The Photometer

An esoteric tool invented in 1345 AR by Harlond Fizgizzet, the "photometer" was an aetheric device that utilized the latent aether present throughout the world, more specifically Light and Dark aspected aether, to clearly indicate to its user not necessarily the time of day but the hours left before the sun will set, and then the hours before the sunrise, relative to the user's location on the planet.
The device itself (fastened around the wrist or worn around the neck) is comprised of a glass dome over a watch face with two hands facing away from each other, much like a compass. Each hand is sculpted from Dark and Light aether respectively and adjust across the dial depending on the levels of either aspect present in the leylines around it. Either hand will fluctuate toward the top during a binary imbalance or will stabilize horizontal if there is no predominant aspect detected.
Although intended merely as a device to track the cycle of night and day, the device showed a remarkable aptitude for detecting the night creatures of Ostwick - themselves inherently entwined with Dark aether. As a consequence, many of Ostwick's The Lunar Guard began to carry photometers as warning devices, though more powerful night creatures possessed of an aetheric presence massive enough would overload and functionally destroy the devices upon getting too close.
Fizgizzet was knighted by Duke Voldigan Aldwain II during the following century and afforded public funds to innovate and improve upon the photometer. As of 2501 AR, they are a national staple of the Lunar Guard's uniform.
Over the millenia since its invention, its standardization across the country had a notable and widespread effect on the Wicker laymen's understanding of aetherology, a science that for the grand majority of Astraea's population at that time was primitive and handicapped by Olyxendir's rise to power and the scars it left upon Astraea's leylines. In any Ostwick town, no matter how remote, baseline aetheric literacy became a national tool of survival as or more important than the photometers themselves.

Item type

Magical