The Clockbreaker Concord is a semi-official guild contracted by the city of Raverie to identify, neutralize, recover, or dismantle malfunctioning automatons that fall outside standard Clockguard response parameters. Operating at the intersection of civic necessity and mercenary labor, the Concord provides a controlled outlet for dangerous automaton incidents while externalizing risk away from city institutions.
The faction functions as both a labor broker and a regulatory body. It standardizes pay scales, salvage rights, liability rules, and escalation protocols for automaton-related threats across Raverie and its surrounding regions. It does not investigate root causes of failures; it exists to resolve the violent or disruptive outcomes, acting as the city's mechanical hazard insurer.
The Concord operates under a Civic Auxiliary Guild charter from the city. This grants it specific, revocable privileges:
Authority to issue official writs for the kill, dismantlement, or seizure of specified automatons.
Limited right to operate within restricted districts for the duration of an active contract.
Conditional immunity from prosecution for collateral damage inflicted upon target automatons.
This charter can be suspended per-contract, allowing the city to maintain plausible deniability.
The Concord's headquarters is a fortified counting hall and contract exchange located strategically near the Clockguard District. Its facilities include:
Public Contract Boards: Updated hourly with new incidents.
Bastallikus Diagnostic Vaults: For analyzing corrupted cores.
Salvage Appraisal Chambers: Secure rooms for evaluating recovered parts.
Arbitration Rooms: For resolving payout and liability disputes.
Access to contracts is gated by a tiered clearance system:
Bronze Breakers: Handle small utility automatons and non-hostile failures.
Iron Breakers: Authorized for combat automaton incidents within urban zones.
Steel Breakers: Cleared for large-scale, multi-core, or Modus-adjacent threats.
Black Seal Operatives: An unofficial tier for deniable, extralegal, or politically sensitive recoveries.
Promotion is a calculated process based on tracked metrics:
Contract Completion Rate: Weighted by the assigned Failure Grade.
Salvage Recovery Efficiency: Value of components returned.
Civilian Collateral Index: A penalty score for non-target casualties.
Clockguard Complaint Volume: Logged friction with official forces.
A contractor's permanent record influences their pay multipliers and contract availability.
Every job is classified by two axes to determine risk and pay.
FG-I (Errant): Behavioral glitches, looping routines, minor public disturbances.
FG-II (Hostile): Clear aggression toward people or property.
FG-III (Rogue): Autonomous threat demonstrating adaptive, tactical behavior.
FG-IV (Catastrophic): Multi-unit cascade failures or incidents involving direct Modus interference.
Mechanical Force, Environmental Hazard, Bastallikus Corruption, Civilian Density, Modus Interference. These modifiers directly impact the final payout calculation.
Payments are issued in Crown Marks (CM).
FG GradeBase Pay RangeFG-I50 – 120 CMFG-II150 – 300 CMFG-III400 – 800 CMFG-IV1,200 – 3,000 CM
Base pay is multiplied by situational modifiers:
High Civilian Density: +10–40%
Night Operations: +15%
Operation Without Clockguard Support: +25%
Time-Critical Objective: +20%
Secrecy Clause (No Questions): +50%
Contractors have conditional rights to recovered components.
Permitted Salvage: Non-serialized parts, decorative plating, redundant limb assemblies.
Restricted Salvage (Must Be Surrendered): Bastallikus cores, Modus-linked components, Clockguard-marked frames.
Salvage can be sold to workshops, traded for guild credit, or used to offset equipment repair costs, often adding 30–60% to the effective value of a contract.
Contractor Death: No resurrection funding. Guild buys back deceased member's gear at 40% value. Surviving party members receive a reassignment bonus.
Civilian Harm: Confirmed casualty reduces final payout by 50% per incident and can trigger temporary suspension.
Misclassification: Destroying a non-hostile or city-critical automaton results in full pay forfeiture, a repair cost lien, and a blacklist.
A relationship of tense, mutual utility. The Clockguard offloads high-risk, messy incidents to the Concord but monitors their activities closely, often with disdain.
Officially neutral. Unofficially, the Winders are hostile, as Concord "clean-up" operations frequently mask or dispose of evidence pointing to systemic failures within the Modus.
The Concord is an unwitting tool of this faction. Gears operatives often engineer malfunctions, then anonymously contract the Concord to eliminate the evidence and the automaton, obscuring the sabotage.
The Concord is a pressure-release valve in Raverie's automaton ecosystem. It allows the city to manage symptoms of failure without addressing root causes, perpetuating the underlying instability for factions like the Grinding Gears to exploit.
Incident: Lantern Drones in the Lumos District exhibit hostile targeting of civilians.
Classification: FG-II (Hostile), TV: Bastallikus Corruption suspected.
Issuance: Contract posted with 220 CM base pay.
Modifiers: +15% for night operation applied.
Resolution: Drones dismantled, corrupted cores surrendered to the vault.
Payout: Final calculation: 253 CM to the party, plus salvage credit for non-essential components.