Guardian

The Guardian was a sessile Necromorph anchored to walls, its flesh fused with the Corruption that spread through infested spaces. Unable to move or hunt for prey, it served instead as a living obstacle, guarding areas important to the infestation or simply blocking the path of survivors such as Isaac Clarke. Though it had no repurposed limbs for pursuit, it could kill anything that came within reach in an instant, lashing out with a lethal scythe-tipped appendage drawn from the host's own intestines.

Origin and growth#

The Guardian was created from a single human corpse fused with the Corruption growing on the walls, establishing a form of symbiosis between the body and the infestation. Its transformation was extensive enough that both its first and last stages could be observed. At the immature stage, the Guardian still bore some resemblance to its human host, though heavily mutilated, with the torso intact only down to the waist and the abdomen split vertically apart with the entrails hanging out. In this state the creature was extremely weak and lethargic, incapable of any lethal attack. At most it would play dead until approached or alerted, then flail its host's intestines in a feeble attempt to do harm.

Given sufficient time, the torso developed into a mature Guardian. The fusion between the human body and the Corruption was, for the most part, complete, the two indistinguishable and most of the host's human features lost. The mature form was noticeably larger, swollen with the Corruption's biomass. The human arms that marked the immature stage had either atrophied or been consumed, serving no further purpose. The lower jaw and part of the neck were gone, exposing the trachea and opening into a wide thorax and a newly formed sac where the abdomen had been.

Function#

The mature Guardian was built for defense rather than pursuit. Its thoracic cavity housed two kinds of tentacle appendages. The first anchored the creature more firmly to its spot and were drawn out the moment it spotted a hostile presence. The second was a single scythe-tipped tentacle, its only close-range weapon and the source of its lethality, capable of decapitating or cutting apart anyone who drew too near. This strike came almost instantly and could not be slowed once it was triggered.

The abdominal sac was an orifice through which the Corruption spewed embryonic spawn known as Pods. These small organisms aided the Guardian by attacking detected threats and keeping them at a distance, firing ranged projectiles and detonating if approached too closely. During the later outbreak on Tau Volantis, Guardians were observed ejecting Swarm Infectors from this sac instead of Pods, sending them out to reanimate nearby corpses into fresh Necromorphs.