One of the most essential pieces of equipment for any Watchman of the Oblivion Order is their Almanac. Secreted within the pages of this book are the temporal maps and details logs of their missions into the past.
The Almanac is a sympathetic book which has been quantum-entangled with a twin kept within a special department of the Copernican Guild. The Guild’s statisticians continuously rewrite and update the contents, spending their days calculating the best course of action. Lines of probability animate across its pages, creating new temporal maps to help the watchman find the key moment of adjustment.
As Rufius Westinghouse has said on many occasions, ‘changing the past is a subtle business, not something to be taken lightly’. One minor correction could change the course of a war. Without the predictions of the almanac keeping the past in check the continuum would collapse and chaos would surely follow.
Almanac’s are also a useful research tool for taking notes and accessing the near-infinite resources of the Order. Since the books are kept in sync by their entangled state, they can act as a two-way messaging system, allowing the user to retrieve information in a matter of seconds (though it may have taken several days at the other end), taking advantage of the time dilation effect.
Usually kept on the person at all times, it is one the most important devices in the time traveller’s arsenal.
Note: This image was created using Midjourney ai, a very interesting approach to creating digital art using machine learning. I’m looking forward to creating more elements from my books using it and may even produce a line of artworks from it.