  Canuk (A) / (B) / (C) / (D) / (E) Egg Laid by the Ducked Canuk (A) Canuk Artwork Canuk freed from petrification Canuk waving after defeat of Morphius (A) / (B) Canuk's Shack, Ext. (low) / (art1) / (art2) Canuk's Shack, Door (A) / (art) Canuk's Shack, Int. (A) / (B) / (art) Bottled Ship (A) / (B) / (C) / (D) / (E) / (F) / (G) / (H) / (I) Art: (A) / (B) / (C) / (D) / (E) / (F) / (G) / (H) Bottled Ship, Threepwood (low) / (high) Bottled Ship, Captain's Cabin (low) / (art) Bottled Ship, Cain Safe (art) Various Prototype Artwork (art1) / (art2) YOZOZZO (Anas Platyrhynchos Spell) (A) |
Born in 1202 GUE, the mage Canuk participated in the First Great Diffusion of 1247. In the result of the ordeal to scatter the evil magic, he, like all the others, were drained of their powers. Knowing this beforehand, Canuk and the wizard Trembyle cast themselves a long-life spell ensuring that they would have enough time to recover their magic. When the other wizard’s eventually aged and died, Canuk and Trembyle became the only two survivors of Great Diffusion. A popular board game called Survivor was later invented in their honor. One year before the fall of magic (1246), Canuk wrote the re-usable YOZOZZO scroll.
In either the 1620s or 30s, Trembyle, along with Canuk, Moadikum (who sold arms for a living and was a genius at manufacturing) and Rooper (a veteran of beast-slaying and other great adventures), founded IT&L, Inc, in Shanbar of the Valley of the Sparrows, in order to manufacture the recently discovered illuymnite and translumynite into a building material for resorts and also other high technological inventions.
The display of the Cluster at the Temple of Bel Naire gained particular interest from Canuk, who was still alive since the Great Diffusion. Fascinated by the cluster, he visited the museum regularly. In a weakened state (from the exertions to dispel all evil), the exposure to the Cluster had a strange effect on him: he became mesmerized, controlled. The Cluster seemed to reach out to him and hypnotize him. He became possessed by the evil energy of the Cluster. But only part of his personality became possessed. The other part of Canuk had no idea of this dual personality. Now obsessed with the object, he had to obtain it. He did. After building a replica cluster, he infiltrated the museum one night and swapped the fake for the real one.
The East Shanbar Times reported (1635-12-14) that the Holy Woman of Bel Naire suspected that the Cluster had been replaced with a fake cluster. She expressed concern and asked for an inquiry. IT&L, Inc was contracted for investigations.
Canuk kept his new possession secret, even from his IT&L partners: the Wizard Trembyle, Rooper, and Moadikum Moodock. He had always been an intuitive wizard, and thus impulsive. So it would take quite some time before they would notice that his schizophrenic state was dangerous.
The 1640's saw the start of the effects of the magical curse which Morphius had brought upon the Valley of the Sparrows with the disappearance of the buildings of Shanbar. The first of these to vanish and be relocated within the Great Underground Empire was the historic Inn of Isenough. One at a time, the local buildings were transported to a mysterious subterranean parallel Shanbar. In wake of these disappearances, and other strange goings on, the four partners became curious. After some tedious research and exploring, they discovered a secret door beneath the Old Mill. It led to the old underground empire, which no longer looked the same. It was a whole new world down there. Rooper talked the Wizard Trembyle, the brilliant engineer Canuk, and Moadikum into further investigating the underground with him.
The vanished buildings of East Shanbar were discovered with their original occupants, having been relocated to the new underworld and Moadikum was reunited with his wife. Illumynite lighted this new world and the transported people did not seem to mind. And over time, more structures above ground would find their way to the underworld. The countless bloits of cavern that had been abandoned and dismissed as legend for almost four hundred years were once again thrown open to colonization and economic development.
The partners were excited and quickly consumed by the marketing potential of this new world: an underground resort with glowing rock formations, a giant theme park, and architecture based on the excavations of the old empire. And these were just the folks to do it. The Wizard Trembyle was a bit concerned to say the least. To him, this return to the old underground world was highly unnatural.
The four partners decided to develop the glowing illumynite caverns as an underground resort. Thus IT&L’s first underground project was Dizzy World. Canuk drew up the plans for this and other land development prospects. In short time, the mage oversaw the designs of high technology commercial products, which would include the prototype Tele-Orb, lighting products, illumynite magnets, and illumynite batteries.
Moadikum had planned the actual construction of Dizzy World. As a master strategist, the theme park was built like an army going into battle. When the partners decided to produce the Tele-Orb and illumynite batteries, Canuk was asked (since he was apparently the most knowledgeable person on illumynite outside of the dwarven community) to develop an interface between the batteries and the telepathic orbs. Canuk agreed to the task, but not out of friendship. He had been “instructed” to take the job by the silent voice inside him. Already he was submitting to the mysterious cluster’s control.
Canuk succeeded in making a device that worked with the Tele-Orb, but his personality was changing and the partnership with Rooper, Trembyle, and Moodock became strained. It was the future disappearances of East Shanbar that finally pushed them all apart, when in early Ottobur of 1640, the recently constructed headquarters of IT&L and Moodock’s Arms and Armaments, both located in East Shanbar,disappeared along with Moadikum and his shop into the underground. Thus the bugs of the Tele-Orbs were never worked out by the time the partnership folded. The unfinished orbs cold only receive but were unable to send.
Inspired by the Cluster, which was now a mutating object of much greater proportions and had a name of its own—Morphius, Canuk had fallen deeper and deeper under its spell. Visions of an entire underground city would be given to him in his sleep, and in the morning the plans for this project would be sitting on his table. But materials and labor were required for its construction. While the dwarves mined illumynite, something more was needed—translumynite. Thus both were acquired in mass quantities.
The same force that controlled Canuk, originating from Morphius, began to possess hundreds of vultures. These mindless buzzards roamed both levels of the valley, passing through unknown portals. Originally the dwarves had been paid to mine for Canuk, but after the cost became too great, the vultures were sent to raid the dwarven mining areas for illumynite chunks and brought them to the underground. Canuk frequently used a vulture as a transportation method.
The possessed mage also engineered the Cliffs of Depression in order to mine translumynite. Morphius enslaved most of the people from East Shanbar to mine the ore, to build his new empire (Canuk became their slave driver). The sorcery of Morphius was so strong that it radiated from the cliffs causing those within to grow so depressed that they could not get up to leave. The only ones that could draw close were those who bore a bonding plant. The citizens were lured to the cliffs with these plants, but Morphius’ spells of depression were too strong. Soon the bonding plant would wilt and the holding of the dead plant was trapped forever as the cliffs as virtual slaves—becoming workers for the translumynite mine.
The Citadel of Zork was the first structure built with the new architectural techniques. It was, in fact, an incubator for the Cluster. Here, the vultures delivered the stolen chunks of illumynite, which were absorbed into the structure housing the Cluster. Energy then was drawn in large quantities to speed up the mutation of the Cluster.
Hordes of half-orcs were gathered as sentries for the Citadel. When the inspired Canuk had completed its construction, he sealed it with a Wall of Illusion. The Citadel was only known to his possessed personality. The other Canuk was unaware of the construction, only brief glimpses of the project were left in the untouched portion of his mind. Morphius feared that the pieces of the last Flying Disc of Frobozz would be recovered and reforged and his illusionary shield would be shattered. Thus his minions sought the manual for the forge and destroyed it.
Plans went forth to continue building an entire town for Morphius, but more materials were required. The vultures regularly raided the dwarven mining areas, but the dwarves became resistant. Morphius hoped that the Cliffs of Depression would be successful in breaking the dwarven union permanently, but it only grew stronger. At the same time, Canuk had retired to a condo shack on dreary Ferryman’s Isle in the new underground. For the journey to the Isle, he took one of of the horses belonging to Barry the East Shanbar Blacksmith, promising to pay him later. Before the smith could open his mouth (Canuk had sealed his lips with a spell), he was already heading south towards the Whispering Woods. There at the Isle, while continuing to secretly build the empire of Morphius, Canuk was still responsible for former projects with some of his partners. While he was secretly building the empire of Morphius, he was still responsible for former projects with some of his partners.
Trembyle and Rooper soon discovered that something peculiar and magical was definitely occurring underground. An odd form of architecture was adopted, using illumynite building materials. New buildings had sprouted up everywhere, as if in preparation for mass immigrations. The more Rooper and Trembyle found out about Canuk and his alteration of the original underground plans, the more confusion and mysterious it all became. Rooper sharpened his awareness and prepared for the unknown. They began to investigate and snoop around. A confrontation between Rooper and the Morphius-possessed side of Canuk occurred on the Ferryman’s Isle. During the altercation, Rooper, in an act of self-defense, turned Canuk into a duck (he deflected a changeling spell thrown at him by the mage). The partners decided to leave Canuk in this state until they learned more about his strange behavior.
In 1647 GUE, Canuk was briefly freed from his imprisonment when the unknown Sweepstakes Winner used the mage's own spell to revert him back into his human form. The sweet Canuk, still unware of the duel-personality, aided this hero. Besides translating one of four jokes, which would be used in the acquiring of one of the pieces of the last Flying Disc of Frobozz, Canuk also sent this adventurer to gather a piece which he had. Sometime after the disc's sundering in 1247, Canuk had obtained one of the six pieces and placed it in a safe in the cabin of a miniature ship inside a small glass bottle. With a shrink spell, the adventurer was able to enter the bottle and removed the disc piece. Upon exiting, Canuk, now in his possessed state, attempted to transform the adventurer into the form of a mallard. In defense, the hero used a shiny object to reflect the spell and Canuk was instead made into a duck once again.
Shortly afterward, while the same nameless adventurer was raiding the Citadel of Zork, Morphius reverted Canuk to his mallard form, turned him to stone, and placed him in his research laboratory. Fortunately, this hero was able to win a round of Survivor against Morphius (in which the authentic Trembyle and Canuk were pieces of a giant board). Furious at his defeat, Morphius released a terrible shriek of anguish that echoed through the Citadel of Zork, shaking its very foundations. Keeping his subjects as statues was very taxing. Unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, Morphius lost grasp of his confining spell. The statues began to dissolve, releasing those who had been imprisoned in stone.
Rising to the occasion, the followers of good magic who had now been freed (the Holy Woman of Bel Naire, Itah, Trembyle, Canuk) moved to the center of the room and casted long forgotten spells which had been used during the First Great Diffusion. The spell travelled upwards towards the unsuspecting Morphius. He became stoned and fell out of the air that he was hovering in. The statue broke apart. The vile creature and all evil magic were dispersed into the atmosphere. The spell that kept the Citadel walls up collapsed and the room began to disintegrate. These events would be remembered as the Second Great Diffusion. Throughout the valley, from every tower to the depths of every crevice, evil magic had vanished.
The defeat of Morphius forever freed Canuk from his evil possession, and he returned in good heart to his condo at the Ferryman's Isle.
The Shanbar Library was to have its construction begin in 1648; its blueprints had been checked out previously by Canuk.
| SOURCE(S): Return to Zork (game, official strategy guide, design documents) |