Before any mind save lurk reads this work; pray thee understand the vast gulf which liest between beings of flesh and those of soil.  Lurk, perhaps more than any variety of mythrhilium, defy the instinct and nature of the other races, and even violate the orthodoxy of the majority of beast and monster.  The incredible diversity of nature provides an astounding array of wonderment to behold, yet aggrandizes the likeliness of misunderstanding, and therefore the inheritance of violence and war.  Even whenst looking upon the cousins of Lurk, the trolls and their seemingly stone skin: the primal hunting instinct and need for sustenance, the more base instinct of lust, and the feel of sinew and blood circulating with life, calls to a similarity in all other mythrhilium that Lurk sharest not.

This simple yet profound usurptitude of the natural instinct of flesh by Lurk has led to unending conflict.  For a being of flesh to comprehend, one must first glimpse the culture of the Lurk.

Lurk, before Guardians’ Day, would reproduce asexually, and despite intense thought on their part, are entirely unsure as to the method of this self-reproduction.  One morning, an Lurk will lie down in their mudcave, and that evening, after rising from their slumber, will witness another Lurk sprout from the mud, which is met by an embrace, and then an intricate and complicated ritual punctuated with deep, rumbling howls, known in most Lurk tribes as a chug wug.  Due to this queer method of reproduction, Lurk are a sexless species, and therefore woefully ignorant and free from the oppressive nature of the libido and the qualities of the differing genders.  This mudbirth, by its very nature, defies the very foundation of physiology in all other mythrhilium.  Lurk hearts beat with mud rather than blood, their skin bearing the appearance and texture of that of a pliant lichen, their hair a thick moss which grows in unkempt trails, and their toothless mouths form words in an unholy manner of movement.  This startling guise is just that, however, and the Lurk, not unlike most fauna of Laodicea, would rather sit and ponder the nature of Gaia than battle or war with the other races. 

Lurk, by their very nature, receive sustenance via lunasynthesis, and are energized by the light of Lunatimic’s realm.  Due to their reliance on moonlight, Lurk are most active during the waxing cycle and full moon, and many Lurk who disregard their sedentary nature become renowned silver mages. 

Lurk are the only of the mythrhilium to not immediately seek out the destructive properties of mythrhil, and were in fact unaware that mythrhil had any power beyond diverting clouds from the light of the moon, and creating mud, until the goblin folk came into contact with the Lurk, and tormented the peaceful tribes with fire magick.  The peaceful and innocent nature of Lurk, while often proving fatal for many of the Lurk tribes lost to the mage wars, has allowed some of the most secluded tribes to boast some of the oldest beings across all of laodicea.  One tribe is said to be led by an elder council comprised of Lurk from before even Mythrhil Day itself, and hold accounts of history in its truest form, chiseled into stone tablets.  The location of this mythical tribe is a closely guarded secret, and those who do venture upon the lands of these ancient Lurk are invariably tested and dealt with accordingly by the mysterious followers of the Kalak Covenant.  Even if one were to gaze upon the tablets, the meaning of the carvings would be lost upon all but another Lurk, as their written language is abstract and reliant on minute variations of letter formation to purvey context, sentence structure, emotion, detail, and tense.  For instance, if Lurk used the common alphabet, and one were to write  “chug wug,”  the difference between the thickness of the descender of the  “h”  in  “chug”  could change the meaning from;  “Arise! Arise with my soul and the soul of Gaia, and together our spirit will sing and be one in communion with the moon and the mud.  Arise! Arise oh child of the moon and kin with we, and feast upon the light which echoes in the night.  Arise! Arise Lurk and Lurk we shall be, forever bound with the mud, the blood of life which gives Gaia beauty.  Arise! Arise with we!”  to;  “A harsh day is one which the moon does not rise and the mud cracks, the smell and taste of metal scorches the air, and the ground hardens so that which grows from it is weakened to the brink of rot.”

The poetic nature of their language is lost upon all other mythrhilium, as their spoken language is as esoteric as the written form.  A simple greeting of the north star, to any other race, would sound like an enraged, guttural howl, and this discrepancy between intent and perception often leads to conflict.  Many an adventurer has unwittingly stumbled upon an Lurk tribe performing a moon howl ritual, or a “chuz agh,”  and thusly believed the horrific chanting to be a war cry, and attacked a peaceful religious ceremony.  This, in turn, has led to Lurk having a distrusting nature of outsiders.  The class structure of Lurk tribes also fuels their reputation for violence; the most intelligent, ponderous members of the tribe sit in the inner circles of rituals, while the simpler-minded and often physically stronger members sit at the perimeter.  This structure did not come about for its defensive nature, but rather from the belief that the less distance between the physical proximity of the minds of the deepest thinkers, the more profound of a song they will perform.

Most unfortunately, the tales of the consuming of mythrhilium flesh are true.  This practice originated from the final battle of the first goblin war, when Lurk, poisoned by their collective battle song, their victory, and the violence that hast awarded it, feasted upon the flesh of the goblins.  It was on this day that Lurk discovered the enthralling effects of consuming meat: upon digestion, the minds of the Lurk ascended to a higher realm, and their eyes saw the way their moths spoke, and the world took upon an abstract form, replete with moral guidance in the form of visual metaphor.  At the fall of the sun the next evening, the Lurk awoke from their deep slumber, and sought to repeat their profound realizations.  The ensuing chain of events led to the outbreak of the Lurk Crusades, a series of conflicts retold by Gub Spitt in the classic  “To Clap in the Dark,”   acting as a catalyst for the treaty between the deikin and quezrit, and ultimately providing the spark for the Alliance of the Lake.

Lurk in the west rarely partook in the  “ghru go”  as their tribes have taken to referencing the practice, which in the common tongue translates to  “the knowledge we gain from the suffering of a soul, and therefore an unholy treatment of both the devourer and victim, in turn also harming ourself.”   Western Lurk do, however, consume the flesh of wild beasts, which achieves nearly the same effect, albeit with varying side affects ranging from excessive gluttony to incurable fits of laughter, which is a horrific sound to most other mythrhilium. 

The history of the Lurk is an unfortunate chain of events born of miscommunication and profound biological difference.  I beseech my broad-minded kin in the west to more heartily accept our Lurk friends, as the guardians have deemed them as such, and as Lurk have resurrected from our Chrysthalys for 20 years, since the miracle at the temple of Iberia.  It is with a hopeful heart that I, the author of this introduction and translator of  “The True Scent of the Sunflower,”   forgo my usual impartial disposition, and beg you, dear reader, to accept all of Lurk as our neighbors and allies.  If the Oregonian Republic is to survive the looming threat of the cataclysm, and the growing shadow of the Heshbonian Empire, we must heed the deep-thought wisdom of the Lurk, and protect a fragile and beautiful culture and way of life.

Whether you would doubt the purity of the Lurk or not, I pray thee read this deeply profound and almost prophetic poem by the late elder Aruru  Yeodl, contemplating the nature of an existence that does not end.  First, the poem will be written in the Lurk phonetic alphabet, and will be followed by the common tongue translation.