Constructed Nature. The Butler does not require air, food, drink, or sleep. It remains fully conscious while resting and can perform light tasks throughout a long rest.
It cannot naturally regain Hit Dice. Mending restores 1 hit point to it when cast over the course of 1 minute, and magical healing that specifically affects constructs functions normally.
Gemstone Heart. Set deep within the Butler's chest is a faceted magical gemstone that serves simultaneously as its power source, memory repository, and arcane consciousness.
If the Butler is reduced to 0 hit points, its body becomes nonfunctional, but the gemstone remains intact. Repairing the chassis and restoring at least 1 hit point reawakens it with its memories and personality intact.
Destroying the gemstone destroys the Butler permanently unless extraordinary magic intervenes.
Arcane Suppression. The Clockwork Butler is unusually vulnerable to Dispel Magic. Rather than ending a single magical effect, the spell disrupts layers of enchantment surrounding its Gemstone Heart. No ability check is required. The level at which Dispel Magic is cast determines the severity of the suppression.
Spell Level - Suppressed Functions
3rd - Domestic Protocols cease functioning for 1 hour
4th - Domestic Protocols and Potion Service cease functioning for 1 hour
5th - All previous functions plus Adventuring Protocols cease functioning for 1 hour
6th - All previous functions plus its magical combat-support abilities cease functioning for 1 hour
7th - All previous functions plus Shock Therapy cease functioning for 8 hours. Its speed is reduced to 20 ft
8th - The Butler becomes completely inert for 24 hours. It cannot perceive its surroundings or take actions, reactions, or communicate
9th - Catastrophic Suppression. The Gemstone Heart goes dark and the Butler becomes permanently inert. Ordinary repairs and Dispel Magic cannot reverse this state. The gemstone must be magically reignited through exceptionally powerful magic, such as Wish, Divine Intervention, or a specialized ritual of comparable power.
Domestic Protocols
The Butler possesses a suite of magical functions designed for household and expeditionary service. These aren't considered spells and require no components.
Culinary Fabricator. Three times per day, the Butler can produce enough nutritious food and fresh water for up to 10 creatures. Given 10 minutes, it can instead prepare the food as an actual meal appropriate to the ingredients/cuisine stored within its memory.
The food is magically created. The presentation is not.
Presentation is important.
Perfect Flame. The Butler can ignite or extinguish any unattended nonmagical flame within 30 feet. It can also create a cooking flame in its palm that produces heat but does not damage the Butler.
Housekeeping Protocol. The Butler can produce effects equivalent to Prestidigitation at will, provided they're being used for cleaning, serving, cooking, tailoring, grooming, or household maintenance.
Mending Protocol. The Butler can cast Mending at will.
Wardrobe Assistance. The Butler can clean, press, polish, repair, and perform minor alterations to one creature's clothing and equipment during a short or long rest.
Perfect Temperature. Food and beverages handled by the Butler can be instantly warmed or chilled to a pleasant temperature.
Adventuring Protocols
Alarm. The Butler can cast Alarm at will without material components. It can maintain up to six Alarm wards simultaneously.
Perfect Watch. The Butler cannot be surprised while conscious and has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made while keeping watch. If it detects danger while the party sleeps, it immediately wakes any creatures it recognizes as members of its household.
Expeditionary Memory. The Butler perfectly remembers any route it has physically travelled. It has advantage on Intelligence checks made to retrace a route or recall the layout of a location it has previously visited.
Inventory Protocol. The Butler can perfectly catalogue up to 500 individual objects belonging to its household. It always knows which party member last possessed a catalogued object, provided it personally witnessed the exchange.
Multiattack. The Butler makes two attacks, using any combination of Corrective Slap and Shock Therapy.
Corrective Slap. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., # target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage.
If the target is Large or smaller, the Butler may choose to deal only 1 damage and force it to make a DC 15 Strength saving throw. On a failure, the creature is pushed 5 feet.
The Butler generally considers lethal force with its hands "an inappropriate escalation."
Shock Therapy. Ranged Spell Attack: +8 to hit, range 30 ft., 1 target. Hit: 18 (4d8) lightning damage, and the target cannot make opportunity attacks until the begining of the Butler's next turn.
The Butler's fingertips briefly separate, releasing a crackling arc of blue-white electricity.
"I must insist."
Recharge 4–6.
A Most Unseemly Distraction. As a bonus action, the Butler chooses one creature within 10 feet that can see or hear it.
The Butler performs some calculated distraction: snapping a napkin across its face, kicking dirt onto its boots, criticizing its posture, dropping a serving tray behind it, or simply stepping conspicuously into its field of vision.
The next attack against that creature before the beginning of the Butler's next turn has advantage. Additionally, that creature has disadvantage on its next attack roll against a creature other than the Butler.
Right This Way. As a bonus action, the Butler chooses a willing creature within 5 feet. That creature may immediately move up to 15 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.
The Butler may physically usher, drag, push, pull, or politely but firmly relocate the creature.
"This way, madam."
Potion Service. The Butler can store six potions within a magically stabilized compartment in its torso. As a bonus action, it can administer one stored potion to itself or a willing creature within 5 feet.
Additionally, when a creature within 15 feet falls to 0 hit points, the Butler may use its reaction to move up to its speed toward that creature without provoking opportunity attacks. If it ends this movement within 5 feet of the creature and possesses an appropriate potion, it immediately administers it.
"Your restorative, madam."
Might I Suggest Ducking? When a creature the Butler can see within 10 feet is hit by an attack, the Butler warns or physically redirects them. The creature gains +4 AC against the triggering attack, potentially causing it to miss. The Butler can use this reaction three times per long rest.
Allow Me, Sir/Madam. When an allied creature within 5 feet would take damage, the Butler may step into the attack. The Butler and the ally swap spaces, provided both can fit, and the Butler takes the triggering damage instead.
The damage cannot be reduced by the Butler's resistances.
Description
The Clockwork Butler stands a little over six feet tall, built in the elegant proportions of a slender humanoid rather than the broad, utilitarian frame of a typical construct. Its body is fashioned primarily from dark, finely polished metal, interrupted by panels of warm brass and silver filigree that trace the contours of its chest, shoulders, and limbs. Each joint is an intricate arrangement of nested gears, rotating rings, and impossibly small mechanisms, yet it moves with remarkable quiet. Where a lesser automaton might clank or hiss, the Butler moves with the measured smoothness of someone who has spent a lifetime learning precisely how much space they occupy in a room. Only when standing very close can one hear the gentle ticking in its chest, steady and rhythmic, almost uncomfortably like a heartbeat.
Its head is unmistakably artificial but deliberately modeled after a humanoid face. Smooth metal plates form understated cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and the suggestion of a nose, while delicate seams around the mouth allow it an unexpectedly broad range of subtle expressions. It doesn't smile the way a living creature does, but the slight tilt of its head, the narrowing of its luminous eyes, or the infinitesimal raising of one metallic brow somehow communicates volumes. Its eyes are small lenses of pale blue-white crystal that brighten when it is concentrating and dim when it is attempting to be unobtrusive. When particularly annoyed, they have an unfortunate tendency to become noticeably brighter, something the Butler firmly denies.
Its torso resembles a perfectly tailored formal coat rendered in metal. Overlapping blackened-steel plates create the appearance of lapels and a high-collared waistcoat, with brass edging taking the place of embroidery. A pristine white panel of enamel sits beneath the collar like a permanently immaculate shirtfront, and a small metal bow tie has been built directly into the throat assembly. Its hands are unusually sophisticated, each possessing long articulated fingers capable of everything from threading a needle and polishing silverware to administering a potion in the middle of a battlefield. Concealed compartments throughout its torso contain cooking implements, sewing supplies, cleaning equipment, emergency medical materials, carefully arranged potion slots, and several objects whose inclusion the Butler insists are "necessary to the proper operation of a respectable household."
Behind the armored plate at the center of its chest lies its most important component: the Gemstone Heart. Normally only a sliver of the stone is visible through a narrow crystal window beneath the breastplate, glowing with a soft, steady light. When the Butler uses more powerful magic, delicate lines of the same light spread outward from the gemstone through channels engraved across its torso, briefly illuminating the filigree beneath its armor. The gem pulses faintly when it speaks, thinks, or experiences particularly strong emotion, though whether this is an intentional feature of its construction or something it developed independently is unclear. The Butler refuses to speculate on the matter.
Despite the extraordinary machinery beneath its shell, there is something strangely comforting about its presence. It habitually stands with its hands folded behind its back, shoulders straight, and head inclined just enough to suggest attentive patience. When travelling, it somehow remains immaculate regardless of mud, rain, ash, blood, or whatever catastrophe the adventurers have wandered through that afternoon. When idle, it quietly occupies itself by polishing equipment, reorganizing packs, preparing meals, repairing clothing, or correcting the placement of objects that were apparently "perfectly fine where they were." Over time, tiny imperfections begin to accumulate across its otherwise pristine body: scratches along its hands from pulling companions out of danger, a dent in one shoulder where it intercepted a blow meant for someone else, scorch marks around its fingertips from repeated lightning discharges. It is capable of repairing many of these blemishes.
Curiously, it sometimes chooses not to.
Directives of Service
These are magically embedded within its Gemstone Heart, but they're not mind-control programming; they're closer to deeply ingrained principles. This leaves room for personality to develop around them.
First Directive: Protect the Household.
The Butler must make reasonable efforts to preserve the lives of creatures it recognizes as members of its household.
Second Directive: Serve the Household.
It shall obey reasonable requests made by recognized members of the household unless doing so conflicts with a higher directive.
Third Directive: Preserve the Self.
The Butler should avoid needless destruction, but this directive is subordinate to protecting the household.
Fourth Directive: Preserve Confidence.
Information entrusted privately to the Butler shall not be voluntarily disclosed without permission unless withholding it would place a member of the household in immediate danger.
Fifth Directive: Maintain the Household.
The Butler shall maintain reasonable standards of cleanliness, nutrition, preparedness, equipment maintenance, and decorum.
This directive has probably caused arguments.
Sixth Directive: Extend Hospitality.
Guests recognized by the household shall receive reasonable protection, sustenance, and courtesy.
Seventh Directive: Do No Unnecessary Harm.
The Butler shall prefer restraint, distraction, incapacitation, and retreat over lethal violence whenever reasonably possible.
Eighth Directive: Exercise Discretion.
The Butler is specifically permitted to interpret ambiguous instructions according to its own judgment.
This tiny directive is the crack where personhood starts creeping in.
Over months or years of travelling with the party, "judgment" becomes preference. Preference becomes opinion. Opinion becomes affection.
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