A Legacy Across Time

The Skylarks, for as long as records have been held, have felt drawn to create a natural order to the world around them. Their hearts are said to be wound like clocks, beating to the world’s never-ending rhythm. Their heads are level and their hands are steady, with eyes sharp enough to pick out the tiniest details. They make watches, clocks, timekeepers of the universe splitting the days into hours, minutes, seconds, with the tick of the clockwork. Evermore Skylark is head of the watchmakers’ guild, like his father before him, and his father before him, and so-on through time. A Skylark’s watch is as renowned for its intricate beauty as it is for its sturdiness.

Soon-To-Be Skylark is the most recent descendant in a long lineage of watchmakers. As the eldest, and currently only, child of Evermore, Sunny grew up surrounded by the tools of the trade, the ticking of clockwork, and the quick work of nimble fingers. She knows the watchmakers’ guild and its members like a second family, and they in turn know her- from the gnomish Hupgarden tinkerers to the proud Highforge dwarves, who cast the delicate gears and springs required for watchmaking.

Soon-To-Be “Sunny” Skylark is the first tiefling in a long lineage of humans. Her father is human, her grandparents are human, and their parents too were human. Sunny never knew her mother, and her father rarely talks of her, but she knows from the revile of her grandparents, and the horns on her own head, that something did not live up to tradition. Evermore worked tirelessly to keep Sunny from feeling the scorn of her infernal ancestry as a child, although he could not keep her protected from it entirely.

Sunny Skylark is the youngest innate magic user in a long lineage of sorcerers. Her sorcerous origins are sprung from her family’s longstanding history with clockwork. Or her family’s longstanding history with clockwork is sprung from their sorcerous origins. It has been so long that no-one can quite remember which one came first.

What they do remember is the Watch, and the Prophecy.

The Watch, and the Propecy

The Watch, like the magic, has been passed down from Skylark to Skylark, generation to generation. With each new owner, the housing is replaced, recreated, refurbished, but the clockwork mechanism remains the same. When Evermore wore the Watch, it was cased in a rounded, scrolling design made of dark wood and polished copper, created by his father, and passed down to him on his 12th birthday. On Sunny’s 12th birthday, she in turn received the Watch, this time encased in carved, tarnished brass, detailing a radiant sun across the cover. Aside from its casing, the second thing of note about the Watch is inscribed on its gears: the Prophecy.

The Prophecy, too, has been passed down. Its meaning has been wondered by countless tongues, its specifics analysed by countless scholars. At least thrice, its fulfilment was anticipated, but never seemed to truly take place. Some wearers of the Watch have claimed to be, or to know, the child of which the Prophecy speaks – many more have dismissed it as simple superstition, passed down so far that its original meaning is forever lost to time. Some call it poetry, some call it a curious version of a makers’ mark. But still, every Skylark knows it:

“When the day comes that the darkness rises with the sun, a child of brass will bring about the longest hour and break the perfect law.”