Viscount Warmaruk was a mighty lord of darkness. So mighty was he, in fact, that he devised plans to overthrow the nearest Duke, Eekrah the Nasty, and ascend to the Court of Five Shadows in his place. Warmaruk's plan depended on a titanic engine of war that he had designed himself and which he believed would make his army invincible. Unfortunately, like most lords of darkness, Warmaruk was neither quick at building things nor good at keeping secrets; he boasted of his infernal plans frequently even as he labored oh-so-slowly to craft his death machine. As a result Eekrah showed up on Warmaruk's front doorstep with a few Legions of Doom and a Horrible Monster or two long before the ambitious viscount had completed his mighty machine. All Warmaruk had finished, in fact, was one of the machine's front wheels. The mighty Warmaruk's Menacing Hordes proved to be no match for Eekrah's Legions and a short time later Eekrah explained the error of Warmaruk's ways to him, via a bit of explanatory disemboweling.
The Wheel that Warmaruk had finished actually turned out to be pretty impressive, a twenty-foot-tall crushing hoop of hellfire-tempered steel and spikes. It was in fact quite an effective battlefield weapon all by itself. Privately, Eekrah was glad he had showed up before Warmaruk had finished any more of the machine.
