For the most part I want to see other peoples cool patron ideas. Here are a few of my own.
Hexblade - An ancient shadow dragon. I dont know if this pact would create a hexblade or a Dragon Sorcerer.
Archfey/Fiend - A coven of night hags. Since night hags have a lot of dealings with the hells a particularly powerful coven could act as a patron for either one.
Hexblade/Undying - Davy Jones. Pretty simple, in my head i imagine Davy Jones as some kind of lich pirate or a kraken.
Undying - Vecna/Acererak/any other powerful lich. Pretty self explanatory although i don't know if liches would count as Undying patrons because, well, they are dead.
My warlock got his deal after going on a few dates with Fierna, the party girl lord of hell. He mistook her for a Tiefling, and she was both amused and surprised that he treated her like a regular person.
Literally any of the 3.5e vestiges (Orcus' discarded divinity Tenebrous being a personal favorite). Some of the errata epic vestiges are great too, like Gaia.
Once there was a a Spirit, The children of muck and blood called its form of light and wonder 'fey'. They worshipped it and died for it in battle, for its hunger, and for its amusement. In time The WYLD was harder to leave. The children of muck and blood had aped his wonder in tales and birthed their own lords and called them gods. These flawed copies blurred the sight of the Fey courts and made the wyld harder to touch on the realm of muck and blood. The spirit of Nature was angry and when a weakness was found in the gloaming tide its darkling throng razed cities in its name and left them accursed woods with Trees that hunted those chattel stupid to return.
A hero of the mortals came, alone it seemed but it brought death with it. It refused to play, It refused to deal. It refused to break. It ripped at Natures heart, poisoning the land with flesh crafted iron that burnt the flesh of fey and Poisoned the Sithens of the Gloaming Tides. The spirit was fey, it could not change its nature, it was a facet of nature so it could not admit its mistake, nor change its capriciousness, nor repent. The 'hero' cut it into light and power and bound it to a blade of Aruil - Moonstone.
Now the spirit slumbers in its prison. But not all is lost. Its title and mantle have been passed to another as is natures way, seasons always follow. With that loss it was no longer Fey, no longer spirit and so it could learn. It learnt humility, It learnt to let go of pride. It learnt of how to visit dreams and appreciate mortal desires. it learnt to speak to some few whose desires allowed them to glimpse it.
Natural Causes is a blade long lost, but it is also a dream and for a few? A voice that offers the power of nature bound in magic, It offers them what it once was what it could be and what it is. (Archfey, Celestial, Hexblade pact choices)
Hah its an old one - we used to joke about divination into what killed someone and the answer being 'Natural Causes' The 5th ed version of N.C. is a PITA weapon - every time you land a killing blow on something it reincarnates them - every damn time.
My first Archfey Warlock had the Leanan Sidhe as his patron(why yes, I AM a gigantic Dresden Files fan, why do you ask?). She is often depicted in folklore as a muse for artists & such, offering inspiration in exchange for devotion, and often an untimely demise(Yeats described her with an almost vampiric nature, draining the lifeforce from those she connects with). My guy was a Half-Elven jewelsmith with a daughter whose mother had died in childbirth, eventually making a bargain so that his work would be valuable enough to ensure she's taken care of, on the condition that she let him live long enough to see his daughter grow up. After his daughter was kidnapped, she took pity on him and granted him the power to go search for his daughter.
Leanan Sidhe were released in ravenloft second edition, (although slightly different spelling) Unlike a banshee they attached themselves to a charismatic mortal (bards, no sorcerers back in second) and inspired them making them compose / create great masterpieces. The down side was they burnt out and had a heartattack / died suddenly of extreme fatigue in weeks at best. A horrible repeated doomed love affair of a fey.
Dresden files are great, or at least the authors snapshots of the fey world make me smile anyway. Did you ever play the DFiles RPG, jd2319?
Leanan Sidhe were released in ravenloft second edition, (although slightly different spelling) Unlike a banshee they attached themselves to a charismatic mortal (bards, no sorcerers back in second) and inspired them making them compose / create great masterpieces. The down side was they burnt out and had a heartattack / died suddenly of extreme fatigue in weeks at best. A horrible repeated doomed love affair of a fey.
Dresden files are great, or at least the authors snapshots of the fey world make me smile anyway. Did you ever play the DFiles RPG, jd2319?
Nope, never really had much interest. I'll stick to the books and the comics :)
Undying - Vecna/Acererak/any other powerful lich. Pretty self explanatory although i don't know if liches would count as Undying patrons because, well, they are dead.
In SCAG Lich Queen Vol is part of the list and she's just a lich (not a deity) so...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
I chose Kthanid for my GOO patron. (Cthulhu'sbrother)
He is said to have helped banish his brother and the other Great Old Ones to Earth before binding them. the other GOO killed his family while he was sleeping, so there's a potential revenge factor... I figure that should give my DM plenty to work with.
Anyone know what "Ninja the unseen foe" is? It's showing up as a patron option for my Warlock but I can't think of a official source for this. I did post to the forums here months ago about how I would like to see a ninja who gets their power through Warlock like pacts. But it was just a idea only. Has something happened or some official option come out? And yes homebrew is turned off so it can't surely be that.
Edit: Nvm for some reason it's showing up in the list of patrons even though homebrew is turned off. I had completely forgotten that I had even messed with this back then. But now I am again giving it some thought. Anyway please disregard this post.
In the game I run, I gave our Celestial warlock a choice of patrons... and he chose a seraphim that operates under the authority of a neutral good deity. He does have a picture of the thing, but it's really just a mess of wings and eyes, and it's communications are always rather direct and terse, sometimes even a bit cryptic.
For the Hexblade warlock I play as, I designed a star/space-themed sentient weapon entity that also can manifest as an old man in a shadowy cloak--and while he has dark powers to give his servant, he's surprisingly neutral and fair.
For the most part I want to see other peoples cool patron ideas.
Hi Thorzap. Your Davy Jones idea sounds like fun! I also really enjoy developing unusual warlock patron options. FWIW, in my Fellozial's Ultimate Guide to Poison, I include 16 named patrons with noxious twists, each with character customization options, detailed lore, and more. Maybe some of these sound interesting to you...
ARCHFEY PATRONS
The Storm Hag (a legendary sea hag who dwells in the Feywild's waters and sometimes burst through to the Material Plane to sink ships and feed on the souls of sailors)
CELESTIAL PATRONS
Jadefeather, Steward of Kukul (the oldest of all couatls, working to restore the missing father of the Maztican pantheon)
Peall, Sovereign of the Sisters (unicorn of incredible age and power who leads the herd at the twin waterfalls said to be the cradle of life on Toril)
FIEND PATRONS
Demondand Grand Warden (chief of all demodands on the plane of Carceri)
Lolth (demon-queen of spiders)
Shaktari, Queen of Poison (marilith demon lord who rules Vudra, the 531st layer of the Abyss, from the bottom of its Bloodsea)
GREAT OLD ONE PATRONS
The Color Out of Space (a luminous and deadly alien presence that infested an area of farmlandwest of Candlekeep after a meteorite impact)
Kil'lix (Neogi deity of poison, death, and murder)
HEXBLADE PATRONS
The Teeth of Dagoaxath (springing from a Triton legend about a beast with ties to both the Elemental Plane of Water and the Shadowfell)
UNDYING PATRONS
Vyrrik, The Green Dracovampire (an ancient green dragon who was turned into a vampire)
Hitotee, Yuan-ti Malison Mummy Lord
If you're into homebrewed material, I also introduce two new patron types in the guide:
ASCENDED HERO PATRONS (being of exceptional arcane power who came from humble beginnings)
Ssuissata, Anathema Exarch (yuan-ti who became an anathema, then an exarch of Geryon)
Vutha the Lizard Queen (one-time desert lizardfolk shaman elevated by the touch of both the demon Sess'innek and the Elemental Prince Ogrémoch)
TRANSCENDENT FLORA (an uncanny entity of the plant world)
Araumycos, the Great Fungus
The Primal Gulthias Tree
Xilonen, Maztican Corn Mother
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Author of Fellozial's Ultimate Guide to Poison, The Primal Gith, and other forthcoming titles at DMs Guild
My next bardlock is going to be a lady with a Fey patron and the noble background who relies on singing and summoning small animals to aid her in high risk situations. Gonna call the patron her Fairy Godmother.
Or go the Sopranos route and call them Tony. And they summon yard gnomes dressed as gansters that rappid fire magic missiles from tommy gun looking wands.
The celestial warlock that I am getting ready to start is bound to the vestige of Mystryl, the original goddess of magic in the Forgotten Realms
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
For fiends, I enjoy the archdevil options, and they go quite well with the tiefling subrace options. I interpret the fiendish whispers of their bloodline as being these arch devils directly communicating with them on a subconcious/concious level.
In particular, I like the diverging play styles of Dispater and Zariel...
Dispater is a collector of secrets and knowledge...and so a Tome warlock is something of an information broker. As Dispater is highly paranoid, and will not leave his iron fortress, having warlocks bring him secrets and gossip is useful for him...or, perhaps just entertaining for him. The "Flesh to Stone" spell is a signature, one that I'd reflavor as Dispater's ability to turn flesh to iron.
Zariel's warlocks are essentially all Pact of the Blade, and I imagine them as just a D&D version of Doom Guy from "Doom". Zariel is obsessed with killing demons; she favors warlocks who are powerful and will help her kill demons. Brutally simple, good for an "action" playthrough.
A Hexblade patron that is perhaps interesting is Strahd; the villain from "Curse of Strahd". As his Domain of Dread, the country of Barovia, is essentially in the Shadowfell, you could say that a Hexblade is essentially a knight sworn into his service, to carry out his will outside his domain.
The consuming of HP through the "Hexblades Curse" is vampiric in nature, after all...and the spectres harvested at later levels could be souls you are sending to Barovia to be trapped there under his rule. If you take "Ennervation" as a spell, you could say that you are draining an opponents life force like a vampire..."Gaseous Form" is another such spell, for turning into red mist...
GOO -- The Cacophony of Voices (Homebrew). It's a hollowed out Illithid compound where the psionic energy of thousands of jarred humanoid brains formed a sentient thought entity that grows in power the more brains are added to Its cacophony.
*I'm mostly left to my own devices with no interference from my patron. Sometimes I dread the demands it makes when it does appear. I must occasionally conduct bizarre rituals to maintain my pact. I must occasionally find minds that are willing to drop everything for change, mostly lost souls, the dissatisfied dreamers, or the insane. When I find a potential candidate, I rip a page at random from my book of shadows, fold it and leave it with that person. A Chasme the size of a human comes to take the person brain, places it in a crystal jar pulled with fluid and take it back to the Abyss from which it came.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
For the most part I want to see other peoples cool patron ideas. Here are a few of my own.
Hexblade - An ancient shadow dragon. I dont know if this pact would create a hexblade or a Dragon Sorcerer.
Archfey/Fiend - A coven of night hags. Since night hags have a lot of dealings with the hells a particularly powerful coven could act as a patron for either one.
Hexblade/Undying - Davy Jones. Pretty simple, in my head i imagine Davy Jones as some kind of lich pirate or a kraken.
Undying - Vecna/Acererak/any other powerful lich. Pretty self explanatory although i don't know if liches would count as Undying patrons because, well, they are dead.
My warlock got his deal after going on a few dates with Fierna, the party girl lord of hell. He mistook her for a Tiefling, and she was both amused and surprised that he treated her like a regular person.
Fierna is the best Duchess of Hell
Literally any of the 3.5e vestiges (Orcus' discarded divinity Tenebrous being a personal favorite). Some of the errata epic vestiges are great too, like Gaia.
"The Epic Level Handbook wasn't that bad, guys.
Guys, pls."
Once there was a a Spirit, The children of muck and blood called its form of light and wonder 'fey'. They worshipped it and died for it in battle, for its hunger, and for its amusement. In time The WYLD was harder to leave. The children of muck and blood had aped his wonder in tales and birthed their own lords and called them gods. These flawed copies blurred the sight of the Fey courts and made the wyld harder to touch on the realm of muck and blood. The spirit of Nature was angry and when a weakness was found in the gloaming tide its darkling throng razed cities in its name and left them accursed woods with Trees that hunted those chattel stupid to return.
A hero of the mortals came, alone it seemed but it brought death with it. It refused to play, It refused to deal. It refused to break. It ripped at Natures heart, poisoning the land with flesh crafted iron that burnt the flesh of fey and Poisoned the Sithens of the Gloaming Tides. The spirit was fey, it could not change its nature, it was a facet of nature so it could not admit its mistake, nor change its capriciousness, nor repent. The 'hero' cut it into light and power and bound it to a blade of Aruil - Moonstone.
Now the spirit slumbers in its prison. But not all is lost. Its title and mantle have been passed to another as is natures way, seasons always follow. With that loss it was no longer Fey, no longer spirit and so it could learn. It learnt humility, It learnt to let go of pride. It learnt of how to visit dreams and appreciate mortal desires. it learnt to speak to some few whose desires allowed them to glimpse it.
Natural Causes is a blade long lost, but it is also a dream and for a few? A voice that offers the power of nature bound in magic, It offers them what it once was what it could be and what it is. (Archfey, Celestial, Hexblade pact choices)
"Natural Causes" is a great name for a Grave Cleric's weapon.
Hah its an old one - we used to joke about divination into what killed someone and the answer being 'Natural Causes' The 5th ed version of N.C. is a PITA weapon - every time you land a killing blow on something it reincarnates them - every damn time.
My first Archfey Warlock had the Leanan Sidhe as his patron(why yes, I AM a gigantic Dresden Files fan, why do you ask?). She is often depicted in folklore as a muse for artists & such, offering inspiration in exchange for devotion, and often an untimely demise(Yeats described her with an almost vampiric nature, draining the lifeforce from those she connects with). My guy was a Half-Elven jewelsmith with a daughter whose mother had died in childbirth, eventually making a bargain so that his work would be valuable enough to ensure she's taken care of, on the condition that she let him live long enough to see his daughter grow up. After his daughter was kidnapped, she took pity on him and granted him the power to go search for his daughter.
Leanan Sidhe were released in ravenloft second edition, (although slightly different spelling) Unlike a banshee they attached themselves to a charismatic mortal (bards, no sorcerers back in second) and inspired them making them compose / create great masterpieces. The down side was they burnt out and had a heartattack / died suddenly of extreme fatigue in weeks at best. A horrible repeated doomed love affair of a fey.
Dresden files are great, or at least the authors snapshots of the fey world make me smile anyway. Did you ever play the DFiles RPG, jd2319?
Nope, never really had much interest. I'll stick to the books and the comics :)
In SCAG Lich Queen Vol is part of the list and she's just a lich (not a deity) so...
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
I came up with a great beast warlock magical creature like that of avatar. But I haven't put it on dnd beyond yet
I chose Kthanid for my GOO patron. (Cthulhu's brother)
He is said to have helped banish his brother and the other Great Old Ones to Earth before binding them. the other GOO killed his family while he was sleeping, so there's a potential revenge factor... I figure that should give my DM plenty to work with.
Anyone know what "Ninja the unseen foe" is? It's showing up as a patron option for my Warlock but I can't think of a official source for this. I did post to the forums here months ago about how I would like to see a ninja who gets their power through Warlock like pacts. But it was just a idea only. Has something happened or some official option come out? And yes homebrew is turned off so it can't surely be that.
Edit: Nvm for some reason it's showing up in the list of patrons even though homebrew is turned off. I had completely forgotten that I had even messed with this back then. But now I am again giving it some thought. Anyway please disregard this post.
In the game I run, I gave our Celestial warlock a choice of patrons... and he chose a seraphim that operates under the authority of a neutral good deity. He does have a picture of the thing, but it's really just a mess of wings and eyes, and it's communications are always rather direct and terse, sometimes even a bit cryptic.
For the Hexblade warlock I play as, I designed a star/space-themed sentient weapon entity that also can manifest as an old man in a shadowy cloak--and while he has dark powers to give his servant, he's surprisingly neutral and fair.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Hi Thorzap. Your Davy Jones idea sounds like fun! I also really enjoy developing unusual warlock patron options. FWIW, in my Fellozial's Ultimate Guide to Poison, I include 16 named patrons with noxious twists, each with character customization options, detailed lore, and more. Maybe some of these sound interesting to you...
ARCHFEY PATRONS
CELESTIAL PATRONS
FIEND PATRONS
GREAT OLD ONE PATRONS
HEXBLADE PATRONS
UNDYING PATRONS
If you're into homebrewed material, I also introduce two new patron types in the guide:
ASCENDED HERO PATRONS (being of exceptional arcane power who came from humble beginnings)
TRANSCENDENT FLORA (an uncanny entity of the plant world)
My next bardlock is going to be a lady with a Fey patron and the noble background who relies on singing and summoning small animals to aid her in high risk situations. Gonna call the patron her Fairy Godmother.
Or go the Sopranos route and call them Tony. And they summon yard gnomes dressed as gansters that rappid fire magic missiles from tommy gun looking wands.
The celestial warlock that I am getting ready to start is bound to the vestige of Mystryl, the original goddess of magic in the Forgotten Realms
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
For fiends, I enjoy the archdevil options, and they go quite well with the tiefling subrace options. I interpret the fiendish whispers of their bloodline as being these arch devils directly communicating with them on a subconcious/concious level.
In particular, I like the diverging play styles of Dispater and Zariel...
Dispater is a collector of secrets and knowledge...and so a Tome warlock is something of an information broker. As Dispater is highly paranoid, and will not leave his iron fortress, having warlocks bring him secrets and gossip is useful for him...or, perhaps just entertaining for him. The "Flesh to Stone" spell is a signature, one that I'd reflavor as Dispater's ability to turn flesh to iron.
Zariel's warlocks are essentially all Pact of the Blade, and I imagine them as just a D&D version of Doom Guy from "Doom". Zariel is obsessed with killing demons; she favors warlocks who are powerful and will help her kill demons. Brutally simple, good for an "action" playthrough.
A Hexblade patron that is perhaps interesting is Strahd; the villain from "Curse of Strahd". As his Domain of Dread, the country of Barovia, is essentially in the Shadowfell, you could say that a Hexblade is essentially a knight sworn into his service, to carry out his will outside his domain.
The consuming of HP through the "Hexblades Curse" is vampiric in nature, after all...and the spectres harvested at later levels could be souls you are sending to Barovia to be trapped there under his rule. If you take "Ennervation" as a spell, you could say that you are draining an opponents life force like a vampire..."Gaseous Form" is another such spell, for turning into red mist...
Lots of potential.
GOO -- The Cacophony of Voices (Homebrew). It's a hollowed out Illithid compound where the psionic energy of thousands of jarred humanoid brains formed a sentient thought entity that grows in power the more brains are added to Its cacophony.
*I'm mostly left to my own devices with no interference from my patron. Sometimes I dread the demands it makes when it does appear. I must occasionally conduct bizarre rituals to maintain my pact. I must occasionally find minds that are willing to drop everything for change, mostly lost souls, the dissatisfied dreamers, or the insane. When I find a potential candidate, I rip a page at random from my book of shadows, fold it and leave it with that person. A Chasme the size of a human comes to take the person brain, places it in a crystal jar pulled with fluid and take it back to the Abyss from which it came.