The unique and closely guarded magic controlled by @The Amber Citadel . By manipulating and casting liquid, magical amber, the Citadel's chronomancers (time mages) can bind, slow down, or completely freeze the flow of time around physical objects, creatures, or entire locations. In the Citadel's deepest, subterranean vaults tick the monumental clockworks that keep the entire fey realm's timeline stable. Stealing, forging, or tampering with amber materials is considered one of the absolute worst crimes in the realm and is punished mercilessly by the Citadel's justice system.
Encapsulation (Stasis): By casting liquid amber around an object or creature, it freezes its time. A sword encased in amber becomes immortal and never loses its sharpness. Food and rare herbs covered in a thin layer of amber varnish can be transported for months without aging for a single second.
Time-Slowing: Large blocks of processed amber act as "time anchors." They are placed in strategic areas (such as the dangerous mine shafts of the tundra) to slow down time around falling rocks or unstable structures, giving workers time and safety.
The Amber Cells: In the prisons of the citadel, amber magic is used to freeze the realm's most dangerous criminals or monsters in gigantic amber blocks. To those trapped, not a single moment has passed, even if a hundred years have passed outside.
Deep beneath the citadel, where monumental clockworks and gold pendulums move in a perfect ritual dance to regulate the fey realm's timeline, lie the silent clock vaults.
In this subterranean archive, the air is completely still and smells heavily of ancient resin. It is here that history has frozen in time. Along the stone walls stand hundreds of rectangular blocks of amber, arranged like pillars. Each block glows with a faint light, and within them lie historical figures, legendary heroes, and extinct monsters. You can see the terror in the eyes of a monster in mid-leap, or the tears on the cheek of an ancient queen. They are biologically alive, but their time has stopped.
@Thalor (The Amber Creature): It is in this silent underground vault that the amber construct Thalor wanders back and forth. With his slow movements and ticking gears in his chest, he polishes the blocks and keeps the archives in order. If anyone is looking for lost knowledge, it is to The Chrono-Vaults that they must go, and it is Thalor that they must negotiate in order to study, or in the worst case, thaw out, the creatures that rest in the golden amber.
Manipulating time comes at a set price. If an object or structure has been frozen in amber for a long time, and the amber is suddenly crushed or melted down incorrectly, all that lost time can befall the object in a single second. A sword can instantly rust to dust, and a creature or building can crumble to pieces in an instant if the magic is carelessly broken.
One of the monumental clocks in the underworld has begun skipping a beat every twelve hours. Each time it happens, time stops for everyone in the citadel for exactly one second – but no one but the players seems to notice.
Someone has been trying to break into @The Chrono-Vaults to thaw a specific prisoner, and Thalor is looking for clues as to who carried the unauthorized melting magic.
Smugglers have found a way to steal raw, magical amber from ancient ruins in the wilderness to sell on the black market for a very high price.