Watchstones
# Overview
Watchstones are artificial patrols invented by the Sarvaran minikin for the purpose of giving The Petrified Child a greater visual range. They are rocks with eyes or faces carved into them, commonly made from Alucinarium geodes. They served as one of the first examples of mass-production by the Empire of the Petrified Child.
Watchstones with the ability to move imprint on the closest animal, observing to see if the animal carries out an evil action or an evil action is carried out against it. Due to their animalistic behaviour as defined by the pseudo-fauna principle, Watchstones with the ability to move are often taken as pets or companions in spite of their lack of a soul.
# Utility
Watchstones are given use by the presence of eyes on the surface of rock as the petrified child has the ability to see out of every pair of eyes carved or eroded into rock formations. This is the mechanism which the petrified child uses to detect evil.
Before watchstones began to be carved out of geodes, they were motionless and static despite their effectiveness. This meant a lot of watchstones would be hidden away in pockets as a good luck charm, but this proved ineffective. This led to the cutting of holes into pockets and the specific fabrication of places such as lockets and cases to place watchstones within; this allowed watchstones to serve their purpose more effectively.
They are often given other facial features in addition to their eyes, this practice began as artistic chiselling by the sarvaran minikin but eventually proved to increase the effectiveness and field of view of watchstones, becoming the standard by the time of the Empire of the petrified child.
# Appearance
Watchstones have the appearance of a chiselled pair of eyes / a face upon a hard rock or pebble. When carved from alucinarium geodes, watchstones can additionally feature an internal orange glow visible from the thinner parts of the surface.
In addition, they can feature physically separate ’legs’ used to aid the process of floatation; large rocks or geodes form the main bodies of watchstones, and smaller alucinariferous pebbles form the legs.
# Legs
These legs are made of pebbles taken from the ground, continually picked up with magic and put down when their inherent Alucinara has been used up. They aid the process of floatation in that, being in contact with the ground, they can act as leverage against the force of gravity. This means that less Alucinara is used up by the watchstone, and continuous floatation is sustainable.
# Pebbles
Pebbles continually accumulate alucinarium over time due to Alucinara present in the air, and lose their Alucinara when in use by watchstones. This is why legs are discarded and fall over after a period of use, and why new ones are naturally picked up.
In some areas, the amount of energy is negligible, but in others - such as next to a crystalline alucinarium deposit - pebbles can become greatly saturated with the mineral to the point of geode formation; they are taken as legs at the mid-point of this process.