On the Working of Clocks

 

This is a model of a simple, mechanical pendulum clock.

1. The escapement wheel (yellow) strives to rotate clockwise (duh) drawn either by a spring or a weight hanging from a string wrapped around its axis.

2. The anchor (grey) allows the wheel to only rotate incrementally, one cog at the time, as directed by the swinging pendulum connected to the anchor. The force of the escapement wheel at the same time gives a little push to the anchor to keep the pendulum swinging. The clicking sound of a pendulum clock is due to the light tapping of the anchor arms on the escapement wheel.

3. The rest is a question of casing, gears and hands, translating the mechanism's movement to our definition of seconds, minutes and hours.

The very basis of clocks or indeed any time measurement device, is something observable that changes at a steady pace. This goes for the day to night shifting of our revolving earth, the flowing of sand in an hourglass, the behaviour of atoms in an atom watch or any other time measurement device. In a pendulum clock, the steady pace is set by the swinging of the pendulum, which is basically constant under given circumstances.

On the passage of time in Forbidden Lands

My reason for considering the mechanisms of clocks, is the following thought concerning the passage of time in the game Forbidden Lands:  

What if clocks exist that don't measure time,
but instead direct aging and passing of time?

 I haven't fully decided where to go with this, but I will know when the upcoming Alderland expansion is published. These are some of the question I'm pondering:

* What if the drive to age – the striving of the clock's escapement wheel to turn – is applied by intelligent beings, death gods or their minions constantly pulling at the feet of the living?

* What if the rate of aging – the swinging of the pendulum – is set by biological oscillation? We have several examples of molecules in our bodies that swing between two different states depending on circumstances, the taut / relaxed form of hemoglobin for instance. What if such a biochemical switch is purely cronological?

* What if the clocks of aging have actively been set by some intelligent being?

* If so, then why don't elves age?

* What if you came to a valley in Alderland where flowers periodically shifted from violet of orange due to the biological pendulum?

* What if some smart dwelvers have studied the biological pendulums? What if they found out how the mechanisms of aging could me manipulated, either by removing the driving force OR by jamming the biological pendulum.

* What if they already experimented with this several hundred of years ago, as they forged Horn's Astra and built the Metrochrone of The Sisters' watch in Aslene?

* What if the leading mind behind the current dwelver research has lost it and now appears in markets as a fool named The Pagnillo?

* What if the adventurers' task would be to find The Pagnillo to either kill it as a threat to world order OR to get it back on its research track?

Sculptress: Margareta Persson