Welcome to Clocktower Society. This guide was written with dominants and dominant switches in mind. If you are a submissive looking for more information on dom masks, please refer to the guide recently updated and edited by my and my husband’s slave, Coco Pommel, titled ‘The Sub’s Survivalist Dom-Spotting Guide’, a well-written primer on everything you need to know about doms and their masks from a submissive’s point of view.

In this guide I will trot you through how to fashion your own mask and heraldry. Will the mask make you a dominant? No, a mask is just a collection of fabric and colour. It does not make you a dominant anymore than knowing how to crack a whip or tossing a sub into the tentacle pit.

Tentacles can help though.

So what then makes you a dom? Is it the burden of power and responsibility? The privilege and gift granted by your submissive? Is it a profound wisdom that comes as a revelation to all enlightened dominants? You will hear many ponies, both dominants and submissives, insist that being a dom is some or all of the above and many other lofty and preachy things.

Some of them even include tentacles.

The truth is none of them can tell you what makes you a dom as much as they can’t force you to put on your mask. What makes you a dom and why you put on your mask are one and the same - Because you will it. Clocktower’s principles of consensuality applies to dominants too. You become the dom, you wear your mask, because you desire to do so. Only when you freely embrace your identity and don your mask do you willingly take on the responsibilities and consequences that come with it.

Fashioning your own mask means making it entirely your own. What it means, why you wear it, how you wear it, what parts of yourself you hide behind it, what facets of yourself you will allow to show, what persona you shall wear with it, what burdens you shall bear when you carry it - All of that are as much a part of fashioning your own mask as is picking the fabric, colours and decorations. The choices you make influence the sort of dom you are to your submissive(s) and, most importantly, to yourself. Because these are your choices, because you have the freedom and power to make those choices, what sort of dom you become and the consequences thereof are also yours and yours alone.

Thankfully for all of us doms, the path of the dom is a path well-trotted. We are not alone in our pursuit of becoming the ideal dom for ourselves and our submissives. While the mask and the dom we become is ours to forge, we have plenty of guidance from doms, subs and switches who have gone before us. Some will suggest being a maternal leader and making your submissive’s needs and well being your first priority. Speaking from personal experience, that’s generally a good idea. Some say that enjoying yourself just as much as your submissive is important. That could be a good idea too. And some say tentacles are the final word in domination. That’s totally a good idea and you should come visit the Clocktower Research Laboratories and experience it for yourself.

....

Is something troubling you, darling?

I did say you are free to decide for yourself, that includes the freedom to miss out on my tentacles. Your loss, dear.

So fashion your mask, fashion the dom you wish to become, take as much or as little guidance from me, your submissive, and other doms and subs as you will in doing so, and ultimately take ownership of your mask and the dom you are.

Good luck, Dom.

The Mask
The standard issue CTS mask comes with a few useful features beyond making it clear you are not tentacle bait.

Unlike the submissive collars, it is not mandatory to wear your mask at all times. In fact many doms prefer to remove their mask during play. It may be useful to wear them when out in the public areas of the Society, mainly as a form of identification and to make it easier for submissives to identify your interest.

Durability
The standard Clocktower masks are made of a very strong fabric that will hug your face snugly like a second skin. That might not sound like much but trust me, when you’re having fun pegging a sub, you do not need a cheap party favour flapping about on your face.

Eye slits
Allows you to see. Otherwise it’d be a blindfold.

That was a BDSM joke.

Is something troubling you? I could tell you a tentacle joke if you prefer.

Preference Code
Much like the submissive collars, your dom masks code for your preferences in a submissive. They are coded very similarly, such that finding the ideal submissive is simply a matter of matching your mask to his/her collar.

Eagle Vision
If you’ve read a certain unicorn’s (overly personal) collar coding guide then you have probably found yourself wondering how you are meant to be able to figure out what each collar means without anything short of the legendary Pie family sense. Luckily, the Research Laboratories have equipped all masks with an enchantment that allows it to decipher the collar codes for you. Unfortunately, for all their ingenuity they have yet to develop a sensible naming sense.

The Eagle Vision function is conveniently activated by thought, much in the same way as the submissive safety bells. Simply subvocalize ‘Eagle Vision On’ to activate it, ‘Eagle Vision Off’ to turn it off. Once active one can will it to show what each collar codes for as easy-to-read labels. Alternatively one can will it to highlight submissives with preferences that match those coded by your mask. Those that are perfect matches will glow a bright gold, those entirely incompatible (e.g. due to hard limits, etc) glow red while anypony in between will glow varying hues of green.

Fun fact - I glow gold to all masks when I have my collar on. <3

Base Colours
Base colours code for your relationship status and availability.

Red
Red codes for doms who are not interested in owning any permanent submissives. They prefer brief commitments with short term relationships.

White
White codes for doms seeking to own a submissive for a longer term relationship. It is becoming increasingly commonplace for a dom to switch to a white mask as a subtle way of courting a red collar submissive.

Black
Black codes for a dom who already owns a long term submissive.

Adamantite Crystal
Adamantite crystal, a truly wondrous material, with crystalline clarity bordering on transparency and extradimensional properties that cause it to be impervious to the passage of time itself. It is a material so strong it could only be forged in the Fire of Devotion itself. As such they are effectively useless as crafting material outside and entirely unique to the Society.

A mask made of adamantite crystal symbolizes the permanent ownership agreement some doms choose to enter with their submissive, hence why they are also known as an ‘Eternity Mask’. It is a commitment considered at least equal to if not more than marriage and is never one entered into lightly.

Colour Combinations
You can have up to two base colours on your mask, splitting your mask into two colour fields in any pattern you wish. Common combinations include black and white, signifying a dom who already owns a long term submissive but is seeking more, or adamantite and white, often worn by couples looking for a shared submissive.

Colour Border
Some masks may have a band colour running around the outside. This codes for sexual orientation. No colour border means no preferences, i.e. their barn door swings both ways.

Blue
Codes for heterosexual doms.

Purple
Codes for homosexual doms.

There used to be a colour code for those who are tentaclesexual. This was removed due to how obviously redundant it was. After all, everypony is tentaclesexual.

Decorative Filigree
Most masks feature decorative filigree or engravings featuring delicate flowers and leaves, light rays, tentacles, constellations, intertwined ponies, tentacles, that sort of thing. Some even depict the cutie marks of their submissives. The colours used for these decorative filigrees code for the type of roleplay the wearer is interested in.

Orange
Orange codes for interest in roleplaying forceful domination of an unwilling and resisting submissive.

Gold
Gold codes for gentle doms who wish to spoil and care for their submissives, a staple of pet play enthusiasts.

Purple
Doms with purple filigree are keen to play the strict, firm dom who would toss his or her sub to the tentacle plants at least once daily. For health purposes.

Plumes
Plumes are an unofficial addition to the masks that have become increasingly popular recently, taking the form of feathers, horns and other attachments. They are currently optional. They code for how open one is to interspecies relationships. Their recent surge in popularity is owed to the fact that the two Equestrian sites are becoming an increasingly popular hub for visitors from other nations.

You can read more on this in the Interspecies Field Guide by Teddie Safari. However, in short:

No Plume: No preferences.
Red: Seeking a dragon.
Gold: Seeking a gryphon.
White: Seeking a zebra.
Blue: Seeking a deer.
Gray: Seeking buffalo
Black: Seeking a yak
Purple: Seeking diamond dogs
Teal: Seeking a changeling
Orange: Seeking a donkey
Peach: Seeking a pony. The colour of the tip codes for specific tribes (Lack thereof codes for no preference). Gold for earth ponies, red for unicorns, gray for pegasi, white for thestrals, crystalline pink for crystal ponies.

Trinkets
This is yet another unofficial addition that is becoming more and more commonplace as of late. Trinkets are accessories attached to the masks. Some even come with special effects such as light or illusionary fire. The most popular use by far is for displaying the cutie-marks of one's submissives.

Heraldry Medallion
Every dom maintains their own unique heraldry medallion. While wearing this is optional, it is useful to display when meeting new submissives and fellow doms. They can be worn on clothing, hung on a ribbon or necklace, worn as a headband, eye patch, hair ornament or bracelet, etc. as long as it is easily visible.

The heraldry medallion serves several purposes:

Dungeon Level Access
Similar to the safety bells, the medallion’s colour codes for the bearer’s access permissions to the Society’s deeper levels. Silver medals grant access to the upper dungeons, gold medals to the lower dungeons and crystal medals to the deep dungeons.

The deep dungeon is where the tentacle pits are, by the way. Just in case you’re interested.

Personalized Identification
Every medallion is always crowned by the bearer’s cutie mark, allowing it to be used as a unique identifier. This allows it to be used as an ink or wax stamp on letters and ownership documents.

Coat of Arms and Ribbon
Your heraldry’s escutcheon or central coat of arms bears your ‘Crests’. These are granted by the Society’s many guilds and clubs and allow you to display which organizations you are affiliated to. The central coat of arms can be divided into up to six fields, each able to hold one crest. If you’d like your heraldry to bear more crests, you can array them across the ribbons surrounding the central escutcheon. The crests serve a very similar purpose to the badges on submissive hoof straps in that they display to other ponies what specific kinks and fetishes you enjoy.

The crests also serve an extra purpose in that they also allow you to display your achievements in each field. On joining any guild or club you gain the rank of ‘Resident’, granting you a regular crest. Upon gaining enough skill and experience in the group you may be granted the rank of ‘Adept’, allowing you to add a garland to your crest. Upon attaining enough experience to begin teaching your guild’s artes to its residents, you gain the rank of ‘Master’, allowing you to add a crown to your crest. On proving yourself to your guild as one capable of developing and furthering your guild’s artes, you gain the rank of ‘Artisan Prime’, allowing you to add wings and a horn to your crest.

Examples of Guilds and their Crests
The Society’s various Guilds act as both a social club, activities hub, administration block and a school to preserve, propagate and develop their guild’s artes. Each guild has their own headquarters, each sporting their own unique flavour and setting. They all invariably have the following:
•Dom Lounge: The guild’s social hub for doms.
•Slave Pen or Similar: A holding facility for submissives being trained by the guild or awaiting training by the guild. In a way it is the social hub for the guild’s submissives. The form this facility takes varies from guild to guild, with some guild using open pens, some using kennels and cages.
•Training facility: The guilds are generally attached to the facility dedicated to their arte, e.g. the Milkers guild is attached to the milking chambers, the Breaker’s Guild to the breaking chambers, etc.
•Sub Washing Area: The medium to larger sized guilds with their own holding facilities and training facilities would often also have their own submissive washing area. While washing after use is something often done privately in the aftercare rooms, some submissives prefer the experience of being washed roughly as part of play, before or after the session.
•Sub Feeding Area: Some of the bigger guilds also include feeding stations with an ample supply of pre-milked feed as well as fresh feed straight from the tap.
•Artes School: Where the masters instruct residents and adepts in the guild’s artes.
•Registry: A complete registry of all the trainers and the submissives currently being trained in the guild’s artes. In some guilds this is no more than files in filing cabinets while in others it may take the form of an entire hall bearing the profiles of each registered trainer and submissive.
•Training Board: Each guild would have a job board bearing all the profiles of submissives awaiting training from the guild. Doms can browse the board and pick up prospective submissives and have them summoned for training.
•Staff: Most guilds also double as a voluntary caretaker service for the guild itself, its attached training facility and its members. The guilds always have part time jobs paying in Society tallies. Jobs often include general maintenance, teaching at the school and looking after the submissives in the holding pens with general upkeep such as training, taking and setting up for use, feeding, washing after use, etc.

What follows are a few examples of existing guilds and their crests. For a full list, please refer to the full guide on the guilds.

Slave Trainers Guild
Crest: A black mask overlaying a red heart

The Slave Trainer’s Guild (STG) is the most subscribed guild in the Society and is often the first guild new doms and subs join. Its headquarters is the first you’d encounter in the Upper Dungeon Thoroughfare. It’s the domed top-hat-shaped building attached to the main slave pens. Its sheer towering size and brightly-lit facade makes it difficult to miss. They offer the widest range of services, from matchmaking doms to subs with matching preferences and teaching the basics of slave training to beginners to the basics of tentacle survival.

That last one’s very important.

Clocktower Research Laboratories
Crest: A spiralling circle around a clockface

The Clocktower Research Laboratories (CTRL) are one of the society’s oldest organizations, originally founded by the astronomers, scientists, alchemists as well as scholars and mages from Luna’s School of Magecraft who were persecuted as ‘Lunatics’, worshippers of Luna, immediately following the Lunar Rebellion. Sheltered by the Society, they have enjoyed one thousand years of unbridled scientific advancement.

No matter how vanilla you are, you have at some point in your life encountered a product of CTRL, often unknowingly, whether it’s that condom you used last Saturday or the sexual health clinic you visited the following Monday, or that fertility potion your friend and her wife finally decided on and the obstetric services they used thereafter. Or perhaps magically modified and perfectly legal tentacle plants. Or that moon rocket that totally did not start as a chemical-powered dildo. Or all the sex toys ever devised by ponykind. Or teleporter hubs. Or tentacle plants. Or toothpaste, because somepony decided blowjob aftercare would be a thing.

CTRL’s headquarters is situated in the Deep Dungeons, a tower of glass and metal that looks like something straight out of Clocktower Equestria West. Their test subject cages and testing laboratories make up an entire campus sprawling across the depths of the Deep Dungeons.

Tentacle Keepers Guild
Crest: Some really casual crest. A sun-like spiralling circle.

Bunch of casuals.

Pet Trainer’s Guild
Crest: A leash coiled around a collar and feeding bowl

The Pet Trainer’s Guild HQ is situated in the center of Pet Town in the Upper Dungeons and serves as Pet Town’s central hub. It is the large collar-shaped tower in the centre of town, marked by its guild crest. It serves and maintains the sprawling simulated idyllic village that is Pet Town where you cannot trot ten steps without encountering an abandoned pet in a box, where frisbee and running away from the pound catches are the local sport, where both the bird baths and bird feeders are big enough to swim in, where instead of slave pens you can choose between the local pound, the adoption center or the pet shop. The Pet Trainer’s Guild hosts the local pet show which it also uses as its rank advancement test for its members.

Clocktower Academy Guild

Crest: A ruler and a riding crop crossed over an open book

For those who hadn’t spent enough time being tormented in school, there is the Clocktower Academy and its Guild. Situated at the center of the Clocktower Academy Campus, the guildhall makes up a decent part of the main school building. For those who wish to remain in detention for the rest of your lives, this is the guild for you.