Location
The Clocktower
Zarad Duskmarrow's isolated tower and the source of the necromantic bell pulses that distort the surrounding countryside.
General description
The Clocktower is a narrow, severe stone tower built around a bell mechanism that no longer behaves like ordinary machinery. Weathered masonry, slit windows, iron fittings, and an upper belfry give it the profile of a civic timepiece abandoned to the wild, but the structure feels wrong long before anyone reaches the door. Repeated bell pulses carry farther than sound should, leaving animals agitated, dead things restless, and timekeeping unreliable in the surrounding country.
Reference details
- Proprietor
- zarad-duskmarrow
- Establishment Type
- Arcane clocktower
- Hazard
- Necromantic bell pulses
Key facts
- Zarad Duskmarrow uses the tower as both residence and working site.
- The bell is not merely an alarm or timepiece; its pulses are part of the tower's necromantic workings.
- Mechanical and magical components are interdependent, so damaging visible gears does not necessarily stop the supernatural effect.
- The tower's repeated pulses provide an easy recurring sensory cue for the DM: distant tolling, vibration in metal objects, disturbed birds, or corpses reacting before living creatures notice anything else.
Appearance
The tower should read as vertical, cramped, and overbuilt. Lower rooms are thick-walled and practical. Higher levels become progressively more dominated by shafts, weights, chains, gears, ladders, and the bell assembly. Even when the mechanism is still, minor movements continue: a chain settling without cause, a pendulum shifting against gravity, or dust trembling in advance of the next toll.
History
Whatever mundane purpose the tower once served has been eclipsed by Zarad's occupation. Repairs and alterations are layered over older stonework, making it clear that the current apparatus was adapted to the building rather than designed with it. This lets the DM treat the tower as a place with two histories: an ordinary structure beneath, and a later necromantic machine grafted onto it.
Using the Clocktower
Use the tower to make distance and timing matter. A toll can interrupt a rest, change an encounter, awaken a hazard, or signal that the party has spent too long on one floor. The narrow vertical layout favors choices about who climbs first, what happens above and below simultaneously, and whether the party disables the mechanism carefully or simply tries to destroy it.
Also known as
- clocktower
- Clocktower
- the tower