Do watches or clocks of any sort exist in the Forgotten Realms? Certainly. In the 1360s, Waterdeep (and some other cities) rang bells throughout the daylit hours (equivalent of hours), following magical, sundial, or temple (again, magical) clocks. Ere the Spellplague hit, use of water-clocks began to spread, and "hours" entered public usage.
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
What’s the rough value of a water-clock? Are there any nonmagical pocket watches or wristwatches? Water-clocks are still large, cumbersome, and expensive: 1000 gp and up for a commercial one, depending on how ornamental it looks. An artificer could make their own for as little as 200 gp (400 if they have to buy everything from scratch). Clockwork pocket watches are fist- …
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
…-sized and heavy, and some can be bought strapped to bracers, but if you're not a half-orc or half-ogre, they're going to feel MIGHTY heavy on your wrist. However, wristwatch "stopwatch equivalents" DO exist, in the form of precise-time fuses (developed by dwarf and gnome…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
… miners centuries ago: you "wear" a wrist-fuse on a metal plate (so your clothing, hair, and skin won't suffer), light it, and have a 1- or 2- or 5-minute "timedown"). This is used underground, and/or in smoke/fog/mist, to time how long it is before it's safe to go back to…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
… where something dangerous and timed (like blasting, using a similar fuse you lit just before your wrist-fused, and running to cover) is happening/about to happen. Smaller pocket watches are being developed all the time, but thus far the fashion is to wear them around the…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
…neck on a chain (rich merchants, nobles, and even busy warehouse managers are popular practitioners of this), not at the wrist, because in the Realms, many who work with their hands wear bracers or garments with cuffs that store lockpicks, drill bits, finework hooks, …
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
…needles, and the like "handy" at the wrists, so the real estate is already spoken for. ;}
Water-clocks may be large, part-fountain, play tunes or move ornaments (figures that turn, strike bells or gongs, etc.), and take the form of large central-grand-room-feature sculptures.— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018
Thank you once again great loremaster for your encyclopaedic knowledge! I love the idea of ‘neck-watches’ on livery chains for the richest of the rich. A real display of wealth! My pleasure! I mentally contrast a haughty aging noblewoman with an ornate gold-case-and-crystal timepiece on a beautiful ribbon depending from a choker with a hard-at-work crafter who wears hers as part of a leather tool-scabbard or sash bristling with sheaths for divers tools.
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2018