Preservers
The living statues of the Frozen Moment, which stand guard over particular moments and prevent any change in them, among them the Memory-Keepers.
Overview
The Preservers are the guardians of stasis in the Frozen Moment. Each stands over a particular moment in time and prevents any change from happening in it. Among them are the Memory-Keepers, which store the memories of the dead, the Stillwalls that freeze time in one place, and the Clockwork, automata that tick in unison and go on counting time where it has stopped.
Appearance
A Preserver looks like a statue in pale stone or frosted crystal, of no fixed shape: a robed figure, a beast, a pillar with a face, often posed as if guarding something. What gives it away is the moment beside it, which is always perfectly kept: a raindrop in mid-fall, a flame that does not flicker, a person caught in a gesture. When it acts it moves very little, a head turning, a hand lifting, and the stillness around it deepens. It is silent.
Habitat and Range
They stand throughout the Frozen Moment, wherever a moment is held, from the edges of its gates to its stillest centre.
Behaviour and Temperament
A Preserver keeps its moment unchanged and allows nothing within its domain to alter it. It does not attack what passes by. What tries to move, take, or touch the held moment, it stops.
Abilities
It stops change. Near a Preserver, motion is harder still than elsewhere on the plane, and an object moved into its moment may be held in place, or shattered as its motion meets the stillness.
Uses and Dangers
Travellers come to the Frozen Moment to preserve a dying loved one, and a Preserver's moment is where such a body can be laid, if the Preserver allows it. Their danger is to anyone who disturbs what they keep.
Lore and Belief
Some families on Caeldon tell of an ancestor laid in the frozen place to wait for a cure, and the tales may be true. Travellers often confuse the Preservers with the Caught, visitors caught in the stillness; a Preserver is a guardian, the Caught are prisoners.
Ruin-delvers tell of an ancestor-hall where a frozen warrior stands guard over a hoard nobody has touched in a thousand years, and of the delver who tried and is standing there beside him.
Where It Appears
In the Writers’ Guide
- The Planes FoundationsThe Ten Harmonics
- Memory-Keepers A Bestiary of Caeldon
- Preservers A Bestiary of CaeldonLore and Belief
- The Clockwork A Bestiary of Caeldon