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Morphius is the evil protagonist character of Return To Zork, played by Michael Johnson.

In 1247 GUE notable wizards, holy men, and clerics attempted absolute destruction of evil magic in the land, which caused The First Great Diffusion. This caused a dispersal of all magic, good and evil, onto the air and it seeped into the soil; where it began to find a way to recreate itself. Almost four hundred years passed and while most people believed the Great Diffusion had been a success; Rooper and Wizard Trembyle began to notice a series of unfortunate events happening.

These events were being caused by Morphius - the result of the reunion of particles of evil magic. These particles of magic would meet to form clusters of glowing mineral, called Illumynite. Feebo, was the first one to come upon an unusually large chunk of the glowing mineral in 1620 GUE, while mining in the Dwarven Mines. Proud of his discovery, they called it The Cluster. Everyone thought it was a good luck charm due to its brilliance and beauty. However for the first time, the group began to stumble upon nothing but useless rocks. They began to make fun of the Cluster by calling it Feebo's Folly.

Cluster Dissappears

After some time the dwarves found more illumynite, but they noticed that the Cluster didn't lose it's brilliance, as opposed to most illumynite which would lose it's illuminating qualities when exposed to sunlight. Although, when the proper care was taken, illumynite would provide a long lasting subtle source of light. In the underground this was a much needed treasure and it would repel grues; finally the dwarves found good use for clusters of mineral they had originally thought useless. They began to mine it due to its grue repellent qualities, and called it illumynite. The original Cluster was transferred to a pedestal in the Temple of Bel Naire for historic purposes.

Later the Cluster caught the interest of one of the mages who had helped dispel magic in the Great Diffusion Canuk. Throughout a period of five years Canuk had become too obsessed and controlled by the mineral, and eventually stole it; leaving a replica he had built to replace it. The news about the theft, were published in East Shanbar Times on Dismembur 14, 1635 GUE. Canuk had been completely possessed and he began to take orders from it to construct an underground city, starting with the Citadel of Zork, using illumynite and translumynite. Eventually the Cluster began to form into an evil mutation that called itself Morphius, and would terrorize citizens in their sleep.

But Morphius needed more people to build his underground city, and in desperation to enslave local town occupants, he began to control the vultures. The vultures started to carry people away to build the underground structures and some were taken to the Cliffs of Depression to mine more illumynite and translumynite for his empire.

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