Session 62
Session Goals
Establish the fragile alliance between the King and the Watchmaker.
Let players question or react to the alliance.
Introduce the new temporal/dimensional threat in real-time.
Set up a key shift: from political intrigue → existential danger.
🧭 SESSION STRUCTURE 1. Opening Scene (5–10 mins) – The Waiting Room
The players are already seated or standing in the Hall of Hours.
Description:
The Hall of Hours is cold and quiet. Clockwork mechanisms tick softly in the ceiling—thousands of tiny gears floating in enchanted suspension. Twelve enormous hourglasses ring the walls. None of them match. One has sand that flows upward. The only door behind you is sealed. Before you, a great obsidian table shaped like a crescent.
Let players discuss, speculate, and interact with the room. A passive Arcana or History check (DC 12) reveals this chamber was used only during ancient succession crises or magical cataclysms.
A successful Arcana check (DC 18) may reveal the room is built atop a temporal leyline—likely part of the Watchmaker’s doing.
2. The Arrival (5–10 mins)
Sound effect cue: A low hum—like a tuning fork vibrating reality itself.
The gears pause. Not stop—pause, as if time itself holds its breath. Then the great door swings open. Two figures enter, flanked by guards: One in ornate black-gold armor with a deep red cloak—the King. The other in muted silvers and blue, wearing a complex gauntlet ticking softly—the Watchmaker.
They sit (or remain standing across from the party). There’s a tense silence. Then, dialogue begins.
3. Dialogue Scene: The Uneasy Alliance (15–20 mins)
Use this structure:
➤ Opening Statement (King):
King Alric: “You return from the north, bringing tales of shattered keeps and cursed valleys. Yet while you hunted ghosts, my capital cracked. I trust your travels were worth it.”
(Let players respond—he’ll listen, but he's sharp and testing.)
➤ Watchmaker Adds (Curt, Factual):
The Watchmaker: “They delayed an event that should not have occurred. And now, the timeline bleeds.” He gestures to one of the hourglasses. “These were steady before. None of them agree anymore.”
➤ The King Sets Stakes:
“My child lives. You once tried to end him, Watchmaker. And yet here you stand, not in chains, but under my protection. Explain yourself. Explain this alliance.”
➤ Watchmaker (Grim Revelation):
“The ‘true’ timeline is beyond repair. Your child is not the cause… merely the catalyst. Something else has noticed. Something that feeds on fractured time.”
“I can hold the seams together. For a while. But I need your leyline access. Your vaults. Your trust.”
4. Player Interactions (Freeform – 10–15 mins)
Let the players:
Ask pointed questions (e.g., “Why help now?” “What are you hiding?”).
Try to persuade the King to trust or distrust the Watchmaker.
Offer their own theories or solutions.
Demand accountability for the Watchmaker’s past crimes.
You can use Insight checks to reveal small tensions:
The King is unsure—his alliance is one of necessity, not faith.
The Watchmaker is afraid—something he's never shown before.
5. EVENT TRIGGER: The Fracture (20+ mins)
While a player speaks or makes a point, interrupt with...
Narrator (you): “There’s a flicker—like a stuttering candle—and suddenly the room dims. The hourglasses… start to turn. All of them. In unison.”
“A low vibration hums through your bones. The Watchmaker whips his head up. His gauntlet is glowing red—something it’s never done before.”
The Watchmaker: “No. Not here—”
- The air in the center of the room tears. Not with sound, but with silence. A black rift, like slashed velvet, opens in midair.”
“Through it… something steps.”
👾 The Creature Appears ➤ Description:
A long-limbed, eyeless beast of black-glass skin, reflecting twisted versions of the room around it. It flickers in and out of view. Sometimes it has three arms. Sometimes five. When it speaks, it does so in backwards echoes of the players’ own voices.
➤ Optional Mechanics:
It’s partially out of phase: normal weapons miss unless enchanted or blessed.
At the start of each round, it “resets” one thing: a player’s last action, their current HP, or even something they learned (Intelligence save or lose a memory).
The Watchmaker can anchor it—but only with help.
🛠️ Encounter Options:
Combat encounter (for a mid-tier party)
Skill challenge to close the rift (Arcana, Insight, Persuasion to get the Watchmaker to trust them, Constitution saves to resist the time-warp)
Dialogue with the entity if your party prefers mystery over combat
🧠 Aftermath & Climax
Once the creature is banished, flees, or is destroyed:
The Watchmaker, bloodied, clutching his gauntlet: “That… was not a deviation. That was an invader.” “Something beyond time is here.”
The King, staring at the closing rift: “Velandor bleeds. And now I see it clearly. We are not mending history… We are surviving it.”
🎁 Session Rewards
Clues about the nature of the new threat
Temporary truce or trust between party and the Watchmaker
Possibly a Time Anchor Device (if they helped stop the creature)
Leads for their next destination: places where the timeline is weakening further
