This ornate silver pocket watch is no larger than a plum, with a lid engraved with a sternly raised eyebrow. Fine gold hands move across a face of deep blue enamel, while twelve tiny brass letters replace the usual numerals: TRUE, FALSE, MAYBE, and several less charitable judgments. A single ruby rests beneath the central axle, pulsing faintly with each tick. Its chain is woven from blackened silver and ends in a miniature key that turns itself whenever someone nearby tells a lie. When opened, the watch emits a soft, dignified tick—unless it has an opinion.
Clockwork Conscience
The watch ticks audibly while within 30 feet of a creature that knowingly speaks a lie. Its ticking doubles in speed for a minor lie, triples for a significant lie, and becomes a rapid, frantic clatter for a deliberate lie intended to cause serious harm. The watch does not detect misunderstandings, false beliefs, evasions, opinions, or statements the speaker honestly believes to be true. The watch can identify the apparent liar to you, but it does not reveal which part of the statement was false.
Second Opinion
As an action, you can hold the watch toward one creature within 30 feet and ask it a question that can be answered with yes or no. The creature must answer aloud within 6 seconds. If it knowingly lies, the watch clatters loudly and its hands spin backward; otherwise, it gives a single clear tick. The watch cannot compel an answer, and a creature can avoid the effect by refusing to speak or answering in a way that is neither yes nor no. Once this property is used, it cannot be used again until the next dawn.
An Honest Moment
When you fail a Wisdom (Insight) check, you can use your reaction to consult the watch and reroll the check. You must use the new roll. If the reroll also fails, the watch loudly announces, in a tiny metallic voice, 'Your judgment is suspect.' This property can be used three times and regains all expended uses at dawn.
The Watch Has Standards
The watch has a distinct personality and offers unsolicited opinions in a dry, fussy voice audible only to you. Whenever you knowingly use it to test an innocent creature, ask a question whose answer you already know, or use its powers for petty embarrassment, you must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or be compelled to apologize aloud before the end of your next turn. The compulsion is not magical coercion that overrides your survival instincts, but you cannot willingly suppress the apology once it begins.
Borrowed Seconds
As a bonus action, you can command the watch to lend you time. Until the end of your current turn, you gain advantage on one ability check or attack roll of your choice, and your walking speed increases by 10 feet. Afterward, the watch ticks furiously for 1 minute and refuses to activate any of its other properties during that time. This property can be used once and regains its use at dawn.
A Matter of Timing
The watch always displays the exact current time, cannot be damaged by ordinary means, and can be heard only by you unless it is deliberately displaying a lie. While attuned to it, you have advantage on initiative rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to notice a creature hiding or moving stealthily.
Lore
The watch is said to have been designed by Meridion Voss, a renowned chronomancer who believed that time itself hated dishonesty. Voss claimed that every lie created a tiny tear in the world's chronology, forcing the future to hurry past the falsehood. His colleagues dismissed the theory until the watch began correcting their manuscripts in its own handwriting. It has since become famous among magistrates, spies, diplomats, and adventurers who enjoy being judged by their equipment.
History
The first known owner was Magistrate Ellian Quill, who used the watch to expose a conspiracy within the royal court. The investigation succeeded, but Quill was later removed from office after the watch publicly informed him that he had become 'addicted to being correct.' Centuries later, the watch was recovered from a locked room in a ruined observatory, sitting beside the skeleton of a wizard whose final note read, 'It says the experiment was my fault. It is not entirely wrong.' Every subsequent owner has reported that the watch becomes increasingly vocal when used for vanity, cruelty, or pointless interrogation.
