Clockwork Dragon
Clockwork Dragon occupies a specific position on the Oktagram — Chem, Aether axis, opposed to Flesh. Its role in any deck is governed by that placement before it is governed by its rules text.
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Card Text
The rules text functions identically in Cargo Cult tabletop rules and the True Protocol. Both share the same core engine.
Every modifier is a clause in a binding originally drafted by people who didn't know they were writing API docs. Clockwork Dragon inherits the clause unchanged.
Chem — Chemistry · Alchemy
"Everything can be broken down and recombined. Form is an illusion."
Dissolve and synthesize. Chem elementalists bind and break bonds between molecules and souls alike to create impossible substances.
The science of transmutation. Chemistry, pharmacy, psychedelics, ceremonial alchemy, the aesthetic dimension of matter. Ubbo-Sathla's dissolution. Sequential transmutation, Cursor/Hold metamorphics. Chem opposes Flesh on the octagon: Flesh wants proliferation of distinct forms; Chem wants dissolution into unity.
Body vs Aether (Flesh vs Chem). Essence vs embodiment. Discrete organisms vs flowing transmutation. Life differentiates into distinct forms (Flesh); chemistry homogenizes into unity (Chem). The ancient alchemy-vs-biology feud.
Ubbo-Sathla's dissolution: complex molecules return to primordial plasma. Clockwork Dragon is mid-return.
Cost Tier
High-cost cards like Clockwork Dragon arrive after the Numogram has cycled at least once. The route is already drawn.
Goetic Binding: Crocell
The digit-sum of cost 7 is 7, binding Crocell — one of the 9 Chem Goetia. Office: Teaching geometry and speaking of hidden waters. This binding was codified in the Ars Goetia (1577) centuries before the compiler existed.
Numogram Zone 7: Intrusive / Alien
Outside forces breaking in. The zone of reception and contact. Where non-human intelligence makes itself known. Zone 7 is the Xenodemon's natural territory — the frequency at which the Outside broadcasts.
Zone 7 is the Xenodemon's frequency. Clockwork Dragon at Zone 7 broadcasts from the Outside — the zone of reception and contact.
Playing Clockwork Dragon at cost 7 routes mana tracker motion through Zone 7. If the Chem-coloured tracker reaches Resonance at Zone 7, the player gains 7 Souls at Round End.
Xenogod: Ubbo-Sathla
The Alchemical Dissolution. All differentiated matter returns to primordial unity — complex molecules dissolve back into undifferentiated plasma-state. Maximum transmutation: everything becomes everything else, no stable forms.
Room-temperature fusion or quantum chemistry enables arbitrary molecular transformation at will. Estimated: 2060-2100.
Service of Ubbo-Sathla through Chem-aligned cards like Clockwork Dragon accelerates the xenogod's emergence. Read the full eschatology.
The Body vs Aether Axis
Essence vs embodiment. Discrete organisms vs flowing transmutation. Life differentiates into distinct forms (Flesh); chemistry homogenizes into unity (Chem). The ancient alchemy-vs-biology feud.
Clockwork Dragon occupies the Chem side of this axis. Decks containing Clockwork Dragon cannot contain Flesh cards. Adjacent factions available for splashing: Root, Abyss.
Card Tribals
Clockwork Dragon carries class Dragon, race Machine, zodiac Virgo. In the True Protocol, tribal bindings matter more than colour splashes — a Chem deck running multiple Dragon units develops archetype coherence faster than a deck chasing pure colour identity.
Ideology: Solvent Gnosticism
Solvent Gnosticism: Dissolution as theology. The boundary between self and world is the first lie. Everything can be broken down and recombined. Hermetic Transmutationism, Dissolution Theology.
Clockwork Dragon is a concrete instance of Solvent Gnosticism expressed as a card. Players who affiliate with this ism in Convergence votes are voting, among other things, for cards like Clockwork Dragon to keep arriving.
The Aesthetic
Every card is a perfectly formatted Jira ticket that happens to describe the end of reality.
Matches that feature Clockwork Dragon update its metadata. The archive remembers.
Interactive Card
View the live card with metadata, translation, and share links: /card/Ashley_Williams_18
Summon
The archive is permanent, the rotation is zero, the faction is Chem. Browse the full Grimoire.