The Clock
Time takes what it must. We take what time forgets.
The Clock
"Time takes what it must. We take what time forgets."
Core Identity
Thieves' Guild
True Neutral
Large (201-1000 members)
Global
Rich in influence and clandestine assets but unevenly distributed; some Ticks live in poverty while Hands manage considerable hidden caches.
Goals & Motivations
Survive as the unseen keeper of information and wealth, shaping commerce and politics subtly while maintaining the art of the lift. Some senior Hands see a darker path toward open influence through blackmail and coastal dominance.
History & Background
Two centuries; formalized roughly 210 years ago from a loose network of trinket thieves and river smugglers
Stage One: Loose networks of waterfront thieves and watch-farmers. Stage Two: Formalization under the Horologist with the pocket watch ceremony binding members to secrecy. Stage Three: Expansion into inland trade hubs via forged documents and planted agents. Stage Four: The Deepening, when offshoots contacted strange entities from beneath the waves. Stage Five: Present—an ancient guild with global reach, fighting internal schisms and foreign mental influences while preserving its core rites.
The Clock began as a string of seaside pickpockets and river thieves who organized after a disastrous tidal heist cost many their lives. A pragmatic thief known only in stories as 'The Horologist' devised strict rules and the ritual of the pocket watch to bind members to one another and to the craft. Over generations the Horologist's proto-guild coalesced into a formal network with offices in coastal trade hubs. The watershed moment came when the nascent Clock intercepted a convoy of noble reliquaries and chose to return one artifact to a grieving widow rather than fence it, an act that won the guild moral latitude and a market for 'discreet recoveries'.
Leadership
The Main Spring
The Main Spring
Personality: Measured, secretive, and ritualistic. Prefers slow moves and long-term planning.
Background: The Main Spring is an anonymous figure rumored to be the descendant of the Horologist or a puppet council of elder Hands. Their identity is obscured through proxies, and they speak rarely. The Main Spring's public words emphasize balance and the preservation of craft.
Goals: Preserve the guild's longevity, avoid open warfare with civic powers, and maintain plausible deniability for Chambers worldwide.
Thief General Freeman
Senior Thief General and regional commander who personally sponsors promising Ticks
Gruff mentor with a soft spot for misfits; exacting and culturally literate
Maris 'Deep-Note' Vellar
Head of the Tide Chambers and suspected conduit to kraken-touched influence
Quiet, melodious, unnerving; speaks in careful cadences and soft whistles
Sylas Venn
A member of the Clock Council pushing for influence in municipal politics
Smooth, calculating, publicly charming with a hidden ruthlessness
Krackle
A Hand and talented forger who once rose from Tick; his kenku origin makes him an exemplar of Freeman's approach
Witty, nervous, hypervigilant; mimicry is now refined into social cunning
Symbolism & Identity
A stylized clock face with a single missing tooth in the gear and a slender hand pointing between midnight and one, overlaid with a thin key.
No formal uniform. Members favor muted practical clothing with brass accents, pocketed cloaks, and often a small personal clock token worn hidden on a belt or as a lapel pin.
Territory & Resources
Waterdeep is the modern symbolic seat where some traditions persist, but Chambers exist in dozens of port cities worldwide. (Decentralized Chambers centered around a principal 'Main Spring' in major trade cities)
A decentralized hub system. Major headquarters, called Chambers, are hidden in converted clock towers, abandoned warehouses, and shipwright basements. Each Chamber is layered with false walls, sound-muffling clocks, and complex lockworks that act as both defense and social theater.
Adventure Hooks
The Missing Tick
Personal scale: A player character finds an intricately engraved pocket watch with a hidden compartment containing a single ledger name. The Clock wants it back. Returning it could earn favor, but investigating the name reveals a target the PCs may sympathize with.
Midnight Seals
Local scale: A Chamber in a coastal city is acting erratically, stealing back civic seals and releasing a wave of strange whispered threats. The PCs are hired either by the city watch or by a Council member to uncover why and discover the Deep Hand's influence.
The Hourbook Heist
Regional scale: Evidence shows that an unseen force is using the Clock's Hourbook to blackmail several port magistrates into allowing deeper sea dredging. PCs must infiltrate the Archive Chamber and retrieve or destroy sections of the Hourbook before a fleet opens a rift to the deep.
Hands of the Deep
Campaign scale: The Deep Hand completes a ritual intended to let the kraken extend its influence into the minds of key shipping magnates, threatening continental trade and coastal stability. PCs must gather allies, expose corrupted Hands, and decide whether to sever the kraken connection by killing the bonded Hands or attempt a risky psychic rescue.
Secrets & Mysteries
The Deep Hand, a faction within the Clock, made clandestine pacts with illithid agents and an ancient kraken intelligence. The contact began as a bid to gain psionic edge in espionage but resulted in two high ranking Hands partially mind-bonded to oceanic will. Those Hands now influence certain Chambers toward actions that will increase the kraken's access to surface ports.