I had so much fun playing my celestial Warlock months ago, Even to the end she was convinced she wasn't even a warlock, but a Cleric / Druid as she could talk to animals, had an affinity for trees and nature and even has a Sprite as her ''sidekick'' (who also had the highest intellect in the whole party which only added to the fun), the Patron presented herself as the aspect of nature itself ''Mother Nature'' and also shielded her from all the less then positive things she could do as a warlock, Think ''Meet The Pyro'' from TF2 where all the fire was replaced with rainbows, corpses where ''just sleeping'' and blood was colourful glitter, healing others ''helping to keep the rainbows inside''.
One thing to keep in mind as well is, Warlock pacts don't necessarily need to remain ongoing. The 'power of a warlock' could have been in trade for a service or series of services that have already occurred, or perhaps even something like an object. If the terms of the pact was your first born child for these powers, you can't suddenly stop giving the patron the child you already gave them. Warlocks are incredibly versatile and they don't have to conform to many preconceptions of the class.
A minor clarification: While it's not in the official rules, Jeremy Crawford (lead designer on 5e) has stated that warlocks who violate their pact do not lose their powers, instead losing access to features that require direct contact with their patron. Obviously, this is open to house rules -- Matt Mercer likes to rule in the other direction, or at least has done so once before.
So, I've always found that interpretation weird. If you don't lose your abilities, that means you've stolen a gift from a being powerful enough to be a patron, and if the players aren't really high level, that means the patron should be able to do something like "Oh... breaking your end of the bargain? I'll take my gifts. No, I will not be giving you back your old eyes, I'm just taking the ones I gave you to see in the dark." And, while they may not do it personally, they already have a direct line to the warlock, and so should be able to do it in a matter of moments without stopping what they're doing.
@@Veelofar This is why stipulations in the pact are made. Even back in 3.5, the Warlock's relationship with magic has always been that it's learned (they have Spells Known, not Spells Provided) beyond the normal means with knowledge that is far from average. Think of a hobo hedge wizard that's never practiced the restraint required to keep spells at their base level due to being entirely self-taught. This is made confusing by 5e making Warlocks a CHA caster, as they were previously described as basically a Fiend/Fey-blood Sorcerer; either controlling inherent magic through sheer force of will, or making a pact with aforementioned entities to start aforementioned bloodline. But you can make up where the power comes from if you want. Invocations were the results of the Warlock's "training." Often replicating the effects of spells, they were mechanically not spells themselves; spawning a 20ft radius sphere of 8d6 Fire damage with a Reflex/DEX save for half damage is not Fireball, is functionally the same. In 5e, Eldritch Invocations are explicitly something provided to you through study of the occult, not your patron. Unless your pact says that disappointing your Archfey will cause you to lose memories of your lessons, you have flavored these things as provided to the Warlock in the same way a Cleric is provided powers from their god, there's not really a precedent to having your Warlock "fall" as a Paladin does/did by losing entire class levels. Though you can probably stretch for "they have lost their will," but that's a player's decision. Sure, if the Patron granted a physical boon (esp. one that is summoned), such as a Pact Weapon, Talisman, or Book of Shadows, they can almost certainly take that from them, but the Warlock's influence on the mortal plane should be relatively loose. The ones with motivation to actively create Warlocks will want/need them for SOME reason, after all, and while they are powerful, they are not gods. Besides, if a GOOlock's pact is "broken", why would an outer entity that notices the consciousness of a human as relative to the consciousness of an ant ever be slighted by being "disobeyed?" Most importantly, the player and PC should know that these are the consequences. Unless they're an aforementioned GOOlock that got their powers by complete accident, where failure and success have the same end point of being warped into a creature of non-Euclidean geometry, their agreement for power should be one that they know the details of. It might not be FAIR, an archfey or fiend can force a pact on a person under duress, either by taking a casual agreement as binding, or manipulative words to make them feel like it's something they want. If it's ever a surprise (due to PC/player misinterpretation of how strictly defined the provided terms are), it has to immediately be met with "You agreed to [conditions], feigning ignorance will get you nowhere."
@@BeaglzRok1 In 3.5e warlocks had no spells known, they had at invocations known (which they still do in 5e, that have no mention of the patron and are explicitly their own knowledge) which often happened to provide "at will" or "as by" spell cast-ability but didnt add the spell to your prepped, known, per day, etc requirements. They are however still spells (and were able to be be dispelled and effected by everything that works on spells as long as part of the requirement isnt the spell being part of something that you have, even ones that arent at will/as by versions off spells, with the feature itself being a Sp/SLA feature). The Pact magic feature, the boon and the entire subclass/patron features are all fueled by the patron by their own effect text. Also there is still no sorcerer factor in warlocks despite 4e-isms claiming, warlocks always keyed off charisma for eldritch blast+shapes+invocation scaling because its how much their ego/force of will/personality is the dominant side in the deal. They still have no actual innate magic ability to be wielded without assistance/without the pact, like always.
While fey do want to maintain nature, there is something to note: they are often tricksters, and chaotic. And, the Fey can be a little bitch to your warlock just to have some entertainment. Fiends however are not always the "muhahaha, destroy all!". Some, just want to get their usual supply of souls, others want to influence the mortal world in a way that is best for them (be that destruction, wealth, souls, anything). To understand old ones, think of us giving a small sucar cube to an ant. You don't expect the ant to do something very good for you, you do it mostly out of interest, entertainment. Or, if depending on the scale of the being, it can be like amoeba and humans: some humans find amoeba interesting, and actively interfere with them, others don't even know what they are, or generally don't care.
sometimes fiends, devils specifically, could make a pact with their warlock for a seemingly good goal, slay demons especially plausible if the patron works under Zariel, cause they CONSTANTLY fight demons.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim dont think you would get the same benefits and HEAVILY depending on the dragon how they will involve with you. tbh, Draconic sorcery is the more likely option to get instead of a warlock pact with a dragon.
Honestly, the way I make Warlocks and Patrons is that they're in a symbiotic relationship. What do I mean by that? Well, I got the idea from Terry Pratchet's 'Small Gods'; basically, the Patron was once a powerful being, but now it's power has been curb stomped in some way. The Warlock gains the Patron, intentional or not, and they make an agreement that would benefit them both. This is how I explained why my Warlock was level one; the Patron was extremely weak, and the best it could muster was some minor magic. I could go into detail about my character in regards to his Genie patron, but the basic gist is that it's a former exile that found a Marid's cracked stoppered bottle in the middle of the desert. The Marid was weak, both magically and mentally, being stuck in the middle of nowhere for centuries, but would rouse when found by the man that was dying from dehydration. To help itself, the Marid needed to help the exile, so it produced water for him to drink, but forming a pact where this water is bound to the exile's blood. It's basically two characters in one, but using one class to play them. Sorry for the long post, ha ha.
Thanks. It was also easier to meld with the party, without having some strange conflict that would complicate things for both the players and the DM (looking at you, Patron of Fiends). Like, we had a devout paladin and a warlock with a patron of the fiend. It was -extremely- stressful for the two, namely because the DM played the patron as a huge asshole. It was their first time roleplaying, to be fair.
When I first read 5e rules on Patrons, I had a hard time figuring out what this class was about, and why anyone would play a character that was essentially a servant to something else, robbing the player of choice and agency in their actions. It was only after watching some UA-cam videos, like this one (also Runesmith did a good one), that I came to see the potential in this class, and as an exercise, bad a series of Warlock/Patron/Pacts that could be interesting to play. 1. Straight-up Cinderella The Warlock is a half-elf child of an Eladrin and a human, whose elvish parent has died/been killed. The eladrin parent was from the Feywild, and had been friends with an important Arch-Fey who is now looking out for the Warlock out of guilt for not stopping the parents death. A ranking member of the Glooming Court, and a fairy of the Daytime, she's generally too busy to look in on the Warlock, and teachs/gifts powers, however, from mid-night to dawn, you can't use spell slots, or use invocations that aren't linked to you pact boon. That's the "home by mid-night rule from Cinderella. 2. Demon on the Run An elderly human widow is visited by a succubus promising her a return to her youthful beauty. All the succubus really wanted was to swap bodies, as she was being hunted down by Oath of the Watchers Paladins. Warlock now has a demonic body, and is learning to control the powers that come with it, but may be hunted by the Paladins herself for helping the succubus escape, or end up trying to hunt down her "patron" to stop her from harming people and causing evil on the Prime Material plane. 3. Sleepless in the UnderDark And Anceint Elder evil was once Imprisoned in a gemstone and hurled to the core of the world. Volcanic activity over millenium pushed the gem closer to the surface, and it was mined out of the rack by Duergar. Taken to a jeweler to be cut and set, where it escaped, as soon as the gem was scratched by the jeweler. It escaped to the Far Realm through the dream world it accessed by passing through the jewelers mind, leaving him mentally damaged, and awash in eldritch energies. The Patron is gone, and cares nothing for the warlock, who is left trying to control his new powers, and piece his mind back together. I made this one a duergar, and dumped Int and Wis to portray him as a little brain damaged. 4. Imaginary Fairy The Warlock is the youngest child in a poor shepherd family that would pasture their flock near a great forest. Taken their by her older siblings to help watch over the ship, she would often just run and play make believe, dancing around, and pretending to be a forest animal, and talking to an imaginary friend. Who was actually a real arch-fey, that no one else could see. The Arch-fey didn't really have a grasp on what child-hood actually was, and really enjoyed playing with the little girl. When the time came to return the flock to the winter pastures in the valley, the two said good-bye, and she promised to keep playing with him whenever she got the chance. And that counted as a pact. She was 5. The Arch-fey dumped arcane powers on her, and moved off to whateve shiny thing captured his attention next, and she hasn't seen or heard from in since. At 12 she accidetnly eldritch blasted a stray dog near town, and her association with fey magic caused her family to become shunned and isolated. Although the rest of the family tried to shield her from this, she ran away at 15 to become an adventurer, hoping her leaving would take that suspicion off her family. As for the pact, she has to keep up the game she once played. Everytime she uses a spell slot, she gains an animal feature, replacing the one she got last time. (Rabbit ears, cats tail, pig nose, rat whiskers, deer antlers, etc). These features should be a changing minor problem, or even only cosmetic. 5. A bad Swordfriend An urchin scouring the shoreline for anything edible or valuable finds a shard of a broken sword. A fragment of a hexblade, it promises her fame and power. The blade seeks fame, and a place in history as a great weapon. As such it wants it's wielder to be famous, but as a hexblade, it has no morality. "Killing a dragon will make you famous, but so will nailing up an orphanage and setting it on fire with everyone inside - and that's easier and less dangerous. And you warlock, are weak and small, and nothing without your patron blade". The blade will be constantly trying to get the warlock to be in charge, and not wanting to take orders as that will make it wielder look weak, and if the wielder looks weak, so will the blade. I see it almost as an abusive romantic partner rather than just a patron. (I made this one a Zariel Tiefling) I made a varient on this one, where the broken blade wants to be made whole, but the other fragments have made deals with other warlocks to do the same thing, and now they're all hunting each other.
Ok, these are all good, but 4 and 5 especially fucking rule. 5 has so many opportunities for character development and interesting combat encounters. I imagine some are using their shards in new swords, or artificed into a device. Maybe some of the others *don't* wanna kill to get more power, or wanna take the PC's and other's shards in order to seal or destroy the "patron" like a weirder version of Sukuna. 4 could really be heartwarming. I really like 3 and 4's energy of "I was just doing normal shit and oops! i'm magic!"
I made a character that is basically "i have a magic Uncle!" so it's a warlock that think's he is a sorcerer. He has a magic uncle (patron) that teaches him magic (for money and... Basically fun).
A great video! I love making patrons active forces in the game (with the player's okay). One thing I've had fun with is the idea that a successful/powerful warlock is a rare and valuable thing. If the player does extremely well, they may find new entities interested in buying their pact from their original patron or in taking over if the warlock breaks the pact due to conflicting ideals. Of course, the new entity has their own goals as well! It allows conflict with a patron to have meaningful outcomes while giving players more options than "submit or risk your powers."
Reminds me of a writing prompt i saw along the lines of, you sold your soul, but then decided ro sell it to 20+ other demons what happens now. (Get popcorn and watch the custody battle begin). I think your idea works real6 well with the idea of a lawyer knowingly becomimg a warlock and hammering out a contract with their patron. (Or in this case playing multiple patrons off of eachother)
One of my characters was part of a warlock mercenary group. We would take on pacts with different devils, and were constantly switching out weapons and power ups based on the contracts we had active. One time we had a contract with a gun devil who, for the price of a soul coin, could turn your Eldritch blast into a devastating sniper round for the next 3 shots. We thought it was the coolest thing ever until we moved on to the next contract, which was go take out our former boss and the rest of his warlock henchmen.
I was recently playing as a goose warlock who's patron was the "Rage of Prey". A time old spiritual being born of the collective fear and anger of all creatures of the lower food chain. The Rage of Prey's goals were to upset the balance of the circle of life/food chain. The pact required the daily slaying of at least one predator (Wolf, Bear, people, ect) and the defense of all prey animals (except hostile ones like rats) in danger within sight (including markets, wild encounters, ect).
1:50 I know this is a simplification for the sake of ease, but I think fey can be more then just "nature power", most their abilities have to do with enchantment magic, charms and mind tricks, and the PHB even says that wizards can learn powerful spells from archfeys. Sure your pantron can be a Queen of summer, winter, spring or autum, but it could also be an elder hag, a very powerful coven, or a fey with powers over dreams and emotions rather then nature. But if you want nature, that's fine, you can be a servant of the lord of a glade, or make a pact with the wild hunt, I mean rangers are hunters and the second most "nature" related class, after druids, of course.
" Remember Patrons are not gods." Me who is making a nearly forgotten god pretending to be a Great Old One patron until they trust their warlock enough to reveal their divinity; "I am going to pretend I didn't see that."
One of my favorite patron/warlocks was a sword imbued with the "spirit of adventure." More or less an entity which chooses random individuals to grant powers and actively pushes said warlock to do things that are considered heroic. It's kind of fun paired with a character who might otherwise be not enclined to do something.
I know one patron idea I've been wanting to use for my warlock players is taking a page out of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 playbook. Basically, in this setting, players wanting to be warlocks would've come across a special mineral called a Heart Stone. Only those with a strong enough force of personality and will can bring the power in the crystal to life. Upon successfully awakening, a humanoid entity is created, often bearing an appearance and personality that has traits similar to the warlock who created them. When they hit 3rd level, the patron goes through a bit of a transformation. Blade pacts would literally have the patron turn into the warlocks weapon. Chain would give the patron the ability to change shape into something a bit more flexible. Tome? The patron could give up part of it's heart stone and physically implant it on to the warlock to grant that extra spell power. As is explored in the world setting I got this idea from, the power dynamic can go a lot of different ways. In a healthy relationship, both sides are equal partners that operate by having the patron hang back in a safe spot, passing their ether to the warlock to perform magic since the patron can't hold onto it very well or for very long. The warlock uses that power to protect his patron from harm. In some unhealthy partnership, the warlock is a domineering tyrant that abuses the patron's magical abilities to heal from most injuries as a shield or try to force them to do as they want, or things can easily be reversed. In some cases, if the patron feels like their needs aren't being respected or met, they'll leave and take the power with them. This idea has its flaws, sure, but it could make for some tasty visuals and roleplay scenarios
My current dnd character had a patron that is essentially a mind parasite that feeds off his mind while giving him powers. It gives the host powers to ensure its own survival.
Albino squirell, LOL In Russia it's believed to be a thing that comes to those who drinks heavily, like a hallucination. So what your warlock basically needs to do is to find two friends (it's also traditional to drink in threes) and share a bottle of high-spirit alcohol to share in a quiet place so that to summon the spirit by singing folk songs. It's wise to get a bard character as a friend, another fact is all the three have to be male. It could be very well be the patron of one of the ( fey type) winter spirits or gods as that characters are typically worshipped by adults through drinking. Celebrating Russian new year is also a must to them. They may also multiclass as drunken master monk. Oh, and another type of things that come to the drunk are little green fiends, they are very close to DnD goblins in description except for little horns and hooves. almost like goblin tieflings, if you can imagine one. And there's also the green serpent, which comes in form of a dragon with long body or a gigantic snake. So the group of three would need to fight them and keep summoning the squirrel. The more the characters drink - the more chance they have to encounter that. Sober characters are not able to see any of the spirits or interact with them, but can buff those who fight them Imagine someone else see a party of drunk characters fighting something invisible LOL That's also a good campaign idea if your characters start drinking too much.
I love Warlocks for roleplay purposes, despite one of my friends thinking they are a weaker class. I don't share his beliefs, and, as I've said, I enjoy the roleplay the class can bring to a game. Some of the ideas I've had for warlocks are things like a young changeling that carries a storybook where the arch-fey patron appears as a monster from said story book. Another one is a former elf turned into a Simic Hybrid by falling into the sea after a fight with a kraken, absorbing the blood of the kraken. My newest one is a Profane Soul Blood Hunter (not warlock but pseudo warlock) who was an investigator in a small town who came across the spirit of a murder victim who wants justice for their murder.
I really enjoyed all of the new artwork in this episode. Some fantastic work went into this one! There are also a lot of great tips for that pesky Patron that DM's way ignore in the campaign (I know first handedly about a Patron ignoring their Warlock, lol).
A patron should probably have an enemy of a similar type, so the warlock should find himself or herself in occasional conflict with that enemy's followers. There should also be other warlocks of the PCs patron who ask for help or are available to help sometimes. But that should also be true of other classes: every PC should have some kind of master or mentor for leveling up, & their needs & aid should sometimes come into play. “We need the six Orbs of Klemastu to fight Gorblactor. You need to get us one of them. Do you want Amulets of Water-breathing to get the orb in the Sunken City of Floom or Cloaks of Warmth to get the orb in the Hall of the Frost Giant Lord?”
I had a randomly created character that was an old human fighter. Seemed odd to me that someone in their 70s would still be level 1. So me and the DM made it so my character was a former warlock who's patron was evil. He found out too late and his family died because of it. So he was trying to right his wrongs. He didn't have any of his magic after breaking the pact, so picked up a sword and got to work.
My party's warlock is both generic and really original... He's a old one pact warlock that has as a patron a forgotten, eldrich dream godess who is also his "girlfriend" (wow, wierd patron warlock relationship, how original) Except... It's not just that... (All stuff I'll say was his idea, and only mentioning the things I allowed) He can only comunicate with her through visions in dreams, but she thinks that he's just a product of her imagination, as she's lost most lf her powers. He sometimes gets dreams revealing ancient knowlege, so old, not even most gods, archdemons or archfeys know about. He also doesn't age or is affected by any existing illness or sickness while asleep, and he could sleep for an unlimited ammount of time. He could also use telepathy (subclass skill) while asleep, but with greater power. Also, his character's objective was to bring back the cult of his patron, to then fall asleep to spend eternity with his beloved.
Really lovely and wonderfully evocative suggestions, but I thought I'd add that it's very important to make sure that your warlock player is ON BOARD with any of this, because it might not be everyone's idea of fun. Don't simply assume that it'll be okay. Have an actual conversation about it. You don't want your player to feel as though you are punishing them for picking this class.
I've had an idea on a scholarly warlock who's Great Old One patron is wanting for knowledge, not being particularly picky on what sort of knowledge is learned or even if said knowledge was already found out beforehand. So even just re-affirming a piece of knowledge (like say water boils at 100-degrees C) can be enough to provide a small boost to favor, but bigger pieces of knowledge like say jotting down and even decyphering an ancient language and translating even a piece of it would be like offering an even larger boon to the patron. A side compulsion may be to either search out small obelisks with otherworldly runes pulsating under the surface and leaving the patron's mark around it. Why? Fuck if I know, that's just what the patron space kraken thing wants at the time. I thought it'd also be fun to at a later level be able to sort of "unravel" and "weave" one's self apart and together with thousands of tiny tentacles, almost like becoming a sort of fleshy puppet thing that usually holds the warlock's pre-pact form for a flavored shapeshifting thing, and have powers that affect one's mind whether it's the usual psychic powers or fiddling with brainware like causing epileptic fits in someone/thing. ...And of course, Eldritch Blast.
For my undead warlock I’m picturing a powerful vampiric spirit imbedding itself into said warlock and transforming them into a dhampir as part of the contract
I don't really play 5e, but I've been intrigued by warlock patrons as a part of world building. Consider how patrons and warlocks affect your world. A question I ask is, do patrons have more than one warlock and how would they interact with each other? A patron could have an entire coven dedicated to them, and encourage others to make that contract. Alternatively, a hexblade with a shard of a demon blade, may be hostile towards other warlocks wielding a demon shard, because the demon blades goal is to become whole again. (Basically Souledge)
My campaign’s DMPC is the adopted grandchild of two necromancers; one has become a lich and the other is still alive but basically a fiend now. The grandpas are the leaders of a fantasy mafia and their employees are all warlocks bounded to them. The grandkid is heir to their fantasy mafia but they are still learning magic. So the grandpas formed a “pact” , basically just giving them some eldritch powers on borrow so they can learn eldritch magic so they can develop their own and eventually become powerful enough to be an eldritch patron too, and to also give them powers to protect them while they are traveling with the party!
My rogue/warlock/bard was in a pact with an satyr-like archfey that was wrongly scorned by her bretheren and as such was weakened. She found my character and offered him power in exchange that he eventually clear her name and find the archfiend(s) that was truly responsible. We did and it was an awesome fight with lots of homebrew, improv, and rule of cool. Service under her also slowly gave my human smallish horns, so he soon got mistaken for a tiefling alot.
I asked my player about their patron: The Fiend, specifically a minor Love Demon who was also their ancestor, whom they bonded themselves to in a quest for power and belonging. However, as they suggested “love demon” I’m like? Is this corrupted love? Or he protects lovers who do demonic things? Or it’s lust? And my player shrugged and I was like, okay… guess your patron is going to whisper in your ear to save the womanizer you all want to kill next game. But I would like a more concrete answer.
One thing of note about there being no rules about what happens when you break a pact: Since you're a Warlock, you may have ALREADY completed.the pact. That's how you got the class features.
You can use similar ideas for clerics. A god can act like a very powerful patron. They tend to make a more general pact with a cult than individual pacts, but a god could choose one of his cult members for a special purpose.
one of my favorite patreons is Ulyssa, the Hexblade of our groups Yuan-Tie Pureblood Hexblade Warlock. Unlike other Hexblade patrons, she has no inherrent connection to the shadowfell and instead was a sword forged from Octiron, a steel filled to the brim with wild magic and the blade wild magiced itself into being sentient, loosing its octiron properties though in the processe. She is a kind soul but tries to appear as a dominatrix, is a softy though. she is very much in love with her warlock and one of his quests is to create a body for her to inhabit, for which a friendly necromancer has agreed to help with (retired undead wizard, keeps the cities graveyard safe and tended with his grey guard, volunteer guardsmen that died in the line of duty and were brought back as fully sentient undead by the wizard. the wizard offers resurection services aswell as casting the clone spell for others if needed, which they use a modified version of for Ulyssas body)
I know I am late to the party, but, one thing that I feel needs to be explored is: What happens when a patron fails their end of the bargain. As you said, the terms of a pact can be complex, and there has to be a benefit for both sides, which may include more than power. . . Or less than. I may, as a dm, be looking to try and convince a player to take on a patron without directly gaining magic abilities. I digress. If a patron fails to fulfill their end of the bargain, there should be consequences for them as well, giving the DM something new to consider to shape their roleplaying.
Absolutely! And that can lead into a longer discussion about power dynamics and where magical abilities truly come from. How binding is a pact? That's up to the DM!
High-level Warlock Law firm sends lawyers to sue the pants off the patron. Personally I like the idea of a neutral third party overseeing the contract. 😁
@@mirthfulArtist you might enjoy looking at the Inevitables of older editions, Powerful constructs from Mechanus that chase down creatures who break natural laws and magical contracts (There's still the stat-block for one of them in mordekainen's, the Marut, but they used to be this whole thing)
this was such a great video, you're incredibly underrated! after finishing the video and looking at the description, I was expecting to see thousands and thousands of views on this holy shit
I have a campaign I play in, but work sometimes conflicts with the schedule, so I have my characters patron intervene directly, portalling her away from the rest of the party to do some mysterious task for them. The party is large enough that the game can still go on, and our DM rebalances encounters for one less player.
The section about devils in the monster manual actually has some lore about pacts with devils. It states that every contract with a fiend (however low in the hierarchy) is enforced by the will of Asmodeus himself. If someone breaks the contract, they lose their claim on their soul which is then immediately transported to the nine hells. Pacta sunt servanda.
Whenever any of my players makes a warlock in my setting, I always do a session 0 wherein I (as the DM) role-play as the patron they're striking a contract with. In what tends to read like a job interview, patron and warlock discuss the terms of their pact and the boon is presented. The player then gets to pick up to 2 spells from a list of entry-level spells unique to that entity, with stronger stuff coming later
Warlocks are possibly the most versatile types of character you can make. Tying your powers to something external is an instant inroad into roleplaying, and it can be molded to fit almost any character concept that involves granted power if you think of the number of characters in media you could draw from. Madoka, He-Man, the Power Rangers, Yugi Muto, Sailor Moon, all of these could qualify as warlocks with next to no tweaking of their lore, and you can easily use them for inspiration. Kind of funny how often warlocks pop up in anime, now that I think of it...
I like using a coven of powerful hags as a patron. Powerful, esoteric and mysterious magics unavailable to most others. And if your 'patron' is actually three distinct personalities who don't always get along, then the pact(s) become flexible depending on who is demanding what. One adventure, the Warlock might become compelled to disperse sugary treats to children, making their parents frustrated and exhausted throughout a number of villages. The next campaign, they ignore the kids and collected sparrow skulls and cave specific symbols on them.
For my trilogy series that I homebrewed, I introduced a Patron as the BBEG for the 2nd campaign of the trilogy. His "clients" usually demand the ability to see technology of the future, gain more strength, get a sword that can cut through anything, or just more power in general. However he demands a sacrifice upfront (like being blind, killing a loved one, losing a body part that you mainly use, or being paralyzed). Then 50 years after the deal, he'll come back to collect your soul into his home world the inferno. Apparently, he has helped both allies and enemies for the players. A lot of the events in my universe are caused by him. Even after his death in the 2nd final boss fight, my sequels tend to show his influence by having his clients create big events.
10:33 I personally disagree with this point as a hard rule. You can absolutely put patrons on a similar level as players if it fits the story well. A patron might be a being that's been rendered unable to exert its power itself, and is forced to act through a player as a medium. Two players could even conceivably be co-patrons of one another, two halves of a whole, needing to be in proximity of each other for their powers to work properly. Instituting a hard rule like "the patron must be distant and mysterious" is unnecessarily limiting the amazing flexibility of patrons as a storytelling medium. Sure, 7 times out of 10 it's the right move, but it shouldn't be taken as law.
For my warlock, Sir Tibet the Pale; I basically took him and his patron from the Stan Rogers song The Witch of the Westmoreland. This is still being ironed out but figured the song would be a neat backstory.
Communication is very key. One thing I personally find annoying about patrons as a player is if picking a non-good idea for a patron (not necessarily evil, I generally prefer an obscure great old ones or more capricious archfey) DMs often assume you're going for a redemption arc and try to get you on one ASAP. While I can see the appeal of this, it's a bit annoying to create a servant of a mysterious and unknowable power and have the DM constantly try to railroad you into switching to a celestial or good-aligned patron. I've been in a few campaigns with a great old one patron where I am constantly bombarded with multiple in-depth, fleshed out, NPC celestials trying to convert them away from their patron, while the limited interactions/communications with the patron are very shallow and one dimensional requests more akin to something a fiend patron or evil god would ask for (sacrifice innocents, aid the BBEG, etc). In my opinion part of the fun of playing a great old one or archfey patron is getting strange and seemingly inconsequential requests, especially if they slowly reveal a grander plan or ambition of your patron if you dig a little deeper.
I'm playing a warlock in Curse of Strahd who's a descendant of Baba Yaga by way of a bloodline of firbolgs. Her duty to her patron comes from familial obligation.
I actually came up with a Pact of the Talisman Undying Warlock based on a Thai Ghost Story called "The Wrath of Mae Nak", with steampunk elements & a more sapphic twist on the tale where Orfas' (My Tie Mak-Inspired Character) wife, Yuridis, is the patron which is inspired by Mae Nak.
I like listening to these videos even though I've never dm'ed. Sidenote.. idk if you pick the advertisements but the one I got was with the voice of allthingsdnd and that caught me off guard with what video was playing for a second haha.
My idea for my next warlock is one I particularly like. My character's father made a fiend pact some years before my character before I was born and the fiend chose to inhabit father's warhammer. After my father's death, I take up the warhammer and start the adventure as a Fighter. I need to reach a certain number of Fighter levels until the fiend in the hammer decides I am strong enough to be worth his time.
A patron idea I have is that the patron is actually more of a concept than a pyschical being.What I mean by this is that there actually more akin too a living breathing idea if that makes sense.So basically what this "litteral" idea of an patron wants is to have physical form and be able to enter the material plane for whatever reason they want,maybe they want freedom,maybe it's something more,WHO KNOWS???
I like to make a patron warlock dynamic more symbiotic business partners rather then master and servant An example would be my fathomless warlock who was once a prince of a nation made up of ships and fleets rather then castles but as he was about to crowned king the general lead a coup at his coronation on his fathers prized frigate. The thing is this general made a deal with a eel god of the depths who promised him power and the kingdom in exchange for helping conquer the rest of the seas. The prince now half dead made a deal with another god who just so happened to be a crab and the arch nemesis of the eel god I love making a patron that's goals aren't just world domination or enslaving all living beings Warlocks are my favorite class for roleplaying but that's mostly because of the patrons the idea of some great powerful entity needing to lend their power to achieve their goals Though it can be a pain to explain why they aren't just doing it themselves. But it's always ends up giving more flavor to my character Why doesn't the crab go and kill his rival himself. Simple, he has had many skirmishes with the Eel god, and in their most recent one, he has been heavily injured and almost dead. Now he is so desperate to keep his territory and his followers from falling into the maw of his rival he made a deal with random prince.
I've got a warlock set aside for a campaign who's based on Cinderella. But not just any Cinderella, I'm talking specifically Cinderella from the book Ella Enchanted. My PC is a variant human with a drop of fay blood in her (manifesting only in freakishly small feet). Her patron? Her fairy godmother, the progenitor of the lineage. Also her family's cook, a homely, elderly elf woman. The elf is actually an archfay in disguise because she wants to mother and care for her daughters. At the start of the campaign, my PC won't have the fairy godmother around due to getting separated from her. And her godmother ordered that when she finds someone who has the power to reunite them, she should stick with them until they're reunited (that's why my PC sticks with the party).
We had a really cool Warlock Patron in a previous game where I participated. Basically it was this Ancient Archfey who had vowed to protect a small community of Elves living in the Feywild. One of them had gone out into our mortal plane and had a half-elf child. Eventually, the father went back to the Feywild for what amounted to basically an election when suddenly this community of elves was attacked and all of them killed. The Archfey had been occupied elsewhere so they couldn't save their people and were, of course, mortified. Eventually they discovered this half-elf child, basically the last survivor of its people, and became their patron. The half-elf was tasked with 3 things: 1. find out who did it and bring them to justice, 2. preserve their heritage and culture, 3. If possible, find other survivors and save their "race".
My current warlock has a literal patron as a patron. To make it simple, basically the patron is a powerful sorcerer who has attained immortality by stealing others magic. After generations of being chased by adventurers they got board of being hunted. So now they find young members of magical bloodlines who are struggling with magic. The Patreon then trades knowledge of magic for a constant drain on the young sorcerer's magic. My warlock is now fighting to break their bond with their Patreon and bring an end to the cycle
I heavily encourage DMs to make up some sort of contract for their Patrons. These contracts should mimic the guidelines of a Paladin Oath, with goals or outlooks that should be encouraged. Patrons, as well, may have many Warlocks under their sway, so another option for a wayward Warlock might be to have a rival Warlock threaten them with outing them to the Patron or taking their power should they wander away from a Patron's will. I would also encourage DMs to really lean into having the Patron communicate in some way with the Warlock. These communications need not be clear. They could be dreams/nightmares, disappearing/reappearing symbols or tattoos, weird accidents happening that are convenient or inconvenient for the Warlock, and so on.
I made a Warlock who's whole Pact thing was like a set of tests for her to overcome and in return Her patron would agree to undergo a marriage ceremony to my Warlock which would unintentionally bring an immensely destructive force into the material plane. She knew that, But she wanted to have a powerful Shadow Husband she could love for eternity. (She was a shapeshifting Entity which could not age.)
I may have very little experience with tabletop stuff (I say that cause I'm in a Pathfinder campaign, I only have a single mini-session of experience with D&D), but this gives me an idea for a character that I'd honestly find really cool. Long story short: Dragonborn Warlock that has a pact with dragon to collect gold/silver/etc. for it, so they seem super greedy but aren't really.
The way I always rule it in my games is that pacts have power, and when dealing with entities of this level they have godlike power. The grand secret of the patrons and gods is that a gift given cannot be revoked. The threats to take a power away are only half-true; unless the warlock makes another pact with someone else the patron can only prevent them from gaining NEW power. This does not mean it is without risk to betray a patron however, in fact it is far more risky than that of a cleric. Clerical powers are easily given, as they can be taken instantly, there's little risk. A patron has a VESTED interest in you. A god or archdevil has this pact to assume more direct control over a world they cannot enter and thier usual minions find inhospitable. Gods don't like to send angels because if they die outside the planes of good they die forever, devils have trouble getting out of the hells without someone opening a door on the other side, etc. Betray them and they will send all their OTHER minions after you to get that power back. A powerful being like a fey or genie? They are using you to increase their power closer to that of a god, betray that and they might come after you PERSONALLY. The fraction of thier power they gave you is small, but actually noticeable to them, and they want it back.
I made a character who was a celestial warlock. The thing is they were actually four ghosts who used their combined magic to maintain a living body (not undead). This also technically made them their own patron.
I feel that the Patron should be mostly the player's responsibility. They have the idea of what they want their relationship with the patron to be, what they get out of it and how, and what the PC's and Patron's goals are with the arrangement. DM's job is to basically play the part of the Patron during character creation, making sure they know what they're getting into and coming to an agreement on the ground rules. My Warlock's pact was formed because she wanted to be a performer, wanting talent and beauty to make it easy to get into show business and stay there. Her Patron, a Pit Fiend that's always willing to get a new source of influence on the world, agrees. Now in her mid-40's, she still doesn't look a day over 23 and has not only Performance proficiency, but has become a full social butterfly with Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion as well. As for the payment, she doesn't want to give up her soul for this, and so the Patron added more to the pile. She will be granted a weapon and knowledge of magicks, and in exchange she must use these to bring the Patron twenty souls to replace her own before her death. Mechanically, if she kills something with Eldritch Blast or her Pact Weapon, the creature's soul gets sent straight to Hell, despite any previous faith or arrangements, to be a servant of her patron. Powerful creatures, such as elementals, dragons, or other fiends, will be grounds for being granted knowledge of further powers, which may include but is not limited to illusions to improve her performances, the ability to speak to and understand everyone, regardless of language, and maybe a few extra tools to make further offerings easier to accomplish should she enjoy it. This of course is a ploy to tempt her towards evil, and her being a big dumb -1 WIS accepts this. Her current mission is to slay the Mad Mage, as he has broken pacts with several subordinates and allies and kept them prisoner in the dungeon. Along the way, she's killed a Fire Genasi Minotaur, a Bone Devil, a young Red Dragon, an Avatar of Lolth (which didn't count because it was spawned by Kuo-Toa), two Nycaloths, an Odopi, and most recently an Erinyes. She even finished off a Lich, but that got Orcus mad and now she's cursed with Necrotic Damage vulnerability. The Kuo-Toa behind the Lolth avatar now venerate her as a god for freeing them from the dungeon, we're on our way to kill Mind Flayers, and she's become a lot more interested in this magic stuff. If her Patron doesn't make good on giving her more power, she might just try going after him instead. With nothing left to offer for bringing in an entire Pit Fiend, he'll have to give up servants until he snowballs into defaulting on his own Pact. Meanwhile, this is a test by her Patron. See, being a Pit Fiend, the only power grabs available anymore are against Archdevils, which is suicide, and other Pit Fiends, which has gotten boring and only draws attention to yourself if you're too good at it. His plan, now that she's proven corruptible, is for her to prove herself a creature capable of wielding great power so he can, in one fell swoop, get her killed and possess her body, and thus be free to carve out a small empire on the Prime Material. The final Mystic Arcanum he has to offer, True Polymorph, is bait to get her to arrogantly transform into a Pit Fiend herself, so he can have his full range of powers on the Prime with nothing to bind him.
Here is a Patron (as it would be now, originally I created this in 2nd Edition) for people’s use: The Hearttree - Deep in the Underdark (or equivalent for your world) lies the Hearttree, an Eldritch entity with the physical form (known only to its adherents, as only they are permitted to be in its presence by the adherents that live in the settlement that has formed near its central location) of one of those trees that look like a cage (like the faerie tree in Ferngully) made of bone with a massive beating heart inside, its roots arteries and veins, it’s branches bones with flesh-like leaves that occasionally produce strange fruits. The adherents living near it are mostly Drow descended from those who first discovered it when seeking to escape Lloth and her punishment, her influence and power over them severed by the Hearttree. They happily welcome other adherents and any that come in peace, but only adherents may enter the deepest part of the settlement, where the Hearttree can be accessed. It communicates with its adherents through dreams (most not born to those living near it that are its adherents become so due to the dreams it sends) and is (generally) benign, asking for odd tasks from its adherents/Warlocks; such as the planting of certain seeds in certain places (at the most extreme, those seeds must be put inside hearts before being planted, but the hearts are of monsters that disrupted the area or regular food animals), the destruction of creatures that are poisoning or “draining” an area, and to aide the displaced/needy.
The 7:33 bit is a bit off. The pact magic spell slot recover, the pact boon summoning/creation/remaking and the sucblass features are all by RAW/effect text of both the class and the features themselves to be from the patron. So no patron no use of them. Invocations are explicitly the characters doing and cantrips cant be run out of so those are safe with arcanums being probably safe too since the class text (and external release info design statements) being that, in the arcanums being secrets/tricks rather than direct spell usage, despite bestowed by the patron, are things anyone could in theory do like the invocations. Same way how a paladin or druid needs a god to fuel their magic, even if they dont need to believe in said god or even have a working relationship as long as their goals/ideals align in some way.
In my campaign, we a have a warforged made from the scales and bones of a long dead dragon god, we developed this character into essentially a living hex-blade.
I made one called the grimoire, I put lore that it could be a spellbook made sentient by an animate objects spell gone wrong or an order of scribes wizard's awakend spellbook that stayed after the wizard is long gone. Either way it sat just gathering information and power enough to become a warlock patron
Watching this made me randomly remember the manga Oh My Goddess. Where the main character accidentally called a Goddess Help Line. The Goddess, Belldandy, shows up to grant him a single wish. Thinking it's a joke, he wishes a goddess like her could be his girlfriend forever...wish granted and she ends up sticking around permanently. Cue series of romcom hijinks. Patron idea: Your character and patron are married and the patron is absolutely terrified of your character character dying, so they give you some of their power while they continue their day job.
right now i'm playing a tiefling celestial warlock, his patron is the devil that fathered him on his way to redemption for the last decade or so is trying to mend his wrongdoings (including fathering a child to the middle of a devil worshipping warlocks and witches commune) my character is going through the alignment chart, started CN forced into the pact by his now-deva father and recently turned TN after realising there might be more at stake than his freedom in this whole arrangement i've been binging this channel since yesterday and i gotta say i wish i had found this sooner, it might actually be the push i need to start DMing
Some players may not want a roleplay connection to a patron, but just want to play the mechanical aspects of the class. Warlocks are widely considered a relatively underpowered class, so it would be unfair to demand they also be shackled to a patron's whims just for wanting to play that class. Some players may want to come up with their own patron. Unless there is a _good reason_ to forbid this, let them! If their patron is incompatible with your setting, help them find alternatives, or maybe even adjust their existing idea so it can work in your setting. Some players may want a certain type of patron, but prefer the mechanics of a different kind of patron. Consider if you can allow them to have powers styled after one patron, while actually having a different patron. And if not, _why_ not, and is there some kind of fix for that. In general, enable your players to have fun, so long as it doesn't hurt the overall game!
"Less communication with the patron helps keep the mystery" "the patron may require rituals" *Look's at my PC's warlock who made a deal with the mysterious fey "xQc" and performs rituals on her kills to take their souls as subscribers*
in avernus campaign I allowed player to have a pact with a powerful demon seeking to replace Zariel Player wanted to get rid of zariel too so their pact was simple:Get rid of zariel , atleast kick her from avernus and while doing so you will have my blessings. after that Zollesh(its name) was pulling his part of plan. He was not helping party at all instead he was planting seeds of distrust and rebellion to side of Zariel and was getting ready to blame it all on Bel, who also wants to reclaim avernus like when he used to. Flexibility of their pact allowed both of them act freely and Zollesh was happy from it. After all he was getting what he wanted. He even made another pact with another strong entitiy(spoilers if I explain further) and entity despite being lawful good accepted him and Zollesh was fine with it too. If he ever attempted to break the pact and tried to leave the adventure or anything like that I was planning to make him roll a wisdom save every 24 hours... each time he fails he will lose 1 constutution and reaching to 0 would kill him and send his soul to styx river.
My (fathomless) warlock is absolutely oblivious to the fact that her aboleth patron's desire to drown the world is a bad thing. The bad guys are trying to resurrect a dark god and she's against them because that cult is in the place of the cult she's innocently trying to make. The whole table regularly bursts out laughing when she responds to boss fights by trying to hand the boss a pamphlet. I'm pretty sure her patron doesn't actually care about having a cult, but she's oblivious to that too.
Broke: Your patron is a hellspawn Corporate who elects to use the warlock and by proxy, the rest of the party as glorified handymen. Woke: Patron is the Warlock's drinking buddy Bespoke: Patron is the Warlock's overly attached *spouse*.
Aah. I made a warlock patron that ripped some stuff off of the Fiend warlock set, but as my own thing lol. Pact of the Chained God. The strange thing about it is that most of the pact features and spells deal with fire, rejuvenation, and volcanism instead of chains or traps or binds lol. Because; dun dun duuuun; in actuality they're a volcano god imprisoned in their volcano by a formerly-trying-to-do-good-party that's now turned into a cult seeking to siphon the god's power for themselves, and naturally the god wants to get out.
I have the outline of a warlock I want to play, it's a himbo tabaxi Warlock with an Angel patron. His Patron is pretty much his Guardian Angel because the guy is so stupid something needs to step in or else the cat is going to burn through his nine lives very quickly.
I decided to push back on the "fiend patron=evil" because I love the fiend patron but don't enjoy playing evil and am not interested in playing "how to break my pact with the least damage". For my fiend warlock, I decided to lean into D&D stereotypes as meta humor while also using christian mythology with a modern twist ala church of satan. My warlock is Venus Morningstar, servant of The Dawnbringer, a fiendish entity she believes is unfairly maligned by society and the gods. She views freedom, knowledge, and informed consent as holy. She's also a pun. Venus was once referred to as the Morningstar, which was also another name for Lucifer. So is the Dawnbringer. So she's effectively Lucifer Lucifer, servant of Lucifer. So, pact of the fiend, but neither she nor her patron are evil. My girlfriend wanted to play the great old one but not in the style of cthulu. Her solution? It's a reeeeeeally old tree. Her eldritch blasts are waves of force swirling with leaves and twigs! Btw, your lead in to your patreon was smooth af. Well done!
I just use the 5e Warlock (and Sorcerer, and Monk) to function as psionic classes. I mean, there's no 5e psionics...if you want to play Dark Sun (or a similar homebrew) you have to reskin.
Breaking my contract with Lucifer results in having my Pentecostal Coin confiscated, so that when I die and go to Hell... I'm stuck there. Permanently. And I have to roll up a new character.
If I play a Warlock: Hexblade, do I get the Hexblade Expanded Spell List or the Raven Queen's one or both? Same for other levels, do I get the effects stated by the Hexblade like Shadow Hound or the ones by the Raven Queen like Soul of the Raven or both?
I had so much fun playing my celestial Warlock months ago, Even to the end she was convinced she wasn't even a warlock, but a Cleric / Druid as she could talk to animals, had an affinity for trees and nature and even has a Sprite as her ''sidekick'' (who also had the highest intellect in the whole party which only added to the fun), the Patron presented herself as the aspect of nature itself ''Mother Nature'' and also shielded her from all the less then positive things she could do as a warlock, Think ''Meet The Pyro'' from TF2 where all the fire was replaced with rainbows, corpses where ''just sleeping'' and blood was colourful glitter, healing others ''helping to keep the rainbows inside''.
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One thing to keep in mind as well is, Warlock pacts don't necessarily need to remain ongoing. The 'power of a warlock' could have been in trade for a service or series of services that have already occurred, or perhaps even something like an object. If the terms of the pact was your first born child for these powers, you can't suddenly stop giving the patron the child you already gave them. Warlocks are incredibly versatile and they don't have to conform to many preconceptions of the class.
A minor clarification:
While it's not in the official rules, Jeremy Crawford (lead designer on 5e) has stated that warlocks who violate their pact do not lose their powers, instead losing access to features that require direct contact with their patron. Obviously, this is open to house rules -- Matt Mercer likes to rule in the other direction, or at least has done so once before.
So, I've always found that interpretation weird. If you don't lose your abilities, that means you've stolen a gift from a being powerful enough to be a patron, and if the players aren't really high level, that means the patron should be able to do something like "Oh... breaking your end of the bargain? I'll take my gifts. No, I will not be giving you back your old eyes, I'm just taking the ones I gave you to see in the dark." And, while they may not do it personally, they already have a direct line to the warlock, and so should be able to do it in a matter of moments without stopping what they're doing.
@@Veelofar This is why stipulations in the pact are made. Even back in 3.5, the Warlock's relationship with magic has always been that it's learned (they have Spells Known, not Spells Provided) beyond the normal means with knowledge that is far from average. Think of a hobo hedge wizard that's never practiced the restraint required to keep spells at their base level due to being entirely self-taught. This is made confusing by 5e making Warlocks a CHA caster, as they were previously described as basically a Fiend/Fey-blood Sorcerer; either controlling inherent magic through sheer force of will, or making a pact with aforementioned entities to start aforementioned bloodline. But you can make up where the power comes from if you want.
Invocations were the results of the Warlock's "training." Often replicating the effects of spells, they were mechanically not spells themselves; spawning a 20ft radius sphere of 8d6 Fire damage with a Reflex/DEX save for half damage is not Fireball, is functionally the same. In 5e, Eldritch Invocations are explicitly something provided to you through study of the occult, not your patron. Unless your pact says that disappointing your Archfey will cause you to lose memories of your lessons, you have flavored these things as provided to the Warlock in the same way a Cleric is provided powers from their god, there's not really a precedent to having your Warlock "fall" as a Paladin does/did by losing entire class levels. Though you can probably stretch for "they have lost their will," but that's a player's decision.
Sure, if the Patron granted a physical boon (esp. one that is summoned), such as a Pact Weapon, Talisman, or Book of Shadows, they can almost certainly take that from them, but the Warlock's influence on the mortal plane should be relatively loose. The ones with motivation to actively create Warlocks will want/need them for SOME reason, after all, and while they are powerful, they are not gods. Besides, if a GOOlock's pact is "broken", why would an outer entity that notices the consciousness of a human as relative to the consciousness of an ant ever be slighted by being "disobeyed?"
Most importantly, the player and PC should know that these are the consequences. Unless they're an aforementioned GOOlock that got their powers by complete accident, where failure and success have the same end point of being warped into a creature of non-Euclidean geometry, their agreement for power should be one that they know the details of. It might not be FAIR, an archfey or fiend can force a pact on a person under duress, either by taking a casual agreement as binding, or manipulative words to make them feel like it's something they want. If it's ever a surprise (due to PC/player misinterpretation of how strictly defined the provided terms are), it has to immediately be met with "You agreed to [conditions], feigning ignorance will get you nowhere."
@@BeaglzRok1 In 3.5e warlocks had no spells known, they had at invocations known (which they still do in 5e, that have no mention of the patron and are explicitly their own knowledge) which often happened to provide "at will" or "as by" spell cast-ability but didnt add the spell to your prepped, known, per day, etc requirements. They are however still spells (and were able to be be dispelled and effected by everything that works on spells as long as part of the requirement isnt the spell being part of something that you have, even ones that arent at will/as by versions off spells, with the feature itself being a Sp/SLA feature).
The Pact magic feature, the boon and the entire subclass/patron features are all fueled by the patron by their own effect text.
Also there is still no sorcerer factor in warlocks despite 4e-isms claiming, warlocks always keyed off charisma for eldritch blast+shapes+invocation scaling because its how much their ego/force of will/personality is the dominant side in the deal. They still have no actual innate magic ability to be wielded without assistance/without the pact, like always.
@@Veelofar that comes from a misunderstanding of how warlock’s work. Patrons don’t actually provide magic, but instead teach warlocks how to do magic.
@@flamenami That makes less sense with the Charisma casting stat. Shouldn’t that be an int caster, then?
While fey do want to maintain nature, there is something to note: they are often tricksters, and chaotic. And, the Fey can be a little bitch to your warlock just to have some entertainment.
Fiends however are not always the "muhahaha, destroy all!". Some, just want to get their usual supply of souls, others want to influence the mortal world in a way that is best for them (be that destruction, wealth, souls, anything).
To understand old ones, think of us giving a small sucar cube to an ant. You don't expect the ant to do something very good for you, you do it mostly out of interest, entertainment. Or, if depending on the scale of the being, it can be like amoeba and humans: some humans find amoeba interesting, and actively interfere with them, others don't even know what they are, or generally don't care.
sometimes fiends, devils specifically, could make a pact with their warlock for a seemingly good goal, slay demons
especially plausible if the patron works under Zariel, cause they CONSTANTLY fight demons.
Congratulations. Now I am imagining a warlock who every morning recive a magical sugar cube that refills their powers.
So, a Dragon Patron would be like having a Great Old One as a patron?
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim dont think you would get the same benefits and HEAVILY depending on the dragon how they will involve with you.
tbh, Draconic sorcery is the more likely option to get instead of a warlock pact with a dragon.
Honestly, the way I make Warlocks and Patrons is that they're in a symbiotic relationship. What do I mean by that? Well, I got the idea from Terry Pratchet's 'Small Gods'; basically, the Patron was once a powerful being, but now it's power has been curb stomped in some way. The Warlock gains the Patron, intentional or not, and they make an agreement that would benefit them both. This is how I explained why my Warlock was level one; the Patron was extremely weak, and the best it could muster was some minor magic.
I could go into detail about my character in regards to his Genie patron, but the basic gist is that it's a former exile that found a Marid's cracked stoppered bottle in the middle of the desert. The Marid was weak, both magically and mentally, being stuck in the middle of nowhere for centuries, but would rouse when found by the man that was dying from dehydration. To help itself, the Marid needed to help the exile, so it produced water for him to drink, but forming a pact where this water is bound to the exile's blood. It's basically two characters in one, but using one class to play them.
Sorry for the long post, ha ha.
Very cool & unique take!
Thanks. It was also easier to meld with the party, without having some strange conflict that would complicate things for both the players and the DM (looking at you, Patron of Fiends). Like, we had a devout paladin and a warlock with a patron of the fiend. It was -extremely- stressful for the two, namely because the DM played the patron as a huge asshole. It was their first time roleplaying, to be fair.
Hexblade, but the sword is just and incredibly irritable tortoise.
When I first read 5e rules on Patrons, I had a hard time figuring out what this class was about, and why anyone would play a character that was essentially a servant to something else, robbing the player of choice and agency in their actions. It was only after watching some UA-cam videos, like this one (also Runesmith did a good one), that I came to see the potential in this class, and as an exercise, bad a series of Warlock/Patron/Pacts that could be interesting to play.
1. Straight-up Cinderella
The Warlock is a half-elf child of an Eladrin and a human, whose elvish parent has died/been killed. The eladrin parent was from the Feywild, and had been friends with an important Arch-Fey who is now looking out for the Warlock out of guilt for not stopping the parents death. A ranking member of the Glooming Court, and a fairy of the Daytime, she's generally too busy to look in on the Warlock, and teachs/gifts powers, however, from mid-night to dawn, you can't use spell slots, or use invocations that aren't linked to you pact boon. That's the "home by mid-night rule from Cinderella.
2. Demon on the Run
An elderly human widow is visited by a succubus promising her a return to her youthful beauty. All the succubus really wanted was to swap bodies, as she was being hunted down by Oath of the Watchers Paladins. Warlock now has a demonic body, and is learning to control the powers that come with it, but may be hunted by the Paladins herself for helping the succubus escape, or end up trying to hunt down her "patron" to stop her from harming people and causing evil on the Prime Material plane.
3. Sleepless in the UnderDark
And Anceint Elder evil was once Imprisoned in a gemstone and hurled to the core of the world. Volcanic activity over millenium pushed the gem closer to the surface, and it was mined out of the rack by Duergar. Taken to a jeweler to be cut and set, where it escaped, as soon as the gem was scratched by the jeweler. It escaped to the Far Realm through the dream world it accessed by passing through the jewelers mind, leaving him mentally damaged, and awash in eldritch energies. The Patron is gone, and cares nothing for the warlock, who is left trying to control his new powers, and piece his mind back together. I made this one a duergar, and dumped Int and Wis to portray him as a little brain damaged.
4. Imaginary Fairy
The Warlock is the youngest child in a poor shepherd family that would pasture their flock near a great forest. Taken their by her older siblings to help watch over the ship, she would often just run and play make believe, dancing around, and pretending to be a forest animal, and talking to an imaginary friend. Who was actually a real arch-fey, that no one else could see. The Arch-fey didn't really have a grasp on what child-hood actually was, and really enjoyed playing with the little girl. When the time came to return the flock to the winter pastures in the valley, the two said good-bye, and she promised to keep playing with him whenever she got the chance. And that counted as a pact. She was 5. The Arch-fey dumped arcane powers on her, and moved off to whateve shiny thing captured his attention next, and she hasn't seen or heard from in since. At 12 she accidetnly eldritch blasted a stray dog near town, and her association with fey magic caused her family to become shunned and isolated. Although the rest of the family tried to shield her from this, she ran away at 15 to become an adventurer, hoping her leaving would take that suspicion off her family. As for the pact, she has to keep up the game she once played. Everytime she uses a spell slot, she gains an animal feature, replacing the one she got last time. (Rabbit ears, cats tail, pig nose, rat whiskers, deer antlers, etc). These features should be a changing minor problem, or even only cosmetic.
5. A bad Swordfriend
An urchin scouring the shoreline for anything edible or valuable finds a shard of a broken sword. A fragment of a hexblade, it promises her fame and power. The blade seeks fame, and a place in history as a great weapon. As such it wants it's wielder to be famous, but as a hexblade, it has no morality. "Killing a dragon will make you famous, but so will nailing up an orphanage and setting it on fire with everyone inside - and that's easier and less dangerous. And you warlock, are weak and small, and nothing without your patron blade". The blade will be constantly trying to get the warlock to be in charge, and not wanting to take orders as that will make it wielder look weak, and if the wielder looks weak, so will the blade. I see it almost as an abusive romantic partner rather than just a patron. (I made this one a Zariel Tiefling)
I made a varient on this one, where the broken blade wants to be made whole, but the other fragments have made deals with other warlocks to do the same thing, and now they're all hunting each other.
i really like that last one
that last one sounds cool as hell.
also, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!
Ok, these are all good, but 4 and 5 especially fucking rule. 5 has so many opportunities for character development and interesting combat encounters. I imagine some are using their shards in new swords, or artificed into a device. Maybe some of the others *don't* wanna kill to get more power, or wanna take the PC's and other's shards in order to seal or destroy the "patron" like a weirder version of Sukuna. 4 could really be heartwarming. I really like 3 and 4's energy of "I was just doing normal shit and oops! i'm magic!"
I made a character that is basically "i have a magic Uncle!" so it's a warlock that think's he is a sorcerer. He has a magic uncle (patron) that teaches him magic (for money and... Basically fun).
I reflavored a Warlock into exactly that: a sorcerer. It went pretty well.
Bonus points if said patron can prepare the finest tea and sings "Leaves from the vine".
A great video! I love making patrons active forces in the game (with the player's okay). One thing I've had fun with is the idea that a successful/powerful warlock is a rare and valuable thing. If the player does extremely well, they may find new entities interested in buying their pact from their original patron or in taking over if the warlock breaks the pact due to conflicting ideals. Of course, the new entity has their own goals as well! It allows conflict with a patron to have meaningful outcomes while giving players more options than "submit or risk your powers."
Oh, that's a really cool idea! Love the idea of a Patron auction.
Reminds me of a writing prompt i saw along the lines of, you sold your soul, but then decided ro sell it to 20+ other demons what happens now. (Get popcorn and watch the custody battle begin).
I think your idea works real6 well with the idea of a lawyer knowingly becomimg a warlock and hammering out a contract with their patron. (Or in this case playing multiple patrons off of eachother)
One of my characters was part of a warlock mercenary group. We would take on pacts with different devils, and were constantly switching out weapons and power ups based on the contracts we had active.
One time we had a contract with a gun devil who, for the price of a soul coin, could turn your Eldritch blast into a devastating sniper round for the next 3 shots. We thought it was the coolest thing ever until we moved on to the next contract, which was go take out our former boss and the rest of his warlock henchmen.
I was recently playing as a goose warlock who's patron was the "Rage of Prey". A time old spiritual being born of the collective fear and anger of all creatures of the lower food chain. The Rage of Prey's goals were to upset the balance of the circle of life/food chain. The pact required the daily slaying of at least one predator (Wolf, Bear, people, ect) and the defense of all prey animals (except hostile ones like rats) in danger within sight (including markets, wild encounters, ect).
That mushroom patron reminds me of that mushroom people from dark souls 🍄🍄🍄
1:50 I know this is a simplification for the sake of ease, but I think fey can be more then just "nature power", most their abilities have to do with enchantment magic, charms and mind tricks, and the PHB even says that wizards can learn powerful spells from archfeys. Sure your pantron can be a Queen of summer, winter, spring or autum, but it could also be an elder hag, a very powerful coven, or a fey with powers over dreams and emotions rather then nature.
But if you want nature, that's fine, you can be a servant of the lord of a glade, or make a pact with the wild hunt, I mean rangers are hunters and the second most "nature" related class, after druids, of course.
Yes, exactly! the glamour bard has Nothing to do with nature, just charm, and it's specifically fey based
I actually enjoy having warlocks communicate with the players. It's give them more spice.
" Remember Patrons are not gods."
Me who is making a nearly forgotten god pretending to be a Great Old One patron until they trust their warlock enough to reveal their divinity; "I am going to pretend I didn't see that."
One of my favorite patron/warlocks was a sword imbued with the "spirit of adventure." More or less an entity which chooses random individuals to grant powers and actively pushes said warlock to do things that are considered heroic. It's kind of fun paired with a character who might otherwise be not enclined to do something.
Going from the thumbnail - a mushroom deity who imbues its warlocks with an eldritch blast of mushroom soup. As you level up it gets chunkier.
I know one patron idea I've been wanting to use for my warlock players is taking a page out of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 playbook. Basically, in this setting, players wanting to be warlocks would've come across a special mineral called a Heart Stone. Only those with a strong enough force of personality and will can bring the power in the crystal to life. Upon successfully awakening, a humanoid entity is created, often bearing an appearance and personality that has traits similar to the warlock who created them. When they hit 3rd level, the patron goes through a bit of a transformation. Blade pacts would literally have the patron turn into the warlocks weapon. Chain would give the patron the ability to change shape into something a bit more flexible. Tome? The patron could give up part of it's heart stone and physically implant it on to the warlock to grant that extra spell power.
As is explored in the world setting I got this idea from, the power dynamic can go a lot of different ways. In a healthy relationship, both sides are equal partners that operate by having the patron hang back in a safe spot, passing their ether to the warlock to perform magic since the patron can't hold onto it very well or for very long. The warlock uses that power to protect his patron from harm.
In some unhealthy partnership, the warlock is a domineering tyrant that abuses the patron's magical abilities to heal from most injuries as a shield or try to force them to do as they want, or things can easily be reversed. In some cases, if the patron feels like their needs aren't being respected or met, they'll leave and take the power with them.
This idea has its flaws, sure, but it could make for some tasty visuals and roleplay scenarios
My current dnd character had a patron that is essentially a mind parasite that feeds off his mind while giving him powers. It gives the host powers to ensure its own survival.
I once created a home-brew subclass in which a warlock makes a pact with an Oni. (Pact of the Ogre Mage)
Albino squirell, LOL
In Russia it's believed to be a thing that comes to those who drinks heavily, like a hallucination.
So what your warlock basically needs to do is to find two friends (it's also traditional to drink in threes) and share a bottle of high-spirit alcohol to share in a quiet place so that to summon the spirit by singing folk songs. It's wise to get a bard character as a friend, another fact is all the three have to be male.
It could be very well be the patron of one of the ( fey type) winter spirits or gods as that characters are typically worshipped by adults through drinking. Celebrating Russian new year is also a must to them.
They may also multiclass as drunken master monk.
Oh, and another type of things that come to the drunk are little green fiends, they are very close to DnD goblins in description except for little horns and hooves. almost like goblin tieflings, if you can imagine one. And there's also the green serpent, which comes in form of a dragon with long body or a gigantic snake. So the group of three would need to fight them and keep summoning the squirrel. The more the characters drink - the more chance they have to encounter that. Sober characters are not able to see any of the spirits or interact with them, but can buff those who fight them
Imagine someone else see a party of drunk characters fighting something invisible LOL
That's also a good campaign idea if your characters start drinking too much.
I love Warlocks for roleplay purposes, despite one of my friends thinking they are a weaker class. I don't share his beliefs, and, as I've said, I enjoy the roleplay the class can bring to a game. Some of the ideas I've had for warlocks are things like a young changeling that carries a storybook where the arch-fey patron appears as a monster from said story book. Another one is a former elf turned into a Simic Hybrid by falling into the sea after a fight with a kraken, absorbing the blood of the kraken. My newest one is a Profane Soul Blood Hunter (not warlock but pseudo warlock) who was an investigator in a small town who came across the spirit of a murder victim who wants justice for their murder.
I really enjoyed all of the new artwork in this episode. Some fantastic work went into this one! There are also a lot of great tips for that pesky Patron that DM's way ignore in the campaign (I know first handedly about a Patron ignoring their Warlock, lol).
Patrons can be a lot to juggle when you also have deities in play.
A patron should probably have an enemy of a similar type, so the warlock should find himself or herself in occasional conflict with that enemy's followers. There should also be other warlocks of the PCs patron who ask for help or are available to help sometimes. But that should also be true of other classes: every PC should have some kind of master or mentor for leveling up, & their needs & aid should sometimes come into play. “We need the six Orbs of Klemastu to fight Gorblactor. You need to get us one of them. Do you want Amulets of Water-breathing to get the orb in the Sunken City of Floom or Cloaks of Warmth to get the orb in the Hall of the Frost Giant Lord?”
I had a randomly created character that was an old human fighter. Seemed odd to me that someone in their 70s would still be level 1. So me and the DM made it so my character was a former warlock who's patron was evil. He found out too late and his family died because of it. So he was trying to right his wrongs. He didn't have any of his magic after breaking the pact, so picked up a sword and got to work.
0:35 Warlock was actually first introduced in a optional rules book for 2nd Edition.
9:56 Simply break your pact on any other day. This should prevent you from ever being turned into a frog, as you did not break the terms on a Tuesday.
My party's warlock is both generic and really original...
He's a old one pact warlock that has as a patron a forgotten, eldrich dream godess who is also his "girlfriend" (wow, wierd patron warlock relationship, how original)
Except... It's not just that... (All stuff I'll say was his idea, and only mentioning the things I allowed)
He can only comunicate with her through visions in dreams, but she thinks that he's just a product of her imagination, as she's lost most lf her powers. He sometimes gets dreams revealing ancient knowlege, so old, not even most gods, archdemons or archfeys know about. He also doesn't age or is affected by any existing illness or sickness while asleep, and he could sleep for an unlimited ammount of time.
He could also use telepathy (subclass skill) while asleep, but with greater power.
Also, his character's objective was to bring back the cult of his patron, to then fall asleep to spend eternity with his beloved.
Really lovely and wonderfully evocative suggestions, but I thought I'd add that it's very important to make sure that your warlock player is ON BOARD with any of this, because it might not be everyone's idea of fun. Don't simply assume that it'll be okay. Have an actual conversation about it. You don't want your player to feel as though you are punishing them for picking this class.
I'm currently playing a hexblade warlock who uses a mimic as his patron. It's pretty fun flavouring all the invocations and spells around it
I've had an idea on a scholarly warlock who's Great Old One patron is wanting for knowledge, not being particularly picky on what sort of knowledge is learned or even if said knowledge was already found out beforehand. So even just re-affirming a piece of knowledge (like say water boils at 100-degrees C) can be enough to provide a small boost to favor, but bigger pieces of knowledge like say jotting down and even decyphering an ancient language and translating even a piece of it would be like offering an even larger boon to the patron. A side compulsion may be to either search out small obelisks with otherworldly runes pulsating under the surface and leaving the patron's mark around it. Why? Fuck if I know, that's just what the patron space kraken thing wants at the time.
I thought it'd also be fun to at a later level be able to sort of "unravel" and "weave" one's self apart and together with thousands of tiny tentacles, almost like becoming a sort of fleshy puppet thing that usually holds the warlock's pre-pact form for a flavored shapeshifting thing, and have powers that affect one's mind whether it's the usual psychic powers or fiddling with brainware like causing epileptic fits in someone/thing. ...And of course, Eldritch Blast.
For my undead warlock I’m picturing a powerful vampiric spirit imbedding itself into said warlock and transforming them into a dhampir as part of the contract
I don't really play 5e, but I've been intrigued by warlock patrons as a part of world building. Consider how patrons and warlocks affect your world.
A question I ask is, do patrons have more than one warlock and how would they interact with each other?
A patron could have an entire coven dedicated to them, and encourage others to make that contract.
Alternatively, a hexblade with a shard of a demon blade, may be hostile towards other warlocks wielding a demon shard, because the demon blades goal is to become whole again. (Basically Souledge)
My campaign’s DMPC is the adopted grandchild of two necromancers; one has become a lich and the other is still alive but basically a fiend now. The grandpas are the leaders of a fantasy mafia and their employees are all warlocks bounded to them.
The grandkid is heir to their fantasy mafia but they are still learning magic. So the grandpas formed a “pact” , basically just giving them some eldritch powers on borrow so they can learn eldritch magic so they can develop their own and eventually become powerful enough to be an eldritch patron too, and to also give them powers to protect them while they are traveling with the party!
My rogue/warlock/bard was in a pact with an satyr-like archfey that was wrongly scorned by her bretheren and as such was weakened. She found my character and offered him power in exchange that he eventually clear her name and find the archfiend(s) that was truly responsible.
We did and it was an awesome fight with lots of homebrew, improv, and rule of cool.
Service under her also slowly gave my human smallish horns, so he soon got mistaken for a tiefling alot.
I just realized Bill Cipher is a sort of great old one patron
I asked my player about their patron: The Fiend, specifically a minor Love Demon who was also their ancestor, whom they bonded themselves to in a quest for power and belonging. However, as they suggested “love demon” I’m like? Is this corrupted love? Or he protects lovers who do demonic things? Or it’s lust? And my player shrugged and I was like, okay… guess your patron is going to whisper in your ear to save the womanizer you all want to kill next game. But I would like a more concrete answer.
One thing of note about there being no rules about what happens when you break a pact: Since you're a Warlock, you may have ALREADY completed.the pact. That's how you got the class features.
You can use similar ideas for clerics. A god can act like a very powerful patron. They tend to make a more general pact with a cult than individual pacts, but a god could choose one of his cult members for a special purpose.
one of my favorite patreons is Ulyssa, the Hexblade of our groups Yuan-Tie Pureblood Hexblade Warlock. Unlike other Hexblade patrons, she has no inherrent connection to the shadowfell and instead was a sword forged from Octiron, a steel filled to the brim with wild magic and the blade wild magiced itself into being sentient, loosing its octiron properties though in the processe. She is a kind soul but tries to appear as a dominatrix, is a softy though. she is very much in love with her warlock and one of his quests is to create a body for her to inhabit, for which a friendly necromancer has agreed to help with (retired undead wizard, keeps the cities graveyard safe and tended with his grey guard, volunteer guardsmen that died in the line of duty and were brought back as fully sentient undead by the wizard. the wizard offers resurection services aswell as casting the clone spell for others if needed, which they use a modified version of for Ulyssas body)
I know I am late to the party, but, one thing that I feel needs to be explored is:
What happens when a patron fails their end of the bargain.
As you said, the terms of a pact can be complex, and there has to be a benefit for both sides, which may include more than power. . . Or less than. I may, as a dm, be looking to try and convince a player to take on a patron without directly gaining magic abilities. I digress. If a patron fails to fulfill their end of the bargain, there should be consequences for them as well, giving the DM something new to consider to shape their roleplaying.
Absolutely! And that can lead into a longer discussion about power dynamics and where magical abilities truly come from. How binding is a pact? That's up to the DM!
High-level Warlock Law firm sends lawyers to sue the pants off the patron.
Personally I like the idea of a neutral third party overseeing the contract. 😁
@@mirthfulArtist you might enjoy looking at the Inevitables of older editions, Powerful constructs from Mechanus that chase down creatures who break natural laws and magical contracts
(There's still the stat-block for one of them in mordekainen's, the Marut, but they used to be this whole thing)
@@agustinvenegas5238 Reminds me of the Auditors from Discworld! I love the idea.
this was such a great video, you're incredibly underrated! after finishing the video and looking at the description, I was expecting to see thousands and thousands of views on this holy shit
I have a campaign I play in, but work sometimes conflicts with the schedule, so I have my characters patron intervene directly, portalling her away from the rest of the party to do some mysterious task for them. The party is large enough that the game can still go on, and our DM rebalances encounters for one less player.
The section about devils in the monster manual actually has some lore about pacts with devils. It states that every contract with a fiend (however low in the hierarchy) is enforced by the will of Asmodeus himself. If someone breaks the contract, they lose their claim on their soul which is then immediately transported to the nine hells. Pacta sunt servanda.
Whenever any of my players makes a warlock in my setting, I always do a session 0 wherein I (as the DM) role-play as the patron they're striking a contract with. In what tends to read like a job interview, patron and warlock discuss the terms of their pact and the boon is presented. The player then gets to pick up to 2 spells from a list of entry-level spells unique to that entity, with stronger stuff coming later
Warlocks are possibly the most versatile types of character you can make. Tying your powers to something external is an instant inroad into roleplaying, and it can be molded to fit almost any character concept that involves granted power if you think of the number of characters in media you could draw from. Madoka, He-Man, the Power Rangers, Yugi Muto, Sailor Moon, all of these could qualify as warlocks with next to no tweaking of their lore, and you can easily use them for inspiration. Kind of funny how often warlocks pop up in anime, now that I think of it...
I like using a coven of powerful hags as a patron.
Powerful, esoteric and mysterious magics unavailable to most others. And if your 'patron' is actually three distinct personalities who don't always get along, then the pact(s) become flexible depending on who is demanding what. One adventure, the Warlock might become compelled to disperse sugary treats to children, making their parents frustrated and exhausted throughout a number of villages. The next campaign, they ignore the kids and collected sparrow skulls and cave specific symbols on them.
For my trilogy series that I homebrewed, I introduced a Patron as the BBEG for the 2nd campaign of the trilogy. His "clients" usually demand the ability to see technology of the future, gain more strength, get a sword that can cut through anything, or just more power in general. However he demands a sacrifice upfront (like being blind, killing a loved one, losing a body part that you mainly use, or being paralyzed). Then 50 years after the deal, he'll come back to collect your soul into his home world the inferno. Apparently, he has helped both allies and enemies for the players. A lot of the events in my universe are caused by him. Even after his death in the 2nd final boss fight, my sequels tend to show his influence by having his clients create big events.
I’ve never played dnd but this sounds like the perfect class for me because I love making monsters
10:33 I personally disagree with this point as a hard rule. You can absolutely put patrons on a similar level as players if it fits the story well. A patron might be a being that's been rendered unable to exert its power itself, and is forced to act through a player as a medium. Two players could even conceivably be co-patrons of one another, two halves of a whole, needing to be in proximity of each other for their powers to work properly. Instituting a hard rule like "the patron must be distant and mysterious" is unnecessarily limiting the amazing flexibility of patrons as a storytelling medium. Sure, 7 times out of 10 it's the right move, but it shouldn't be taken as law.
For my warlock, Sir Tibet the Pale; I basically took him and his patron from the Stan Rogers song The Witch of the Westmoreland. This is still being ironed out but figured the song would be a neat backstory.
Communication is very key. One thing I personally find annoying about patrons as a player is if picking a non-good idea for a patron (not necessarily evil, I generally prefer an obscure great old ones or more capricious archfey) DMs often assume you're going for a redemption arc and try to get you on one ASAP. While I can see the appeal of this, it's a bit annoying to create a servant of a mysterious and unknowable power and have the DM constantly try to railroad you into switching to a celestial or good-aligned patron. I've been in a few campaigns with a great old one patron where I am constantly bombarded with multiple in-depth, fleshed out, NPC celestials trying to convert them away from their patron, while the limited interactions/communications with the patron are very shallow and one dimensional requests more akin to something a fiend patron or evil god would ask for (sacrifice innocents, aid the BBEG, etc). In my opinion part of the fun of playing a great old one or archfey patron is getting strange and seemingly inconsequential requests, especially if they slowly reveal a grander plan or ambition of your patron if you dig a little deeper.
I'm playing a warlock in Curse of Strahd who's a descendant of Baba Yaga by way of a bloodline of firbolgs. Her duty to her patron comes from familial obligation.
I actually came up with a Pact of the Talisman Undying Warlock based on a Thai Ghost Story called "The Wrath of Mae Nak", with steampunk elements & a more sapphic twist on the tale where Orfas' (My Tie Mak-Inspired Character) wife, Yuridis, is the patron which is inspired by Mae Nak.
I like listening to these videos even though I've never dm'ed. Sidenote.. idk if you pick the advertisements but the one I got was with the voice of allthingsdnd and that caught me off guard with what video was playing for a second haha.
My idea for my next warlock is one I particularly like. My character's father made a fiend pact some years before my character before I was born and the fiend chose to inhabit father's warhammer. After my father's death, I take up the warhammer and start the adventure as a Fighter. I need to reach a certain number of Fighter levels until the fiend in the hammer decides I am strong enough to be worth his time.
A patron idea I have is that the patron is actually more of a concept than a pyschical being.What I mean by this is that there actually more akin too a living breathing idea if that makes sense.So basically what this "litteral" idea of an patron wants is to have physical form and be able to enter the material plane for whatever reason they want,maybe they want freedom,maybe it's something more,WHO KNOWS???
I like to make a patron warlock dynamic more symbiotic business partners rather then master and servant
An example would be my fathomless warlock who was once a prince of a nation made up of ships and fleets rather then castles but as he was about to crowned king the general lead a coup at his coronation on his fathers prized frigate. The thing is this general made a deal with a eel god of the depths who promised him power and the kingdom in exchange for helping conquer the rest of the seas.
The prince now half dead made a deal with another god who just so happened to be a crab and the arch nemesis of the eel god
I love making a patron that's goals aren't just world domination or enslaving all living beings
Warlocks are my favorite class for roleplaying but that's mostly because of the patrons the idea of some great powerful entity needing to lend their power to achieve their goals
Though it can be a pain to explain why they aren't just doing it themselves. But it's always ends up giving more flavor to my character
Why doesn't the crab go and kill his rival himself. Simple, he has had many skirmishes with the Eel god, and in their most recent one, he has been heavily injured and almost dead. Now he is so desperate to keep his territory and his followers from falling into the maw of his rival he made a deal with random prince.
I've got a warlock set aside for a campaign who's based on Cinderella. But not just any Cinderella, I'm talking specifically Cinderella from the book Ella Enchanted. My PC is a variant human with a drop of fay blood in her (manifesting only in freakishly small feet). Her patron? Her fairy godmother, the progenitor of the lineage. Also her family's cook, a homely, elderly elf woman. The elf is actually an archfay in disguise because she wants to mother and care for her daughters.
At the start of the campaign, my PC won't have the fairy godmother around due to getting separated from her. And her godmother ordered that when she finds someone who has the power to reunite them, she should stick with them until they're reunited (that's why my PC sticks with the party).
Tangential to the video (I'm still watching) but gosh your art is nice. The designs and style are so neat and fun!
We had a really cool Warlock Patron in a previous game where I participated. Basically it was this Ancient Archfey who had vowed to protect a small community of Elves living in the Feywild. One of them had gone out into our mortal plane and had a half-elf child. Eventually, the father went back to the Feywild for what amounted to basically an election when suddenly this community of elves was attacked and all of them killed. The Archfey had been occupied elsewhere so they couldn't save their people and were, of course, mortified. Eventually they discovered this half-elf child, basically the last survivor of its people, and became their patron. The half-elf was tasked with 3 things: 1. find out who did it and bring them to justice, 2. preserve their heritage and culture, 3. If possible, find other survivors and save their "race".
My current warlock has a literal patron as a patron.
To make it simple, basically the patron is a powerful sorcerer who has attained immortality by stealing others magic.
After generations of being chased by adventurers they got board of being hunted. So now they find young members of magical bloodlines who are struggling with magic.
The Patreon then trades knowledge of magic for a constant drain on the young sorcerer's magic.
My warlock is now fighting to break their bond with their Patreon and bring an end to the cycle
I heavily encourage DMs to make up some sort of contract for their Patrons. These contracts should mimic the guidelines of a Paladin Oath, with goals or outlooks that should be encouraged.
Patrons, as well, may have many Warlocks under their sway, so another option for a wayward Warlock might be to have a rival Warlock threaten them with outing them to the Patron or taking their power should they wander away from a Patron's will.
I would also encourage DMs to really lean into having the Patron communicate in some way with the Warlock. These communications need not be clear. They could be dreams/nightmares, disappearing/reappearing symbols or tattoos, weird accidents happening that are convenient or inconvenient for the Warlock, and so on.
The animations in this one made it hilarious!
I made a Warlock who's whole Pact thing was like a set of tests for her to overcome and in return Her patron would agree to undergo a marriage ceremony to my Warlock which would unintentionally bring an immensely destructive force into the material plane. She knew that, But she wanted to have a powerful Shadow Husband she could love for eternity. (She was a shapeshifting Entity which could not age.)
I may have very little experience with tabletop stuff (I say that cause I'm in a Pathfinder campaign, I only have a single mini-session of experience with D&D), but this gives me an idea for a character that I'd honestly find really cool.
Long story short: Dragonborn Warlock that has a pact with dragon to collect gold/silver/etc. for it, so they seem super greedy but aren't really.
The way I always rule it in my games is that pacts have power, and when dealing with entities of this level they have godlike power. The grand secret of the patrons and gods is that a gift given cannot be revoked. The threats to take a power away are only half-true; unless the warlock makes another pact with someone else the patron can only prevent them from gaining NEW power. This does not mean it is without risk to betray a patron however, in fact it is far more risky than that of a cleric. Clerical powers are easily given, as they can be taken instantly, there's little risk.
A patron has a VESTED interest in you. A god or archdevil has this pact to assume more direct control over a world they cannot enter and thier usual minions find inhospitable. Gods don't like to send angels because if they die outside the planes of good they die forever, devils have trouble getting out of the hells without someone opening a door on the other side, etc. Betray them and they will send all their OTHER minions after you to get that power back. A powerful being like a fey or genie? They are using you to increase their power closer to that of a god, betray that and they might come after you PERSONALLY. The fraction of thier power they gave you is small, but actually noticeable to them, and they want it back.
I made a character who was a celestial warlock. The thing is they were actually four ghosts who used their combined magic to maintain a living body (not undead). This also technically made them their own patron.
Haha! What a fantastic video! I loved the ending Patreon bit!
I feel that the Patron should be mostly the player's responsibility. They have the idea of what they want their relationship with the patron to be, what they get out of it and how, and what the PC's and Patron's goals are with the arrangement. DM's job is to basically play the part of the Patron during character creation, making sure they know what they're getting into and coming to an agreement on the ground rules.
My Warlock's pact was formed because she wanted to be a performer, wanting talent and beauty to make it easy to get into show business and stay there. Her Patron, a Pit Fiend that's always willing to get a new source of influence on the world, agrees. Now in her mid-40's, she still doesn't look a day over 23 and has not only Performance proficiency, but has become a full social butterfly with Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion as well. As for the payment, she doesn't want to give up her soul for this, and so the Patron added more to the pile. She will be granted a weapon and knowledge of magicks, and in exchange she must use these to bring the Patron twenty souls to replace her own before her death. Mechanically, if she kills something with Eldritch Blast or her Pact Weapon, the creature's soul gets sent straight to Hell, despite any previous faith or arrangements, to be a servant of her patron. Powerful creatures, such as elementals, dragons, or other fiends, will be grounds for being granted knowledge of further powers, which may include but is not limited to illusions to improve her performances, the ability to speak to and understand everyone, regardless of language, and maybe a few extra tools to make further offerings easier to accomplish should she enjoy it. This of course is a ploy to tempt her towards evil, and her being a big dumb -1 WIS accepts this.
Her current mission is to slay the Mad Mage, as he has broken pacts with several subordinates and allies and kept them prisoner in the dungeon. Along the way, she's killed a Fire Genasi Minotaur, a Bone Devil, a young Red Dragon, an Avatar of Lolth (which didn't count because it was spawned by Kuo-Toa), two Nycaloths, an Odopi, and most recently an Erinyes. She even finished off a Lich, but that got Orcus mad and now she's cursed with Necrotic Damage vulnerability. The Kuo-Toa behind the Lolth avatar now venerate her as a god for freeing them from the dungeon, we're on our way to kill Mind Flayers, and she's become a lot more interested in this magic stuff. If her Patron doesn't make good on giving her more power, she might just try going after him instead. With nothing left to offer for bringing in an entire Pit Fiend, he'll have to give up servants until he snowballs into defaulting on his own Pact.
Meanwhile, this is a test by her Patron. See, being a Pit Fiend, the only power grabs available anymore are against Archdevils, which is suicide, and other Pit Fiends, which has gotten boring and only draws attention to yourself if you're too good at it. His plan, now that she's proven corruptible, is for her to prove herself a creature capable of wielding great power so he can, in one fell swoop, get her killed and possess her body, and thus be free to carve out a small empire on the Prime Material. The final Mystic Arcanum he has to offer, True Polymorph, is bait to get her to arrogantly transform into a Pit Fiend herself, so he can have his full range of powers on the Prime with nothing to bind him.
Here is a Patron (as it would be now, originally I created this in 2nd Edition) for people’s use: The Hearttree - Deep in the Underdark (or equivalent for your world) lies the Hearttree, an Eldritch entity with the physical form (known only to its adherents, as only they are permitted to be in its presence by the adherents that live in the settlement that has formed near its central location) of one of those trees that look like a cage (like the faerie tree in Ferngully) made of bone with a massive beating heart inside, its roots arteries and veins, it’s branches bones with flesh-like leaves that occasionally produce strange fruits. The adherents living near it are mostly Drow descended from those who first discovered it when seeking to escape Lloth and her punishment, her influence and power over them severed by the Hearttree. They happily welcome other adherents and any that come in peace, but only adherents may enter the deepest part of the settlement, where the Hearttree can be accessed.
It communicates with its adherents through dreams (most not born to those living near it that are its adherents become so due to the dreams it sends) and is (generally) benign, asking for odd tasks from its adherents/Warlocks; such as the planting of certain seeds in certain places (at the most extreme, those seeds must be put inside hearts before being planted, but the hearts are of monsters that disrupted the area or regular food animals), the destruction of creatures that are poisoning or “draining” an area, and to aide the displaced/needy.
The 7:33 bit is a bit off. The pact magic spell slot recover, the pact boon summoning/creation/remaking and the sucblass features are all by RAW/effect text of both the class and the features themselves to be from the patron. So no patron no use of them. Invocations are explicitly the characters doing and cantrips cant be run out of so those are safe with arcanums being probably safe too since the class text (and external release info design statements) being that, in the arcanums being secrets/tricks rather than direct spell usage, despite bestowed by the patron, are things anyone could in theory do like the invocations.
Same way how a paladin or druid needs a god to fuel their magic, even if they dont need to believe in said god or even have a working relationship as long as their goals/ideals align in some way.
In my campaign, we a have a warforged made from the scales and bones of a long dead dragon god, we developed this character into essentially a living hex-blade.
Pact idea
Patrion: "here is a pice of my soul, nuture it. when you die it goes back to me making me stronger"
I made one called the grimoire, I put lore that it could be a spellbook made sentient by an animate objects spell gone wrong or an order of scribes wizard's awakend spellbook that stayed after the wizard is long gone. Either way it sat just gathering information and power enough to become a warlock patron
Watching this made me randomly remember the manga Oh My Goddess. Where the main character accidentally called a Goddess Help Line. The Goddess, Belldandy, shows up to grant him a single wish. Thinking it's a joke, he wishes a goddess like her could be his girlfriend forever...wish granted and she ends up sticking around permanently. Cue series of romcom hijinks.
Patron idea: Your character and patron are married and the patron is absolutely terrified of your character character dying, so they give you some of their power while they continue their day job.
right now i'm playing a tiefling celestial warlock, his patron is the devil that fathered him on his way to redemption for the last decade or so is trying to mend his wrongdoings (including fathering a child to the middle of a devil worshipping warlocks and witches commune) my character is going through the alignment chart, started CN forced into the pact by his now-deva father and recently turned TN after realising there might be more at stake than his freedom in this whole arrangement
i've been binging this channel since yesterday and i gotta say i wish i had found this sooner, it might actually be the push i need to start DMing
My players warforge warlock has Megatron as his patron
your art is so beautiful!! such a good video
Some players may not want a roleplay connection to a patron, but just want to play the mechanical aspects of the class. Warlocks are widely considered a relatively underpowered class, so it would be unfair to demand they also be shackled to a patron's whims just for wanting to play that class.
Some players may want to come up with their own patron. Unless there is a _good reason_ to forbid this, let them! If their patron is incompatible with your setting, help them find alternatives, or maybe even adjust their existing idea so it can work in your setting.
Some players may want a certain type of patron, but prefer the mechanics of a different kind of patron. Consider if you can allow them to have powers styled after one patron, while actually having a different patron. And if not, _why_ not, and is there some kind of fix for that.
In general, enable your players to have fun, so long as it doesn't hurt the overall game!
A warlock Patron I used was a dead Archmage who hoped the warlock would finish the ritual that killed him.
"Less communication with the patron helps keep the mystery" "the patron may require rituals"
*Look's at my PC's warlock who made a deal with the mysterious fey "xQc" and performs rituals on her kills to take their souls as subscribers*
Hidden clause: You will die if you don't say Like and Sub for 7 days.
in avernus campaign I allowed player to have a pact with a powerful demon seeking to replace Zariel
Player wanted to get rid of zariel too so their pact was simple:Get rid of zariel , atleast kick her from avernus and while doing so you will have my blessings.
after that Zollesh(its name) was pulling his part of plan. He was not helping party at all instead he was planting seeds of distrust and rebellion to side of Zariel and was getting ready to blame it all on Bel, who also wants to reclaim avernus like when he used to.
Flexibility of their pact allowed both of them act freely and Zollesh was happy from it. After all he was getting what he wanted. He even made another pact with another strong entitiy(spoilers if I explain further) and entity despite being lawful good accepted him and Zollesh was fine with it too.
If he ever attempted to break the pact and tried to leave the adventure or anything like that I was planning to make him roll a wisdom save every 24 hours... each time he fails he will lose 1 constutution and reaching to 0 would kill him and send his soul to styx river.
THANK YOU SO MUCH.
My (fathomless) warlock is absolutely oblivious to the fact that her aboleth patron's desire to drown the world is a bad thing. The bad guys are trying to resurrect a dark god and she's against them because that cult is in the place of the cult she's innocently trying to make.
The whole table regularly bursts out laughing when she responds to boss fights by trying to hand the boss a pamphlet.
I'm pretty sure her patron doesn't actually care about having a cult, but she's oblivious to that too.
Oh! The bag man ..
Broke: Your patron is a hellspawn Corporate who elects to use the warlock and by proxy, the rest of the party as glorified handymen.
Woke: Patron is the Warlock's drinking buddy
Bespoke: Patron is the Warlock's overly attached *spouse*.
I want to create an evil Warlock character, but his patron God is goddess Sune, who constantly compels him to do good.
Aah. I made a warlock patron that ripped some stuff off of the Fiend warlock set, but as my own thing lol. Pact of the Chained God. The strange thing about it is that most of the pact features and spells deal with fire, rejuvenation, and volcanism instead of chains or traps or binds lol. Because; dun dun duuuun; in actuality they're a volcano god imprisoned in their volcano by a formerly-trying-to-do-good-party that's now turned into a cult seeking to siphon the god's power for themselves, and naturally the god wants to get out.
Creating a patron for DaD
I have the outline of a warlock I want to play, it's a himbo tabaxi Warlock with an Angel patron. His Patron is pretty much his Guardian Angel because the guy is so stupid something needs to step in or else the cat is going to burn through his nine lives very quickly.
This is a great video
I decided to push back on the "fiend patron=evil" because I love the fiend patron but don't enjoy playing evil and am not interested in playing "how to break my pact with the least damage". For my fiend warlock, I decided to lean into D&D stereotypes as meta humor while also using christian mythology with a modern twist ala church of satan. My warlock is Venus Morningstar, servant of The Dawnbringer, a fiendish entity she believes is unfairly maligned by society and the gods. She views freedom, knowledge, and informed consent as holy. She's also a pun. Venus was once referred to as the Morningstar, which was also another name for Lucifer. So is the Dawnbringer. So she's effectively Lucifer Lucifer, servant of Lucifer. So, pact of the fiend, but neither she nor her patron are evil.
My girlfriend wanted to play the great old one but not in the style of cthulu. Her solution? It's a reeeeeeally old tree. Her eldritch blasts are waves of force swirling with leaves and twigs!
Btw, your lead in to your patreon was smooth af. Well done!
dao genie who has been traped in a coffee pot
I just use the 5e Warlock (and Sorcerer, and Monk) to function as psionic classes. I mean, there's no 5e psionics...if you want to play Dark Sun (or a similar homebrew) you have to reskin.
9:03 Or, is the patron casting spells though the warlock’s body.
Oh I’ve gotta run a Magic Conch Patron. 😂
What do you use for the pictures you make for your videos? Like what software/stylus/tablet?
My uh… my player accidentally sold his soul to his deep patron… now I gotta figure out how to work this out lol
Watching cause I'm new to dnd and one of my players is going to do a pact of the Dungeon Master. Any advice?
Breaking my contract with Lucifer results in having my Pentecostal Coin confiscated, so that when I die and go to Hell... I'm stuck there. Permanently. And I have to roll up a new character.
If I play a Warlock: Hexblade, do I get the Hexblade Expanded Spell List or the Raven Queen's one or both? Same for other levels, do I get the effects stated by the Hexblade like Shadow Hound or the ones by the Raven Queen like Soul of the Raven or both?