Homebrew Clockwrought Species Details
Clockwrought
Former fairies. Taken. Remade.
Size: Small
Dominant Traits: Mischievous • Warlike • Survivor
Primary Role: One of the Taken
Magical Theme: Music, darts, one mechanical wing
Once, they were simply fairies—tiny guardians of overgrown glades, pranksters among moonlit mushrooms, singers to sleeping trees.
Then the Taking happened.
No one knows what force stole them. Some whisper a rogue faerie court of clockwork alchemists… others claim a monstrous Beast capable of reshaping fae flesh like clay. A few speak of mortals—warlocks, artificers, or cultists—who learned to pull fairies out of the world between worlds.
Whoever their captors were, the Taken fairies returned twisted.
They did not escape unchanged.
- One of their wings had been ripped away, replaced with a humming, rust-sweet mechanical one.
- Their natural magic now carries discordant undertones—melodies that unsettle animals and stir nightmares.
- Their eyes sometimes flicker with faint unnatural light, especially when remembering fragments of their captivity.
- Their mischievous nature became sharper, darker. Pranks turn dangerous. Songs turn hypnotic.
And most terrifying:
They returned without their memories.
Yet their bodies prove someone—or something—still owns a piece of them.
APPEARANCE — DARKER VARIANT
Inspired by your image but infused with corruption:
- Slim, humanoid fae with large natural wings on one side and a machine-forged wing on the other: brass, crystal lenses, humming gears, wire-veins that glow like fireflies in dying light.
- Eyes that shimmer with a strangely reflective glaze, as if another consciousness occasionally looks through them.
- Their clothing is scavenged, ragged, and mismatched—half forest fabric, half artificer straps and metallic buckles.
- Their smiles are bright… but slightly too sharp.
- Their presence brings a subtle tension in the air, like the forest holding its breath.
BACKSTORY — WHAT THEY USED TO BE
The Hollow-Winged were once one of the most joyful fairy species:
the Silverdew Sprites, known for music, lantern-lit dances, and gentle pranks.
The Taking began when children from mortal towns wandered into the forests… and then the fairies themselves began disappearing.
The Silverdew tried to fight back—tiny bows, shimmering horns, wing formations—but against their unknown captors, they were nothing.
Those that returned were no longer Silverdew.
They had no memory of the chambers, the rituals, the metal grafting, the humming spells… but they could feel the absence. Their dominant emotions—mischief, courage, stubborn survival—were all that remained intact.
CURRENT GOAL — SINISTER TWIST
Every Hollow-Winged feels it:
A faint pull.
A whisper in their mechanical wing.
A sense that the thing that took them…
isn’t finished.
Their goal is no longer just discovering the truth.
They want to ensure the Taking stops.
Whatever abducted them is still out there, and they know—somewhere in their broken memories—how to find it.
But uncovering the truth risks awakening whatever left its mark inside them.
MAJOR CONFLICT — THE THING THAT MADE THEM
The true antagonist is something that wants them back.
Possibilities (you choose later):
- The Broken Artificer Court
A splinter fae court obsessed with mechanizing beauty.
They see the Hollow-Winged as unfinished masterpieces.
- The Beast of Many Mouths
A nature god gone feral; it reshaped fae into tools of its hunger.
It wants its pets returned.
- The Clockmaker in the Roots
An ancient creature beneath the world tree that grafts machines into living beings to “improve” them.
Whatever it is, it isn’t done with them.
🌑 GROWTH ARC — FROM VICTIM TO HUNTER
Their story is about reclaiming themselves.
They may:
- Recover scattered memories like broken mirror shards
- Accept or reject the part of them that is machine
- Restore their natural wing… or replace the other one too
- Confront the entity that took them
- Free others still trapped
- Or become rulers of a new fae lineage—half natural wonder, half arcane machine
By the end, they stop being Taken.
They become the ones who Take Back.
Clockwrought Traits
Mischievous, Warlike, Survivor
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