When designing the astral clock for the background of Secrets of the Astral Clock Tower I almost decided to no pursue the full background and just stick to this more abstract one but in the end I did end up finishing up what I had planned for my original idea but since this variant still looks really decent I figure why not post it as well ^^
~ Ion's astral clock, a design he ended up installing in the abandoned clock tower that was connected to his guild house, it tells time with the hands making a full rotation once every 24 hours, the middle top and bottom runes represent the 12 o'clock position with the middle left and right runes representing the 6 o'clock position which also confirms either dusk or dawn depending on whether the sun or moon sigil hand is in the upper position of the clock, as you can think of it as with sun rise to sun set or moon rise to moon set with 6 o'clock being that dawn or dusk trigger for day and night. each orange rune represents a even number on the clock while each blue dot represents an odd one, when the moon is in the upper position it goes from 6pm to 6am clockwise signifying night and the sun in the upper position goes from 6am to 6pm clockwise signifying day with it's position representing the hour (for reference the clock in the background is set to 3am as the moon sigil hand is on the dot that represents 3), It can be read the same way in reverse with the sigil in the bottom position of the clock showing the same time in the "set" position (example again in the background, the sun sigil hand is in the bottom position of the clock showing the sun set at the 3 position, meaning 3 at night or 3am as it rests before the 6 o'clock dawn).
But the clock is not all it seams, while it can tell time that is not it's main purpose, as the clock face itself is a physical Spell Circle Spellseal with the position of the hands, rune discs and the like making different Spell Circles that chart across the whole city of Eios, Ion's home, that he can tap into or setup as a defensive measure to protect is home. Ion can control those positions utilizing the secondary function of his pocket watch which has the same astral clock face if you open the secret flap at the back of the pocket watch which Ion can control either with the dials on the watch itself for by adjusting the hands on the watch with his own Æther with the watch closed, which will mirror the controlled "time" to the clock tower for wherever Ion is in the world and he can even use the the watch as a gateway to instantly trasnport back to the clock tower from anywhere in the world, his astral clock is his masterpiece in his skills of the creation of Magical Items. As each clock face becomes a Spellseal, the power of them can be enhanced as each individual face can become a compounding seal, with the clock having nine total faces, the 4 outward city facing that are visible to all, 4 inner controlling smaller clock faces that set the time to the outer ones connected by a series of gears and the large interior main setting clock which is what the smaller controlling faces receive their "time" from and match up with, mounted in the floor of clock tower interior. The setting clock by default is connected to all the controlling clocks at once but can be connected to each controlling clock individually one at a time or even none at all, making it possible to have 5 different Spellseals chart across the city at one time (one Spellseal for each outer face/controlling clock as they are permanently linked and the setting clock itself when connected to no controlling clocks) which Ion can manage all at once from his little pocket watch, making him fairly formattable while inside his city of Eios. ~
