Mother Mallum

Mother Mallum - Mahey'ish Medron in the ancient, all but forgotten, Saradominist language^[1] - is the queen of the Sea Slugs and resembles an enormous mollusk, and she plans to take over Gielinor. She currently has control of the Fishing Platform and Witchaven. She first reveals herself to the world during The Slug Menace quest when the player is unknowingly tricked into releasing her. She communicates using a human body as a host, and during the last part of the Slug Menace quest, she tries to obtain the player character as a new host. The player is ultimately saved from her by being teleported out of the cave by Savant.

How Mother Mallum came to be is unknown, but she appears to be quite old, as she claims she's had her current host for millennia.^[2] She had attempted to achieve global domination on Gielinor in the late Fourth or early Fifth Age by possessing various important political figures, but this plot was narrowly stopped by the Temple Knights. She was imprisoned, but escaped in the Fifth Age, whereupon she took control of the village of Witchaven and its Fishing Platform.

At an unspecified date in Gielinorian history, described as "centuries ago", Mother Mallum emerged from the sea with an army of slugs. Mallum, who had set her plans to possess the important political figures of the world and thus rule it in motion, was fought by both a secretive military organisation known as the Temple Knights.^[3] The Temple Knights were able to defeat Mother Mallum by sealing her away within the Witchaven Dungeon.^[4][5] However, the Temple Knights have since forgotten the process used to imprison Mother Mallum.^[6]

The few knights that had escaped the slugs proceeded to devise a method to remove the sea slug possession and succeeded (albeit with great effort). The Temple Knights then launched a crusade to the Slug Citadel, but soon realised they would not be able to kill her. They settled with luring and imprisoning Mother Mallum in a cave magically sealed by way of modified runestones. ^[7] Mother Mallum was imprisoned, and her slugs fled to the depths of the sea, while the Temple Knights marked their victory by building statues of their men, which they placed near the door. Additionally, they wrote the name of the prisoner, "Mahey'ish Medron", on the door in glyphs.

Mother Mallum's second attempt at conquest would not commence until later, in 169 of the Fifth Age. That year, the Kandarin government authorised the construction of a Fishing Platform off the coast of the small and quiet fishermen's village of Witchaven. The rich catch from the platform brought poverty to Witchaven, which had lost its only source of income.^[8] However, the fishermen soon began catching increasing amounts of sea slugs. These naturally possessed the fishermen, who, as a result, began hauling in only more slugs, while throwing all the caught fish back into the sea.^[9] Eventually, nearly all the workers of the platform, aside from the timid keeper of the platform named Bailey, who discovered he could keep the hostile fishermen at bay using fire. Witchaven's mayor, Eustace Hobb, also fell victim to the slugs' mind control.

When the villager Kent and his son Kennith went to the platform, the sea slug invasion was first discovered. They found themselves unable to leave the platform, but were rescued by the player who was sent by Kent's wife Caroline. Afterwards, the sea slugs quickly spread, taking over most of the villagers, aside from the families of Caroline, the sailor Holgart, and the fishmonger Ezekial Lovecraft. Meanwhile, a retired but still semi-active Temple Knight colonel called Jake O'Niall noticed the increasingly strange occurrences and contacted the headquarters in Falador when he noticed the mayor, who "was about as religious as a dead dog on a termite mound", had suddenly decided to renovate the shrine to Saradomin just west of the village, bringing lots of Mining equipment and, much more suspiciously, high amounts of rune essence in.

The Knights' head of recruitment, Sir Tiffy Cashien, dispatched an initiate knight (i.e. the player during the Sea Slug quest), who had rescued Kennith earlier, to Witchaven to investigate the situation. By this time, the slugs had possessed large groups of enormous lobsters, who turned very aggressive as a result. The lobsters proceeded to guard the path to Mother Mallum's prison. The player reported to O'Niall and had Savant, the senior mystical researcher, scan the mayor, detecting two life forms (him and his slug), although she initially thought it was an error in the analysis. They then investigated the Witchaven Shrine and found the Temple Knight prison, not knowing what it was. They had it investigated and found out about the crusade and that Mother Mallum was inside. Soon after, the mayor placed a slug on Brother Maledict's neck and commenced a plot to release Mother Mallum. The possessed priest tricked the initiate into repairing the Holy Book of Saradomin, which supposedly stated how to reinforce the sealing enchantment. While gathering the book's lost pages, they also discovered that O'Niall had been possessed as well. The initiate repaired the book and performed the ritual, but was shocked when it actually opened the prison.

Mayor Hobb, now transformed into an aquatic creature, emerged from it and summoned the Slug Prince to kill the player, but the prince was slain. An enraged Hobb was then dismissed by Mother Mallum herself, who cast a teleblock to prevent Savant from rescuing the player. She attempted to discard her old host and use the player as her new host. As she was about to attack them, Savant managed to teleport the player to safety. They reported to Sir Tiffy, who promoted them to proselyte and ordered the assassination of O'Niall. The Temple Knights are currently trying to find a way to stop the sea slugs,^[10] while Mother Mallum is supposedly plotting her next move.^[11]

Mother Mallum is described by the Temple Knights, whom she has fought, as a great evil due to her and her slugs' ability to attach themselves to someone's neck and take over their mind, effectively turning their victims into mindless servants that do her bidding. The victim's skin also turns to a sickly yellow colour, and longer possession results in certain "aquatic" features, such as gills and fins, developing. If freed from possession, the victims are unable to recount what had happened, and their mind is left in their state before the possession.

• The name "Mallum", translated from Latin, means "evil (thing)/disaster" (although the Latin word is spelled with one L), thus making her, quite appropriately, the mother of evil.