Lurker
Lurkers, also known as "Dwarves" or "Dwarf Zombies".
Origin: First appeared in the Phantasm (1979 franchise)
Description
A "Lurker" is created through some strange alchemical process that involves crushing a (typically human) victim's body down to less than half its original size, using a mix of chemicals, and the high gravity and dense atmosphere of a specific, red, alien planet to which the body is delivered in a special drum-like container of chemical solution that softens the flesh and bones and renders them suitable for crushing. Other preparations to the body involve extensive surgery to remove most of the brain, destroying the original personality, creativity, and intellect of the victim, resulting in a short, stocky, shriveled, dwarven, powerful, feral, but easily controlled slave labor force suitable for work in factories, mines, and graveyards under the supervision of Mythos entities (such as the Tall Man), cultists, etc. The wretched creatures are typically clothed and shrouded in heavy hooded robes sized to fit their dwarfish frame, which are mass-produced for the creatures in an unknown factory operated by cultists using Lurker slave labor for this and similar purposes.
In spite of the transformation, Lurkers often retain just enough recognizable features that people who knew the victims in life may, to their horror, recognize the shriveled, crushed face and form of friends, family, and loved ones in the diminutive, twisted, form of a Lurker. In spite of the physical resemblance, however, no part of the victim's original personality remains in the Lurker's brain or body. Instead, the cerebrums of the victims of this process, removed from the bodies in the process of the Lurker's conversion from a human body, is put to another use entirely: preserved, compressed, reprogrammed, and altered into an organic operating system that is then embedded into animated constructs such as the floating, metallic Sentinel Spheres and other machinery, which may sometimes still retain enough personality and memory to recognize and contact or communicate with loved ones separately from the Lurker's body (See Sentinel Sphere for more information.)
Keeper Notes, Heresies and Controversies
Associated Mythos Elements
- film franchise: Phantasm (1979 franchise)
- deity: Tall Man
- races:
