This machine was created as a doorman for Losik the Ruthless, who hated visitors. Losik, normally a hands-on kind of tyrant, had grown tired of killing everyone who came to the front gate himself. He held a competition, challenging his wizards, chefs, and chariot mechanics to come up with an automaton to guard his door from salesmen, Girl Scouts, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Driven by both fear and the promise of a large reward, most of the entrants used sorcery to animate a suit of armor; there were a few who created golems out of wood or stone, and one imaginative fellow ended up training a very talented axe-wielding snake. But it was the scullery gnomes who ended up the winners, using an entire closetful of axes, a pile of wooden crates used to ship turnips, and a wheelbarrow to somehow engineer a monstrous animated tower of merciless slicing and dicing fury.
Losik was so pleased with the Machine that, after it had disposed of all the other entries in the competition (and most of the other inventors), he sent it roaming through the castle to wreak havoc on the housecleaners, just for laughs. The Machine requires winding once a year, by someone expendable with small hands, such as an apprentice gnome or a spare child.
