Murdoch
Murdoch, Conduit of invention, is an extremely famous scientist who formerly lived in Durhambia. He is a tall brown-furred tabaxi who wears glasses and long robes. The man was effectively leading the technological revolution in Durhambia, using knowledge he has gleaned from over a decade of planeswalking, studying the Tikipedia, and in-depth interviews with experts from every plane, including gods. He was living in Sigil when Izar revealed the truth about Ragnarok and immediately fled back to his home country. Once there, he immediately set about attempting to prepare the nation for what was to come.
Even as gods began to die and governments fell into disarray Murdoch was busy using the funds from his travels to bring railways to Durhambia. This was not an original invention, per se, because he had previously encountered trains in the plane of Mechanus, but he was the first to bring them to the Prime Material Plane. He spent his entire life savings and then some to construct the first railway, a route across The Mirrored Savanna between Stasterry and Rainwatch. This route was a tremendous economic boon for Durhambia, as it allowed land traders from Esma and other nations further eastward to cross the unpopulated territory in a much shorter time and at much less personal risk.
Murdoch got royalties from every rail journey. Much of this money was spent to found a railway company, but even as his managers were raking in tens of thousands of gold per month Murdoch himself had already moved on to greater things. In the year 729 he released his own line of "M-series" airship engines, thus making airship travel far more economic than it had been in previous times. This, too, brought him a considerable amount of fame and fortune that was promptly ignored in favor of additional scientific advancement.
Murdoch then set his sights on a far more ambitious project: the moon. Murdoch wanted to find a way to send people to the moon, and had been working tirelessly to do so. These experiments were very diverse, but all shared one thing in common: spectacular and dramatic failure. An attempt to go to the moon using transportation magic actually resulted in sending test subjects to other planes. Another experiment of an unidentified nature burned his entire laboratory down in a catastrophic fire. In another incident a massive lightning strike was triggered that electrocuted an entire city block.
The most major disaster, however, was also a tremendous discovery. A series of progressively larger cannons were constructed in attempts to launch something to orbital velocity. These were working well, however the most recent cannon, which was approximately five stories tall, violently destroyed itself and spilled arcane energy throughout the region. Later investigation of the area revealed that the cannon had inadvertently tapped into a Ley Line. Ley Lines are previously unknown invisible "rivers" of arcane power throughout the world. Murdoch quickly discovered this energy could be put to good use to manufacture magical items at significantly less time and cost than usual.
It was this last discovery that truly brought Durhambia into its golden age. Simple enchantments could now be mass-manufactured, so items such as eternal lanterns and bags of holding became accessible to even ordinary peasants. New theories have begin to surface about particularly magical places such as Sigil and the Feywild. Cartographers throughout Olox are currently charting out the Ley Lines of the world, and Durhambia itself is already in the process of constructing entire new cities to take advantage of these magical places.
Even with all of this success, though, Murdoch himself was not satisfied. After The Age of Coalescence was done, he accepted control of Barry the Airship and started an expedition to the moon. He brought some highly skilled experts along with him, notably including Ignacio Icarsus, and leaving behind his intern Craig.
