Clockwork Canon

This is a more verbose, convoluted, and unstructured piece on what my game system is supposed to be and how it is played.

In canon the players take on the role of Clocklords. The Clocklords are metaphysical personifications of the 12 points of power, albiet with their own variation of that point. For example, we have a Clocklord of the Ideology hour whose specific characteristic and personality is that of the Federalist ideology. As a Federalist, the Clocklord has special interests in the lives of other ideologists in general, but with a specific influence on Federalists.

As Clocklord, your job is to move the world in mysterious ways through mysterious means. In terms of gameplay, this basically means that you get to manipulate reality at a local setting, specifically the immediate area of your ward, your character. This would include suggesting actions, doling out punishments, doling out rewards, and even tipping the scales a little in your wards favor.

You do this through a cards. Cards come in any shape, any material, and in any form of inherent power. Clocklords merely use these cards through a conduit to manipulate reality.

Think of it this way. Reality in Canon is split in two. There is the corporal plane, all smoke, steal, and clockwork, and then there is the metaphysical plane, the place that fuels and moves the clockwork. The Clocklords are those born with the sheer purpose of running the clockwork mechanisms through the use of power in its twelve forms. Each Clocklord, as I have already mentioned, is a personification of a specific idea or concept incorporated into those twelve hours of power.

Because of this, there is a diversity in personality and agenda. Clocklords are sentient entities too, just like the mortals that populate Canon; but they are also ideas. Thus, as ideas that run the clockwork with their own agendas, they must be given a conduit through which they could run the clockwork in all its levels. This would include pursuing their own agenda. There are only three ways through which a Clocklord could do that and that is through a willing conduit, an entity which has bound itself exclusively to the Clocklord; mortals who are of the same agenda or thought as the Clocklord; or through the use of cards.

Cards are used by channeling the power of the Clocklord through a conduit. In effect, the cards are specific abilities through which a Clocklord is allowed to influence reality. These can only be done through a conduit and only within the immediate vicinity of the conduit.

There are basically three kinds of cards, Suggest, Bless, and Bend. Suggestion is nudging your war or wards where you want them to go. Blessings are concrete things you do to or give to the wards as punishments or rewards. Bending is the act of influencing the clockwork mechanisms that govern the reality of Canon in the immediate vicinity of your conduit in order to bend reality in their favor.

How do Clocklords acquire these cards? Simple, by earning them. In the corporal world of Canon, cards may be acquired through three ways, purchase, construction, and achievement. There are many Clocklords in Canon that see it as their agenda to create abilities. These abilities can then be sold simply because, an ability may only be used for a limited number of time. Once the Clocklord's power has channeled through the conduit and through the card into a concrete influence upon reality, the card itself breaks down.

How does one purchase cards? Simple, by finding individuals in Canon who sell them. How does one create cards? Simple, by collecting the raw materials needed to construct the cards then possessing the skill and knowledge needed to construct it. How does one achieve cards? Simple, by earning them as spoils of adventure or the entire purpose of a quest. Some cards that are achieved in this way might actually be perpetual cards. Cards which never break down. They may even be cards that do breakdown after one use, but of so terrible a power that they are a closely guarded existence.

And that, my friend, is the clockwork world of Canon.