The World
of the
Winding Clock
The Winding Clock is a place where stories of talking whales, monsters wandering the hinterlands, and unbreakable swords are received with equal parts belief and skepticism. Where the lines between nobility and commoner are beginning to fade along with the old world. A place where fate's delicate hand can be shifted by the will of gods, demons, and men alike—for those willing to try.
The Lochsmith series is set in the port city of Marenburg, an economic hub connecting trade routes across the world. Tall brick buildings rub shoulders with new factories on its ancient, narrow streets, and the burgeoning science of electricity is just beginning to work its way into daily life. Traveling north from there into Old Cinq, one would wander through farmland still tilled with oxen and towns where timeworn ways hold sway.
The juxtaposition of these lifestyles and the slow change an industrial revolution makes as its effects sprawl outward are some of the many things I enjoy exploring in my work, and which characterize the Winding Clock. Deep-rooted magic further colors the world, and builds into its anachronistic setting of technological development alongside centuries-old tradition.
Maps of the Eastern half of the Winding Clock and of Marenburg proper, drawn by SM Somerset, to be added soon. Inspired by the cartographic style of ones like the Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica by Johannes Jansson pictured above.