Blog

D&D Ideas — Clockwork

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is clockwork, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of clockwork in Pay to Play adventures discover an unusual clockwork device and must decide if activating the device is worth the risk! You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Get that monster out of your face! Cultivate a cloud of critters, study the strangest martial arts, push and pull your way to victory plus new live chats with creative folks and industry pros and live game plays round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

We need a good clockwork campaign setting for 5E D&D. The official content doesn’t touch on much clockwork fantasy in D&D at all. Let’s run the numbers over on D&D Beyond. We have 139 constructs, three of which are monsters with Clockwork in the name. There’s also a type of monster called Clockworks described in the creature entry, which encompasses four individual creatures — Bronze Scout, Iron Cobra, Oaken Bolter and Stone Defender. From the plane of Mechanus we also get 5 modrons, which are somewhat related to the clockwork concept — monodrone, duodrone, tridrone, quadrone and pentadrone. This brings us to the final monster — a swarm of mechanical spiders.

All told there’s only about 12 creatures that fit into a clockwork archetype without reworking the other constructs in 5E D&D to be clockwork in nature. On the plus side we’ve got a lot of room to explore or for a third party creator to come in and expand things.

Both the 5E D&D Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide have one small section in them each touching on clockwork concepts. There’s the rock gnome’s Tinker trait granting the ability to construct a Tiny clockwork device in the PHB and Mechanus gets four paragraphs in the DMG. Not very much to go on.

There is plenty of room for low level technology powered by an artsy clockwork aesthetic. In our own world of Ulthe-Ganya we introduced the Clockwork Kingdom full of clockwork people and ruled by the Clockwork King, a gold dragon who had many of its organic body parts replaced with clockworks. The buildings and walls had clockwork affectations of moving gears and cogs.

It would be fun to expand this out to sailing vessels and air ships powered by springs, cogs and gears. Figuring out what societies in a medieval fantasy world with both magic and clockwork technologies could be fun. Would they synergize and be combined or would they be competing factions? Perhaps everyday people would be empowered by clockwork technology while the upper echelon of society relied on magic.

From Ted’s Head

Nerdarchist Ted is on family vacation this week! In lieu of his weekly editorial here’s part of a post from Nerdarchy the Website about clockworks inspired by the Clockwork Soul Sorcerous Origin from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. You can find the full post here.

Bio-mechanics works with the Clockwork Soul sorcerer mechanics

Because a Clockwork Soul sorcerer messes with advantage and disadvantage at a distance I wondered what could possibly cause this messing with advantage and disadvantage outside of the mechanics of this subclass. Situational factors impose disadvantage and grant advantage, right? What would interfere with a situation like this? And without a proper action spent?

That’s when I had the picture in my head of a cyborg releasing tiny robots and other mechanical contraptions from their body itself. Maybe thopters, maybe nanobots, maybe something else. Mechanical extendo-limbs would definitely work to do it. Yeah! This makes sense.

The 6th level Bastion of Law feature intrigues me. I picture a massive cybernetic limb or other machine detaching from the sorcerer and transforming into their shielding ward. In a similar way the 14th level Trance of Order feature evokes having actual machine parts helping to compensate for frail or unpredictable biological parts. While the feature is reminiscent of a rogue’s Reliable Talent it also hits the consistent machine flavor especially with the option to spend Sorcery Points to use the feature again.

The 18th level Clockwork Cavalcade capstone feature of the Clockwork Soul involves summoning creatures to reinstate order. Once again all I can envision is a cyborg sorcerer unleashing robots from their body. Everything about this works on a fundamental level and when you consider a more science fiction or science fantasy setting this works so much more.

Clockwork Soul spells reinforce mechanical flavor

A feature of both the Clockwork Soul and the other Sorcerous Origin in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is gaining new spells at certain levels. These spells don’t count against the number of spells known much like what clerics receive. This is essential for many sorcerers as this is where much of their flavor and versatility comes from.

Alarm is obviously coded as a siren without much alteration. Curative spells like aid and lesser restoration are easily described as chemical injections. Dispelling magic? Resisting damage? Both would fit easily into a mechanical theme in Eberron, Spelljammer or any number of other settings where the lines between technology and magic blur. I could go on with ideas but I feel like the concept speaks for itself.

Character ideas for bio-mechanical Clockwork Soul sorcerers

Many famous cyborgs come to mind with this subclass flavor idea. Cyborg from Teen Titans, Megaman, Alita Battle Angel. I could even see this sorcerer remaking a version of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, though he’s really more of a wizard than anything.

Any warforged character would thrive with this theme, and when you consider many sorcerer spells could be tweaked and codified with a bit of mechanical flavoring as suggested in another section of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything this idea works all the better. Manifesting a freeze ray gun on the forearm is this sorcerer’s version of ray of frost while wall of force and other force based spells? Force fields generated by machines!

From the Nerditor’s Desk

I make no secret about my love for extraplanar stuff when it comes to 5E D&D. Planar travel and adventures don’t wait for characters to reach higher levels in my campaigns. This is one of the reasons I’m excited for Wild Beyond the Witchlight, which pulls adventurers into the Feywild almost from the start of the campaign. Why not explore the same concept with a plane all about clockwork?

“On Mechanus, law is reflected in a realm of clockwork gears, all interlocked and turning according to their measure. The cogs seem to be engaged in a calculation so vast that no deity can fathom its purpose. Mechanus embodies absolute order, and its influence can be felt on those who spend time here.” — from the 5E D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide

Imagine playing a campaign taking place entirely within the realm of absolute law where clockwork permeates everything. How would you run a game like this? For starters the DMG includes two optional rules for representing how different circumstances are compared to the Material Plane where traditional adventures take place. One rule makes average damage the default for all attacks and spells while the other exerts tremendous influence on creatures’ alignment geared towards turning them lawful neutral. What else could a DM incorporate to distinguish this extraplanar clockwork realm from the mundane world?

• All creatures change their type to construct (even the player characters?)
• Everything is made of clockwork components including nature itself like trees, rocks — even water is composed of microscopic gears!
• Timing is everything and life moves at a brisk pace
• Travel is affected by the turning of the gears upon which everything is constructed

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head to make a Mechanus campaign more distinct. Character abilities and spells would be greatly affected if everything native to the plane is a construct (read carefully!). Nature gets thrown for a loop too. Perhaps a day in Mechanus is determined by one click of the massive gears, which alter the entire landscape the way the Strangers make changes to the eponymous Dark City in that terrific film. Since timing is everything, if adventures miss their chance to travel to a new region they’ll have to wait until the gear configuration comes around again.

Adventures in Mechanus could be fairly easy to come up with too, at least conceptually. Anything mucking with the order of things creates cause for questing. A nefarious plot perpetrated by slaadi makes a fine fit for a campaign arc and an opportunity to really dive into the lore of those horrific monsters from Limbo.

If an entire campaign set in Mechanus feels like too much for you to handle it’s just as easy to take these elements and incorporate them into a more traditional adventure. Perhaps Primus takes an interest in the Material Plane and establishes an outpost there. This powerful influence begins transforming the area and the creatures within to change everything into clockwork. Time is of the essence for heroes to do something about this! Since everything from Mechanus follows a rigid structure and schedule, discovering the detailed plans Primus concocted makes for an great inciting incident during the party’s first adventure!

*Featured images — A mirthful construct offers temporary boosts for a single coin to characters willing to pay to play along with 54 other dynamic encounters ready to drop right into your Fifth Edition games in Out of the Box. Check it out here. [Art by Kim Van Deun]

Subscribe to Nerdarchy Live and get notifications for live RPG game plays, chats with creators and industry professionals and new video series and content on our second YouTube channel here