The Clockwork Plane, a dimension located on the Outer Planes and shares claim with other planes as a harbor for Order. The functions and dilation of this plane is controlled by its key hallmark: law, and the intricacies which surrounds its governance.
All creatures who reside in the Clockwork Plane are lawful, but not all are fully-aligned. As the gears of the plane turn, new creatures are birthed to life, although their level of sentience is a point of contention. Some models have spoke of tribes and civilization, but clockwork creatures which have the ability to vocalize within the plane are few-and-far-between.
It is generally thought that the machinery of the Clockwork Plane wills machines into life, but how exactly anything in the Clockwork Plane is determined, including the laws the plane operates on, is a point of contention for many planar scholars. Time dilation is a massive discussion point, as unlike other planes, time moves at a seemingly random pace compared to the Material Plane. A minute in the Clockwork Plane can be a day in our world, or a second—there is no clear or static answer.
Known For...
- Unique clockwork creatures unknown to the Material Plane with abnormal and strange abilities.
- Rapidly changing time equivalencies when compared to the Material Plane.
- Massive shifting gears which align the bottom of the plane—if one is not crushed to death by the grinding of gears located in the abyss, then they will surely fall forever, as the plane seems to not be confined by the concepts of finitieness.
- Sentient-like creatures without names or souls.
- Being the location of the Great Foundry, the predecessor to Zyraitix's own Foundry.
Operation
How the Clockwork Plane operates is the subject of much speculation, but it appears to function based on the rotation of gears. As they turn: objects, platforms, space, time, and measurable magical energy in the plane seem to shift. Sometimes by a small amount, and sometimes radically.
Despite its reliance on the lawful side of nature, there is no 1:1 rule that can be deciphered from how the plane operates. Current speculation relies on the idea that the Clockwork Plane itself is a massive random number generator, with the effects it takes on its physical circumference being determined by an unpredictable result. In this theory, the law of the Clockwork Plane is its lack of one, or perchance its reliance on random values, which makes the random number generator of the Clockwork Plane the only random element in the world that cannot be guessed through any means.
It is possible, though, that our understanding of the Clockwork Plane will change as our knowledge grows. Only time can tell.
Population
There is no permanent population on the Clockwork Plane, unless one counts the metasentient clockwork creatures with crawl its surface.
Humanoids, robots, birds, crabs, tigers, lions, and occasionally more complex creatures such as hippogriffs, dragons, and cockatrices. All creatures are represented by a clockwork form of some sort, which all share similar traits:
- A form of resistance to magical effects, such as spells.
- Immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical attacks.
A few creatures even maintain the ability to self-destruct when destroyed, with the weaker ends of the radius being 5-feet, and the larger ends being as a wide as 60-feet.
History
The Clockwork Plane was discovered by Adventurers on 2939-6-1, although ancient articles obtained within the recent years indicate knowledge about the Clockwork Plane was recorded and discovered long ago and lost to time.
The Clockwork Plane is neither cold nor hot, but rather, the plane has reached a level of equilibrium that no traveler could readily describe. Unless the question was on the traveler's mind, it is said they never even considered the temperature of the plane, as its balance was just that perfect. In addition, the plane appears to have an equal measure of both daylight and darkness, measuring precisely twelve hours each.
This changes when the Great Foundry is active, according to the reports of Adventurers who returned from the Clockwork Plane on 3131-7-15. While it is active, the plane remains in fully-lit conditions, only falling dark directly in front of the Great Foundry (which ancient texts indicate that perchance the location of the Great Foundry changes from day-to-day).
It is unknown how the League of Evil discovered to the Great Foundry, but it is thought it has something to do with the knowledge of the Forsaken.
Maps for DMs:
Contact Amarulence#5357 if you are interested in running a quest set in the Clockwork Plane!