The Timekeeper
Eternal Horror
In the before, when time was merely a dream, the primal forces of good and evil waged a endless and beginningless war for control of creation. This was not a war as we would understand it today, for these primal entities did battle with weaponised ideas, sentient emotions and deadly concepts.
It was in this nothingness that the first Timekeepers were created by the primal evil. These dark entities brought a curse more deadly than any previously deployed: time itself. These aberrations could cause form to wither and memory to fade, eventually spreading their infection to all of creation, dooming the universe to age and die.
Today, these terrible creatures are mostly dormant, but some powerful spellcasters bind these creatures to artefacts. Unable to break these magical restraints, Timekeepers remain in their lairs, waiting for someone foolish enough to claim their relic.
The Hands of Time
Timekeepers are creatures from beyond the material world, and so conforming to the laws of he material plane causes them to weaken. They can be killed but never truly destroyed, reforming somewhere in their lair and reclaiming the scraps of their previous form.
Known in folk tales as 'the hands that tick away the flesh', Timekeepers are creatures of the abstract, constantly searching for living creatures upon which to feed and repair themselves.
Timekeepers instinctively seek to spread their curse, rapidly aging any creature it captures. A terrible fate for unsuspecting adventurers in of itself, but even more disturbingly, a Timekeeper must maintain it's physical form by claiming the hands of its victims, ripping them from their bodies at the point of death and assimilating the severed hand into its form.
Because of this, Timekeepers appear as a large leathery cloak, vaguely humanoid in shape, but large and hunched. Inside the cloak hides a sea of grasping rotting hands from victims across the ages. Some detaching and becoming crawling claws which follow in the Timekeeper's wake.
Lodged in the Timekeeper's back is a large grandfather clock. The reason and significance of this is unknown, but the clock's ticking is often heard long before the creature itself, which moves almost silently, and deceptively quickly on hundreds of gentle hands.
Use of the Timekeeper
The Timekeeper was designed to make a long lasting impact on a powerful party, but should not be unleashed lightly. The Timekeeper poses a significant threat due to its dangerous abilities and risks leaving a PC permanently injured, as losing an hand is very much a possibility. At the GMs discretion, you can allow the use of the regenerate spell to restore this, or simply ignore the Timekeeper's Assimilation trait.
The stat block as presented excludes the regenerate spell to play up the cosmic power of the creature as something beyond the scope of a mortal spellcaster, but it is possible and even likely that the Timekeeper will not have such significance in your world.
Be aware of your players' expectations and be prepared to undo the loss of a hand should a player subjected to it be unhappy with the outcome. Parties are used to being able to rest off major injury (something which this creature was specifically designed to subvert), and sometimes veering away from this expectation can cause a player to stop having fun. If this is the case, simply rule that when the Timekeeper dies the PCs hand remains as the body fades away, and allow regenerate to restore the missing limb.
Using the Timekeeper
The Timekeeper is best used as a set piece creature, its presence hinted at in advance. In the Timekeeper's lair, no clocks can move, except the one embedded in its back. Perhaps the party could witness a clock stop suddenly for no obvious reason?
The rotting hands that make up the majority of the Timekeeper are in various states of decay, some breaking away from the creature's body. Because of this, the floor of a Timekeeper's lair is often littered with broken fingernails and crawling claws.
You can use these elements to hint to the Timekeeper before actually revealing it to your players. Even veteran adventurer's will be surprised when the clock begins to tick...
The Timekeeper
Huge aberration, chaotic evil
- Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
- Hit Points 322 (28d12 + 140)
- Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 20 (+5) 17 (+3) 20 (+5) 12 (+1) 12 (+1) 12 (+1)
- Saving Throws Wis +6, Cha +6
- Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
- Damage Immunities psychic
- Condition Immunities blinded, deafened, frightened, grappled, prone, restrained
- Senses truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 11
- Languages -
- Challenge 14 (11,500 XP)
Magic Resistance. The Timekeeper has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Weight of Ages. The Timekeeper is particularly susceptible to items with a long and storied history. It is vulnerable to any damage caused by Artefacts. Also, at the DM's discretion, the Timekeeper can take an additional 1d8 force damage from any attack made with a suitably ancient weapon.
Handedness. The Timekeeper can only claim right hands. If it is tricked into assimilating a left hand, it loses all its damage resistances and damage immunities, and cannot regain hit points until it completes a long rest.
Bound Object. A Timekeeper is always bound to an artefact of some kind. The Timekeepers lair always extends around this object. The object is considered magical, even if it bears no other enchantment. While bound to an object, the Timekeeper is immune to any spell or effect that would cause it to move to another plane.
Immortality. A Timekeeper can almost never be truly killed. If it is reduced to zero hit points, it fades away, returning to life with full hit points in 2d4 days. If, during the period it is destroyed, the artefact it is bound to is also destroyed, the Timekeeper will be obliterated. Not even a Wish spell can restore a Timekeeper destroyed in this way.
Immutable Form. The Timekeeper is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.
Legendary Resistance (2/Day). If the timekeeper fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Actions
Multiattack. The Timekeeper makes six claw attacks, or three claw attacks and one Draining Attack.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (3d4 + 5 slashing damage). The target must also make a DC 18 Strength saving throw. If the target fails it is grappled.
Draining Attack. The Timekeeper can attempt to drain the vital essence from a grappled target. The target must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw or age by 1d10 years. They take 3 (1d4) necrotic damage for each year aged. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the Timekeeper can immediately use its Assimilate ability on the target.
Reactions
Assimilate. The Timekeeper can Assimilate a creature if it reduces it to 0 hit points using its draining attack. To do this, it tears the targets right arm from its body. They immediately fail one death saving throw. The Timekeeper assimilates the new hand into its own body, and regains 1d10 hit points. The lost hand cannot be restored by any means short of a wish spell. Even if the creature is restored with a true resurrection or regeneration spell, the right hand will still be missing.
Lair Actions
Options. The Timekeeper is never encountered outside its lair. It can invoke the ambient magic to take lair actions. On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the Timekeeper can take one lair action to cause one of the following effects:
Temporal Echo. The Timekeeper causes a vision from the past or future to manifest somewhere in its lair. Any creature that can see the echo must pass a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw. On a success, the creature recognises the Echo as an illusion. On a failure, the target believes the illusion to be real. If the illusion appears as something that could be harmful to the creature, it takes 1d6 psychic damage. The target perceives the damage as a type appropriate to the illusion.
Stasis Pocket. A localised area of space becomes frozen in time. A 10-foot square area of ground becomes frozen in time. Any creature in that area must pass a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become petrified until the end of its next turn.
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