Lum the mad
Baron Lum the Mad was a mighty Oeridian warlord, a scion of House Cranden, whose power was at least partially due to his possession of the artifact known as the Infernal Machine. Lum was betrayed by his former general, Leuk-o, when the latter came to possess the artifact, later known as the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o. Their final conflict left a large area wasted. Lum plunged through a dimensional rift to the plane of Limbo, where he waited for centuries, his connection to the machine leaving him unable to die.
The machine itself was housed in the fortress Rifter, near Rauxes, until the latter city was destroyed in 586 CY, quite likely due to the machine's influence.
History
Baron Lum of Cranden lived a life obsessed with war and conquest. He was a handsome man with rugged features marred with only a few scars. More than eight centuries ago he discovered the sword Druniazth, an artifact sacred to Tharizdun, against Ur-Flannae sorcerers of the Thelwood, but lost it during the fray. He spent the rest of his time on Oerth searching for it, the effort slowly driving him insane.
Years later, while exploring a castle his armies had conquered, he came across the Machine that would bear his name, a horseshoe-shaped nightmare of black metal, festooned with levers, dials, sockets, wires, and plugs. Through trial and error, he learned to manipulate it, learning more about its functioning than even the wisest sages have since then. If he was mad before, the blasphemous technology of the device drove him over the edge, but it also brought him great power. With his disciplined troops and his new powers, he carved out a mighty fiefdom. It is said that, with the machine, he brought no fewer than 50 new species of monsters into the world. He thought nothing of barrages of fire that annihilated large numbers of his own troops, so long as he carried the day. His reign was one of cruelty and horror, but it is credited in part for the impressive Oeridian successes in the days before their victories over the rival Suel and Flan were assured.
Lum's reign approached its twilight when his follower, General Leuk-o, discovered the Mighty Servant artifact in the Belching Vortex that would share both his name and the name of his device. With the power of the Servant, Leuk-o gathered a host that matched Lum's own. The two armies clashed many times before their final battle, when both Lum and Leuk-o disappeared.
References
- Canaven, William. "Future Tech Meets Fantasy." (Wizards of the Coast web article, 2006). Available online: [1]
- Conforti, Steven, ed. Living Greyhawk Official Listing of Deities for Use in the Campaign, version 2.0 (Wizards of the Coast, 2005). Available online: [2]
- Cook, David. Book of Artifacts. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1993.
- Grohe, Allan T., and Erik Mona. "All Oerth's Artifacts." Dragon #299. Bellevue, WA: Paizo Publishing, 2002.
- Gygax, Gary, and Brian Blume. Eldritch Wizardry (TSR, 1976).
- Mona, Erik. "Places of Mystery." Living Greyhawk Journal Volume 1, Number 1. (Wizards of the Coast, September 2000)
- Pramas, Chris. Vortex of Madness. Wizards of the Coast, [[2000].
- Moore, Roger E. Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins (TSR, 1998).
- Moore, Roger E. Return of the Eight (TSR, 1998).
- Sargent, Carl. Ivid the Undying (TSR, unpublished). Available online: [3]