Howard Lumley

Howard Lumley, most likely of Mordent, was a gifted mechanical engineer who created a dread golem that he named the Automatic Man. Lumley's death in 672 BC at the hands of his sentient machine coincided with its ruin by the frightened local populace. Lumley House was left to rot and fell into the possession of the machine which reconstituted itself within the building's technologically advanced infrastructure.

Lumley House itself may have been simply the fruit of a brilliant mind, whereas the sentient Automatic Man was born of dark desire. Howard Lumley was unable to sufficiently miniaturize the power plant for the semblance of autonomous life that he was obsessed with building. It was brought to his attention that a text by Creighton Arkwright titled Notes on Animation might contain the answer. Taking the bait, he commissioned its theft from Lamordia by the Vistani. The Dark Powers waved the spellcasting requirements of a proper Golem Manual in exchange for the tacit acceptance of both their minute scrutiny and the "boon" of the dread golem template.

Within months, Lumley was dead. The Automatic Man "malfunctioned" in public, taking several lives. The machine then misread Lumley's intention in the face of the gathering mob. The thing felt that Lumley was afraid of it and meant to turn it over to the mob, whereas Lumley was actually afraid for it and intended to protect it from the assembled rabble. Enraged by this "betrayal," the machine killed its maker.

Chronology

• 671 BC Howard Lumley creates a few very crude prototypes of machines that are powered by larger boilers, but nothing tiny enough for his Automatic Man. He employs some Vistani thieves to retrieve a book from Lamordia for him. That text is Notes on Animation (written by Creighton Arkwright) and is actually a manual of golems.
• 672 BC Howard Lumley is warned by the Order of the Guardians not to utilize the Notes on Animation. He disregards this warning and has an Automatic Man up and running three months later. After it runs amok, the townspeople demand it destroyed. When Lumley tries to prevent them, the Automatic Man thinks its creator has betrayed it and kills him. The townspeople attack it and the Lumley House, ultimately taking down the dread mechanical golem before abandoning the House. As the year passes, flooding partially submerges the House into the earth.
• 752 BC Oren Lumley, Howard Lumley's descendent, comes to Mordent and seeks out adventurers to retrieve what they can salvage from Lumley House and dispose of the rest, such that the premises may be renovated.

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Children of the Night: The Created
		Children of the Night: The Created - pp20-21