The Clock

Geography

The World-Engine is, in the simplest terms, nothing more than a truly titanic clock hanging in the endless and empty cosmos. At its heart sits the burning star that warms the mortal beings across its surface, named Iyl Draconys, for the legends say that once it was a terrible dragon burning bright. A vast ring surrounds this star from which three arms move rhythmically around it, with each arm ending in a flat disc. These discs are the worlds of The Clock, the bastions of permenancy free from Cryptic control, and masters of their own destiny.

The Hands

The first is known as Vhanai, The Land of Hours, and it is one with the flame and pyre. Its arm represents the Hour Hand, and as such its orbit around the Iyl Draconys is both long and close. Legends from The Shade tell of vast, tropical forests, great beasts and spirits of a quickling nature lost to passion and excitement.
The second is known as Erodas, The Way Between, and upon its surface start many of our tales. Its arm represents the Minute Hand, and as such it is a temperate place, safe from the roaring flame of Vhanai, but not too far distant as to be plunged into eternal cold. Mortal-kind has flourished upon its surface, with each finding their own home within one of the many varied locales.
The third and last is known as Syrindis, The Revenant. Its arm represents the Second Hand, and it is a world of tundra and bitter snow, abandoned and hollow of life. None know what happened that so scoured it of breath, though many suspect what survivors there were fled to Erodas, explaining partially the histories that date back but two Turnings, leaving the ancient past lost and forgotten.

The Frame

The frame of The Clock is itself a vast singular land of metal and wire. Nothing could live here, for it is barren and cruel, hostile to any who would enter. Despite this, the academics of Erodas have occasionally claimed to witness movement across its barbed domain, peering through the Starlens into the distant void. It is said once that mortals could travel the gap between worlds with ease, and perhaps those that linger in the shadows of The Clock's domain are remnants of their once great knowledge.
Adorning then the inside of The Clock's frame, glittering stars are embedded within the metal, far below The Hands of The Clock. Each of these is their own world, fashioned and defined by a Cryptic of immense power, whose very nature has coalesced into physical form. Compared to the vastness of The Clock, these worlds are minute, visibile only at night and endless in number.
Then there is The Great Veil. Masquing the region of space between the 11th and 12th Hour, a great object hangs motionless and without breath. All attempts to discern the nature of this obstruction have proven inadequate, for the shroud that adorns it denies all efforts to penetrate its shield. The light from the Iyl Draconys casts a vast shadow over this region of The Clock, and when The Hands move through it, madness and strife befalls the land. It is within this Veil that the Cryptics of Disharmony dwell, the lords and ladies of misrule and abandon.
Finally run the paths within The Clock itself. Hollow and filled with gears and cogs, none know what lies within The World-Engine, what empires or strange beings may twist and navigate the routes past teeth and brass. What cannot be claimed is that they are empty, however, for stranger things have lived than souls within The Clock.

Ecosystem

While The Clock possesses upon it a vast amount of life, the majority of its form is either aberrant metal or empty space. The Iyl Draconys provides some measure of escape from the frozen reaches of this void, but for the spirits there is only an existence of desolate wandering broken briefly by jaunts and calls to The Hands. This does not bother them too much however, for their existence is predicate upon magic, not the tender caress of flame. This magic comes from The Clock, for no action can be purely efficient. What energy powers The World-Engine, turns The Hands around, expels waste and superfluous material. This cast-off force is the lifeblood of the arcane, and it leaks from within The Clock, escaping the cracks across its surface and feeding existence with its mercurial changes.
In partner with this quixotic output is a substance, or rather, concept called The Fel. There have been more than a few theological debates regarding the nature of this material, and wars as well, and yet no answer has been provided. The Fel, brackish and deformed, exists alongside magic as a toxic mixture that poisons all that it touches. Cryptics appear to have developed measures against this poison, but the mortal races possess no such protection. It appears much the same as magic, and is created, it seems, side by side. Some have debated that it is a protection by The Clock, a measure enacted to ensure waste material is not squandered, while others argue of something darker living within The Engine, something truly powerful and capable of subverting The Clock's benign will.

Ecosystem Cycles

The Clock itself does not endure the passage of time like the worlds within it. Hanging as it does, lonely in the void, there is no change for The World-Engine, only progress taken one tick at a time on repeat. Slowly, however, do The Hands move round the rim, marking the time since existence began, and perhaps counting down to when it shall not. Four Turnings have come and gone, and who knows what will happen when The Clock strikes midnight.

Localized Phenomena

The Clock rarely changes, except when it does. One of the more notable phenomena to plague The World-Engine are the Sever Storms, known to the Elves as Llan'Seitic. Following times of great death and misery, The Clock will seemingly react in pain. From within the small fissures across its surface, a torrent of magic will scream forth, burning and destroying as it does. Cryptics will often be deformed by this eruption, magic will grow unstable and even the inherent protections against The Fel that the spirits possess will fail to guard them as it infects and festers across The World-Engine. Fortunately, such an event has not occured during the Fourth Turning, but only time will tell if The Hands are safe from their rage.

Fauna & Flora

While The Clock possesses all life, and therefore an incredible variety, upon it, few creatures can claim to live entirely upon or within its brazen surface. The most notable of these are the Cryptic, the strange, engimatic spirits of concept that rule their domains with a jealous passion. Manifesting as either the storm winds that buffet the void, or as the gems of coalesced magic embedded upon the frame of The Clock, these creatures live lives of total obsession, wantonly seeking their domain and its expansion without end.
Legends speak of other beings though, creatures that lurk within the byzantine tunnels that worm throughout the World-Engine. None have travelled these ancient ways in living memory however, and such such is the realm of conjecture and oral tradition.

Natural Resources

Uniquely to The Clock comes the strange metal from which it is formed. Referred to as Glym by the inhabitents of Erodas, it is nearly unbreakable and possessed of a dark power that kill those who are exposed. To touch The Clock is to burn with a secret flame, invisible to the eyes but fatal almost immediately. Though it is said to be impossible to retrieve, some of the most ancient relics upon Erodas are made of this bleak material, or of another more twisted alloy called Glint. How this was achieved and by whom is lost to time, a secret guarded viciously by The Lady Greyfane.
Magic is also an inherent quality of The Clock. As it turns, the engines produce kinetic force, sound and all the other byproducts of motion on such a grand scale. In addition, however, a further waste product is created, a raw unfiltered force of creation and possibility. This was called magic, and from it are born and fed the Cryptics, as well as the arcane hunger of the mortal races. Alongside, but in lesser measure, is also produced The Fel, the tar-like arcana that twists and binds to the magic produced, rendering it toxic and foul to all but the Cryptics.

History

Being, by its nature, the instrument by which time is counted, The Clock has existed since existence began. During that time it has continued on without issue, apathetically observing the endless swings between harmony and Chaos that erupts across its surface. Four Turnings have passed, millenia to the mortal count, and still it endures. In all that time The Clock has never spoken, nor given indication of its will. What purpose it was designed for, what reason for its existence, if even it has one, remain secret, locked within the endless gears moving on.

Alternative Name(s)

The World-Engine, Ur, Ymaia

Type

Universe

Included Locations

• Erodas
• The Shade

Owner/Ruler

The Watchmaker

Inhabiting Species

• Cryptic