Clockwork Pawn Village (New Cave Faction)

[A.P.Erson]

I've been thinking a lot about how there's no version of clockwork pawns despite there being the other chess pieces, and while I know the "reason" is that the pawns symbolize the player characters and the king and queen is Maxwell and Charlie, I would still like to see clockwork pawns in some fashion, and this is my take on them.

Clockwork pawns are very similar to player characters in both shape and attitude in that they are humanoid in shape, to the point they could be mistaken for an actual player mod. The metal that forms their body looks jury rigged, as if they are having trouble keeping themselves together. They live in one of the unused biomes of the caves in one collective village, smaller than something resembling the Hamlet pig cities but larger than a basic pig village. These pawn villages are lit via uncraftable light bulb planters and glow berry farms that are managed by the pawns, for they are ALSO afraid of the dark.

Pawns are special in that their mechanics closely mimic actual players, having 8 slot inventories and 3 equip slots, and even able to use practically anything a player can. They will pick nearby grass tufts and twigs, craft certain items, and can even rebuild their colony should it be damaged. The village consists of imitations of classic survival staples, including tattered tents (of which they will sleep in when sufficiently hurt), their own variants of crafting stations, and even their own variants of chests. These chests however, unlike default ones we can make, are LOCKED, requiring special "cog keys" that are dropped by the designated storehouse pawns that will operate them.

Pawns do not eat traditional food, as instead they run off of nightmare fuel and flammable materials, such as wood, grass, sticks, etc. Their crock pots cannot make regular food and instead make entirely different recipes that resemble normal food, but is instead made of wood, grass, sticks, and charcoal. This includes:

• Woodballs (Carved circles resembling meatballs)
• Gratatouie (Grass ratatouie)
• Char-Cobobs (Charcoal attached to sticks)

These foods are NOT edible, but do make for sufficient fire fuel. You can also "deconstruct" them for basic materials by right clicking.

There are even shop areas, using the same buying system that hamlet shops do, however there are no actual enterable interiors. Instead, they are lain out on a special "shop carpet" that comes in two colors, green and red. The green carpet will gain new items sold by the shop pawn assigned to it and will consist of various supplies, from tools to cave loot to even rarer things such as dreadstone and ruins gems albeit at considerable price. One thing of note is that the shops will never sell food, as they do not eat like players, but instead sell their versions of food listed above in dedicated mess halls where they will be resting on tables instead of the floor. The currency used are individual "cogs", singular gear pieces that can be crafted into new gears if you get a blueprint to do so, also sold. 

The only source of cogs is to sell items, which is what the red carpets of the markets are for. If you put any item on the carpet, the merchant pawn will write on a chalkboard how much he appraises the loot, rewriting it on the fly as you place items on it. Once you are done placing loot you can right click the merchant to confirm with a handshake. The pawns will assign value depending on what they already have and will mark down things that they have a very large amount on, while also giving more for anything that they desperately need, such as base materials and gears which they require to repair themselves.

The pawn village as a whole runs on a reputation system in which they will keep track both individual players AND their views of survivors. If you constantly attack pawns, destroy their village, ransack their chests, or otherwise displease them, they will put up drawings of that player's selected character outside of town on posts and will either refuse service and request they leave, or at worst will kill on sight. If this happens over the course of various other players, then they will transfer that distrust to all survivors, regardless of affiliation, however you can attempt to make recompense by bribing pawn guards with heft amounts of supplies, raising the reputation for both metrics at the same time. It is impossible to fully vilify all survivors to an irreparable level, but if an individual player reaches the lowest level then they will forever be cast out and be incapable of bribery, UNLESS they swap character via a moonstone portal, in which they will forget they are the same person.

Let me know if you like my ideas or if you can think of any extra things.

EDIT: I just thought about it and Clockwork Pawns could wear armor, which would make planar damage piercing armor actually relevant for the first time outside of other planar enemies. (and slurtles I guess)

Edited August 28, 2025 by A.P.Erson

[Well-met]

clockworks in general are in dire need of updates and new stuff

[Frosty_Mentos]

I generally love clockworks and their unhinged vibes, but they sure do need some updating. I imagine pawns being closer to what uncomp mode mod did - spider like crawlies that seek out like they're traps to players. Though I still question if Klei will ever add any more clockworks, considering how there are very few of them. The king is dethroned, the queen comes next - pawns are reserved to be players, since Maxwell either doesn't actually know what pawns are or he plays pretend that he doesn't as to why he never created or repaired any - if there were any to begin with.

Old concept of DS had pawns, never came to light though unfortunately.

[A.P.Erson]

TBH I don't like the uncomp pawns, they just took the old concept art and just shoved it into the game for their own purposes, and they aren't even that fun to deal with and don't even feel like pawns, more like annoying landmines. This at least keeps the theming that Don't Starve is using for pawns while giving them their own twist where they are in a similar situation to how players are doing without just imitating unused concepts. Plus it adds some interesting depth to the caves for some of the empty spaces by adding its own little thing to look for underground.

[Beetrice]

I like this! It could be an alternative to having to wade through shadow monkeys to get to the ruins.