The purpureans are a small, recently founded (developed around 404) school of Lemmitism. Founded by the followers of the gregarious and charismatic Stagnum Ranarum, based on his strange satirical works (The Unread Book and The Blank Book with commentary), the Purpureans pursue magical power and mystical Ascension through two intertwined methods: the development of elaborate false systems of meaning based on misunderstanding, nonsense, and inaccuracy; and the exploration of aggressive and abusive interpersonal head-games.
The Purpurean school developed primarily out of two other schools of Lemitism, but rapidly expanded to satirize all four major sects: the Linguans, who are strongly oriented towards balance and exploration and the gaps within the text (lacunae, aporias, and copy errors); the Imbrians, who are a synthetic school that favors moderation and the combination of the useful techniques of all the previous Lemmite schools; the Westmarchites, who are deeply concerned with preservation, faithful reconstruction, and dense and interconnected readings; and the Circulans, who favor riddles, aphorisms, and parables. The Blank Book is generally read as a satire of Linguanism, while the Unread Book is a clear satire of Circulanism, with its riddles, self reference, and selective quoting descending rapidly into a totally incomprehensible word salad.
While neither the founder nor his followers converted from Linguanism (which was actually believed to be defunct at the time), both Stagnum and three of his four early followers (Neque Vacuus Neque Expletus, Sonata Erat Aurora, and Fallax Faenilius) were the first generation descendants of converts from Linguanism to Imbrianism. The fourth early follower, Figlinose Flammae, was the descendent of a Westmarchite convert to Imbrianism. The art of constructing obsessive and over detailed concordances, a Westmarchite speciality, was actually incorporated into Purpureanism by Sonata erat Auroram, with her creation of the Concordance for the Birds, a listing of each word that appears either before or after the name of a bird in the Black, Red, Yellow, and Green Books of Lem.
Unlike the obvious satires produced by Stagnum, the Concordance for the Birds initially appears to be a possibly useful work, quickly bogs down into an exercise in pointless obsession, and only after careful study reveals itself to be a brutal satire of pointless obsession and devotion to hierarchical categorization. If the suggested hierarchical categorization of the meanings of birds is used to rearrange the concordance (which is actually categorized by order of appearance within the texts), then the words form a perverse and vulgar tale concerning the magi of the Lemmite Séance and a donkey named Lem. The story itself can be read as a parable concerning the uses of power and the central importance of the straight man in the process of self-annihilating ascension.
In more recent years, Neque vacuus neque expletus developed a system for reading the Unread Book, the Red Book, and the Red Book of Westmarch to produce a hidden prophetic text. Using this prophetic text, Sonata was led to discover a hidden Elenorean text in a booksellers stall in Sophia. The discovery of this text led to a particularly brutal and dangerous serious of head games over who was responsible for the secret text, and therefore for the existence of the Elenorean text. Sonata and Neque Vacuus Neque Expletus sided together against Stagnum Ranarum, insisting that since he had authored the Unread Book, he was therefore the one who had created the secret code, and must therefore have known of the coming of the Elenorean text, and must therefore be an Elenorean.
There is only one purpurean Lemmite who has never resided at Argutator Purpureus, the derlethian Lemmite Somniculum Caput (currently residing at Manu Tenere).
