As we learn in Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves, Doctor Rognvald is a mysterious character who has built his Precariously Situated Research and Development Installation, Second Class, Type C on the slopes of an Icelandic volcano. Pretty much what you'd expect, really. These mad scientists love that stuff.
And although his motives are an enigma wrapped in an old newspaper wrapped in a mystery, his actions seem to be both malevolent and demented. He seems, in short, as though he is Meddling In Things That Man Was Not Meant to Wot Of.
And with all that Wotting going on you can be pretty sure that someone will have to step up to the plate and hit one home.