door"), MST Echo-73 ("The Bastards")

Director of Containment: Dr. Alighiero D'Angelo

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Object Class:

Beta - White

Responsible Departments:

History.png Department of HistoryBoA_Theistic_Department.png Department of Theistics

Hazard Types:

Hazard Types:Additional Properties: h-sapient.png Sapient h-contact.png Contact divine-hazard Divine

General Properties:

Hazard Types:Additional Properties: h-animated.png Animated h-organic.png Organic

Containment Protocols:

RPC-009 is to be contained in a 5m x 5m statuary room within Site-073 located at Tuscany, Italy. RPC-009 should be subject to standard preservation methods for wood and textile artifacts as determined by the Protocol Laboratory. In the event RPC-009 awakens from stasis, assigned research staff are to conduct an immediate on-site interview with the entity to discover more information about its anomalous nature.1

RPC-009 is currently speculated to be in the possession of the Vatican Secretariat of Supernatural Primacy at their containment vault embedded within St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City State. MST Bravo-6 ("Knockin' on Heaven's Door")2 and MST Echo-73 ("The Bastards") have been assigned to recover RPC-009 from the Primacy should an opportunity for asset retrieval become possible.

The information contained within this file is based on archival records of RPC-009 created during the Papal Auctoritas Imperata era. These documents have been translated from the original ecclesiastical Latin into English text, and are presented here in modern formatting. As such, information on RPC-009 is subject to revisions as more data becomes available.


Description:

LichPope.png

Painting of RPC-009

RPC-009 is the cadaver of the former ecclesiarch of the Roman Catholic Church identified as Pope Formosus. Despite its death in 896, RPC-009 displays only an average amount of decomposition, forensically similar to that of a body which has been buried for around 11 months.3 This evidence suggests RPC-009 is in an unconventional state of partial incorruptibility.4

RPC-009 displays signs of a prominent injury on its right hand, with its index, middle, and ring fingers appearing to have been severed off its body. RPC-009 is propped up against a painted wooden throne engraved on its front face with the Latin phrase Cathedra Petri, translated as "the Chair of St. Peter."5

RPC-009's anomalous properties manifest when a human being makes physical contact with any part of its body. Subjects will begin to experience anomalous effects resembling those typically associated with divine miracles from touching a Christian saints' first-class relics.6 In rare circumstances, RPC-009 is capable of spontaneous reanimation back to life. In this resurrected state, RPC-009 is capable of fine motor movement and verbal communication, irrespective of its physical condition.


Discovery:

In January 897, the cadaver of RPC-009 was exhumed and dressed in papal robes on the orders of Pope Stephen VI in order for RPC-009 to stand trial postmortem for crimes related to its papal election. It was contended that RPC-009's position as the Cardinal Bishop of Porto7 rendered its papal election illegitimate. This was due to a prohibition in canon law forbidding bishops from administering more than one district.

After RPC-009 was found guilty by the Aula Pontificia8, three fingers on its right hand were cut off, and its body was thrown into the Tiber River. It was at this point that an unknown individual, identified in primary texts as "the Necromancer", retrieved the body of RPC-009 after it washed ashore on the river bank and reportedly performed miracles on those who made physical contact with its remains.

The history of RPC-009 during the Cadaver Synod is recorded in classified pages of the Liber Episcopalis, a biographical tome on the Bishops of Rome up to Pope Stephen V9 written by papal notaries. These pages have been provided below, translated from their original ecclesiastical Latin into English.


Addendum-01:

Following RPC-009's entombment in St. Peter's Basilica, it is believed that the Milites Sacra Laterani19 oversaw the protection of RPC-009's crypt throughout the succeeding centuries before responsibility was later transferred to the Auctoritas Ecclesiastica in 1216 and then the Auctoritas Imperata in 1456. The organization documented RPC-009 at that time.

The Auctoritas conducted several tests with RPC-009 to determine if any of its abilities described in the Liber Episcopalis were still active, or if events after the Saeculum Obscurum20 had neutralized the anomaly. Although researchers were unable to trigger RPC-009's secondary ability, several subjects did experience anomalous effects similar to those described in the text and associated with sanctified relics.


Addendum-02:

Following the secularization of the Auctoritas at the 8th French National Exhibition in 1834, the original location of Site-001 in Rome which housed RPC-009 was occupied by the newly-formed Papal States Military Vicariate before its transfer to the Vatican Primacy in 1870.

Attempts to reclaim this containment facility and repossess the anomalies located within St. Peter's Basilica to this date have been unsuccessful. As of this data entry, RPC-009 remains in the possession of the Primacy. The following files were obtained by MST Echo-73 operatives during an undercover operation to retrieve papal anomalies during the Vatican Necropolis excavations.22

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