The World of Greyhawk is a land of grain mills driven by river wheels, hand-cranked wells, and where villagers repair their ox-drawn plows. Most folk live and die by simple tools and familiar crafts, and anything more advanced is met with wary superstition. To the common person, the very idea of intricate devices or strange mechanisms is as baffling as arcane formulae or psionic meditation. Many dismiss such things outright, calling technology itself “a myth of the ignorant used to fool gullible folk and frighten children!” Yet renowned sages describe these disciplines as a form of magical science; a counterpart to magic which operates within the laws of probability. They argue that if magic were ever to wane, technology would grow stronger in its place.

Even in a world where such innovation is rare, curiosity refuses to die. Adventurers, scholars, and the occasional bold tinkerer scour ancient ruins in search of forgotten knowledge, hoping to unravel the mysteries behind legendary artifacts that blend invention and enchantment. Wonders like the Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad and the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O stand as testament to a time when innovation shaped marvels equal to any spell, and scholar’s hearts dream of the thought of discovering tidbits leading to the Apparatus of Kwalish.

Scattered across the world are places where dormant engines hum beneath the soil and remnants of magical science thrum with alien purpose. Far to the north, further even than Arn, buried in the Land of Black Ice lies the fabled City of the Gods, where mechanical golems still stir and people once walked the world in bodies made of enchanted mechanisms. Similar constructs, half-machine and half-arcane, prowl the mysterious solid metallic dungeon hidden in the Barrier Peaks, hinting at an age when tinkering minds dared to dream on a scale few in the modern world can comprehend.

Many artificers and tinkers follow or revere Murlynd, a little-known near-divine being (who was mortal hundreds of years ago) and travelled to distant planes. He came across functioning technology which, when brought back to Oerth, could be made to function through magic. Known as a quasi-deity (hero-deity) who is a patron of magical technology. Among his followers are inventors, thaumaturgists, engineers, alchemist, and tinkerers of all sorts who study and encourage creating new devices and machines to help make daily life easier.