Vedra Thrice-Bell — Timekeeper
“Cities breathe by their lights and bells—keep the rhythm, and winter never wins.”
Name: Vedra Thrice-Bell
Race: Warforged
Role: : Clockwork Lamplighter & Timekeeper
Appearance: A compact, graceful warforged of brushed ironwood and satin-brass plates, Vedra’s “face” is a smooth mask with etched numerals along the cheekline and a faint, warm glow behind latticework eye-shutters. A hooded, fur-lined lamplighter’s mantle sits over a leather apron bristling with tools: wick-picks, spring keys, tiny oil vials, and a folding tuning fork. A shuttered lantern (custom, with mirrored vanes) hangs from a telescoping staff; three small service bells ride her belt—first, second, and the deeper “third,” from which she takes her surname. Snow beads harmlessly on her oiled finish; a small, ever-ticking escapement turns at her throat like a heartbeat.
Backstory
Vedra was commissioned in Brightcrown as a municipal adjunct for chronometry and night watch, then reassigned to Frosthold when the frontier town expanded its streetlamp grid to cover the market square, quay road, and the ridge path to the Tempest Peaks toll. In Frosthold, where blizzards choke alleys and the aurora plays tricks with shadow, she standardized watch bells, staggered lamplighting routes to create “warm corridors” through the worst storms, and tuned the town clock so caravans leave with the weather’s rare mercy. “Thrice-Bell” marks her custom of striking three tones to signal shift-change, stormfall, or civic emergency. She views herself as part of Frosthold’s infrastructure—steady, impartial, and stubbornly present—so that flesh-and-blood neighbors can get home alive.
