Morlock
"You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!"
- – H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
Morlocks are subterranean [post-]humanoid predators which HG Wells predicted in his satirical novel The Time Machine, whose prey is the lazy and childlike Eloi who dwell on the surface. Wells had delved into all manner of European lore about trolls under bridges, dwarves in the mountains, and the svart alfr.
Morlocks joined gremlins as neomythology when the derro came into our knowledge. And the C.H.U.D.s.
Dungeons & Dragons likely would have included morlocks at some point if they hadn't already added the fan-submitted Grimlocks, which are just Morlocks changed a little bit to avoid legal trouble with the Wells Estate.
Paizo however doesn't like made up names and prefers to take its monster names from pre-existing mythology or media. They also figured out that by the late 2000s all of HG Well's works were public-domain; so they included morlocks by name in Pathfinder.
In Warhammer 40k, Morlocks is the name for the elite veterans of the Iron Hands chapter.
Gallery[edit]
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Pathinder 1e
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Pathfinder 2e, which has taken more inspiration from the movie.
