So.  Because some dickwhistle decided to cast Animate Dead on an otherwise really interesting old thread I'd have loved to be part of when it was fresh, but...well, necromancy...I decided to break out the spirit of that old discussion into a new thread.

The most common warlock Pact is essentially "I let you run a tap to my magic, and in turn you do what I tell you to when I tell you to do something".  It's a classic, tried-and-true approach, but because it's such a deeply entrenched trope it's also kinda staid and boring.  A player can absolutely do something cool with a warlock whose patron is the can of Monster from which they chug their power, but usually it's because they're doing other cool stuff with the character, instead.

I'm curious what other warlocks have done with their Pact, and how you may have broken that mold.  What's your warlock's Pact like, and how is it different from the usual deal-with-Satan spiel?

I play a GOOlock.

Kathanid isn't even aware that my character exists, he just accidentally tapped into his power.

No obligations to keep track of. Makes the DM's life easier. :)

Sorry for casting animate dead in the thread. I din't saw the date... Anyway, correct me if i an wrong, but bumping is when you just bumb, if you add new points, is against the forum rules? If yes, i an sorry and it will not happen again.

About WLK pacts, one that i found interesting is a Pact of the Blade, where your warlock develops a similar relationship to venom and his symbiote. You can even roleplay your alignment shifting and even some flaws. That is very interesting.

PS : How the pact works is very up to the DM/Player "The warlock as an arcane spellcaster is a great example, of someone who has a relationship with an otherworldly entity, but that entity is not necessarily the wellspring of the warlock's power. The warlock might be getting some power from that patron, depending on the patron and the nature of their relationship, but the warlock is also getting their power just from the cosmos around them because arcane power at its heart is really in a way about hacking the multiverse." https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/135-arcane-and-divine-magic-in-dungeons-and-dragons

The below is copy/pasted form my current favourite and seldom used character, His name is Morgan Garrick and is an exercise in trying to be proficient in all skills, Currently level 8 and also an NPC in my campaign:

My Celestial warlock's relationship with her angel patron is very much like a cleric and deity's, in that she just asks the patron to make stuff happen and has maybe even less power "on her own" than a cleric would.

Also @Lord Victor, you're good. Calling someone a dickwhistle because they contributed to a dated thread is the real problem. :-)

 So I asked my DM if my Bard could take a level of Hexblade with Eilistraee, in Her aspect as a Goddess of Swordwork, as his Patron and he allowed it. How I did it was a dream encounter where my bard attracted Her attention with his playing and Her touch granted him a portion of Her divine power.

He woke up with a single strand of silver in his hair and the ability to conjure throwing daggers made of silvery moonlight (Eldritch Blast) and able to summon blasts of Her hunting horns (Booming Blade).

Some real good work in here.  Always refreshing to see people crafting stories and making characters in their roleplaying games instead of just chasing the numbers.  Stuff like this is why I love warlocks, such a rich well of inspiration.

@LordVictor: Forum rules say any thread with no new replies in over six months is dead.  Sometimes they come back, and sticky'd threads don't count for it, but generally adding a new reply to such a thread frustrates everyone else.  The original people have already finished their discussion and won't talk to you about it, and new people can't rejoin the discussion because it's already over.  Generally better to start a new thread of your own at that point, like I did here, if you want to talk about something similar.

In my case, the proto warlock ran into a future "Book of Shadows" that the patron used to hook the character into pact magic.

The rational here, is that pact magic isn't from the patron, but the patron connects their 'agent' to a source of power, like a hooking up a utility to the house.  The patron might teach the warlock how to use it more effectively, or a warlock explores on their own.  This is why a patron can't turn it off either; it isn't their power.  But they certainly have other influence.  Or in other cases, it might just be stolen knowledge, and a temporary theft of power to do the hookup, which works for GOO locks.

In this specific case, the education comes from the Book of Shadows.  And dreams are the more directed way for the patron to contact the character.

GLFH

My first warlock was a Fiend warlock. He was a very earnest elf trained to be a fighter, and went to slay a demon lord. This demon lord killed everyone in the party but him, and was a lordess. She took a liking to him, but not his heroic ways. She had corrupted his mind, and they saw each others as equals, both incredibly evil and underestimating of people.

Long story short, true love equals demonic powers.

Another one would be one of my favorite characters in general. He's a great old one warlock, and is a crab. Not an awakened crab, not special. A literal crab that got warlock powers. Cthulhu was bored and decided to try giving something unintelligent some of his power. Now there's a crab that can speak telepathically, has a wizard hat with a crystal in it, and is a true neutral, wholesome, and horrifying being.

 I'm playing a Feylock pact of the tome who thinks his patron is Sehanine but is she? Or is this something else? An intermediary? 

This may or may not be the work of his grandfather, a haughty elf who has never approved of his daughter marrying a human. The tome I have is a gift from him. But  what are his goals?

Mechanically, I must write everything magical and monstrous in my tome, and the tome will write back to me. But why? In addition, every time I Misty step, blink or similar spell where I leave the prime material plane, I roll a d100. At a certain value (unbeknownst to me), I am teleported into the Feywild for longer than just the duration of the spell. In one case, I was in the Feywild for four days but reappeared in the prime material plane in just a few moments. 

I'm now 6th level, and still have no idea with whom my pact is actually made, and why. It's all part of the mystery.

i play fiend pact where i was a teifling that was holding a deal with Asmodeus. He would give me power, i would supply him with souls for Avernus. also the tiefling was directly in the bloodline of asmodeus, so he was happy to help him

I haven't yet played my character yet but I have been building one with a HB subclass, where my Patron is a Celestial who currently draws her power from the Abyss and has a "cult" on the Prime Material who recruit and train new members.  This isn't the first cult she has inspired however, her earlier attempts having been snuffed out by competing powers.  Thus in this iteration they aren't as zealous and function less like a Crusade and more like a Mercenary/Assassin's guild who specifically only take on evil aligned marks.  I kinda pulled inspiration from Assassin's Creed and the Witcher 3:  Wild Hunt for the "cult."  Everything else is based on my enjoyment of subverting expectations, having a creature from the Abyss actually have a Lawful Good alignment.  It may not be how it is normally, but I am sure that is what people said of Drow before Drizzt came along.  Its all made up and so we should be more willing to test the waters and see what stick.   

I've had an Infernal Soldier who was an untalented conscript. Signing a contract with one of the army's bound demons is even easier than training someone to use a crossbow. By the start of the campaign, his half of the bargain had already been paid. He gave six years of his life to the war. He lost his home, his child, and his wife. But the powers are his to keep. (Yeah, my first Warlock had an edgy backstory. I couldn't help it. He wasn't brooding once the game started)

I've also got an Eladrin Archfey Noble. His powers are his own. So long as he keeps his title, then his natural connection to the feywild is enough to maintain his pact. 

And finally, the character I want too play next; a first generation Tiefling Celestial Pact Acolyte. Raised as a demonic thrall; his former master and most of the cult that enslaved him got taken down by followers of Bahamut. One of the paladins took pity on the tiefling child and spared him, bringing him back to the church. Now, his angelic patron acts as a guidance counselor/parole officer.

My current character is a celestial warlock who made a pact with Mystryl, a vestige of the original goddess of magic in Forgotten Realms.  The original idea was that she granted him power, and he was to be visible and flashy with it and try to recruit her worshippers because she wants to be a goddess again.

Our campaign has turned into a lot of stealthy investigation for the king, so running around drawing attention to myself really doesn't fit in.  I'm not going to be a "dickwhistle" and ruin the campaign for the DM and the rest of the party because of my frankly irrelevant backstory.  I'll figure out some appropriate retcon with the DM if it becomes necessary, but I doubt it will.

Kenku patron the Great Old Ones, must spend at least an hour a day copying the book that originally sealed his pact.  Then, must leave the copy in a library, and begin writing new copy.

Kobold patron the Archfey: must save gnomes, any gnome he is aware is in danger, he must make every attempt to save

half Elf patron  the arch-fey: whenever patron is on the material plane, booty-call.

Human variant patron Hex Blade: kill the wicked, kill the wicked, kill the wicked

fallen Aasimar Celestial patron: Son, do what I say.

half-elf undying patron:  no rules, you were just too sweet and pretty to let die.

My half-elf Hexblade was "gifted" her warlock abilities as part of her mother's pact, before she was born. She wasn't aware of it until recently, and has slowly become compelled to hunt down drow who have become, coincidentally, more active. Her patron is Shevarash, for whom her mother acts as a high priest.

Great stuff everyone! Cool to hear about your RP ideas!

Mine is a GOO specific concept based directly on H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, in particular The Dunwich Horror and the entity called Yog Sothoth. I started from the build that caught my eye (pact of the chain with an infinite-range imp reskinned to match my patron) and worked my way backwards and forwards with the character to fill out all the details and pick appropriate abilities.

She’s a half-elf sage, raised by scholars at a university and using her [phd] in crypto-linguistics to study and copy ancient, forgotten books in the library. For RP purposes I’m considering her CHA at this point to be 12, very average for a half-elf, and mostly used to get access to old books. He real CHA is 17, but for me, that stat describes her AFTER the pact, and reflects her series magnetism and intimidation resulting from the alien energy inside her. Her normal life is focused on her INT (15) that justifies her success at linguistics, history and investigation.

She’s obsessed with solving the inscrutable puzzles presented by forgotten books, and works for years on a particular book that everyone else gave up on. It’s basically like the Necronomicon from HPL and The Dunwich Horror, but a different book that exists in this universe instead (written who knows how long ago in a dead elven dialect and later copied with errors she has to reverse engineer to get a version of the now-lost original text).

The actual text describes a mysterious and horrible entity outside time and space (Yog Sothoth) and a means to contact it via. a calliagraphic/symbolic/ancient hieroglyphic incantation described as instructions. She has a high dexterity (14), which explains why she is famous for her accurate renderings of ancient scripts, and she uses this to, after months of
failed tries, execute the incantation. She didn’t really want to meet the entity, but just to solve the puzzle of this book and know it’s secrets, and she’s happy when the drawing before her finally makes its own eerie kind of sense.

Then she falls asleep at her desk and wakes up to the room shaking and loud noise and light. Suddenly she’s in a non-physical realm full of chaotic noise and visions of life death pain love all going on around her. She’s horrified and doesn’t understand anything, and is desperate to know what is happening as well as to escape.

The entity doesn’t speak but she can feel it asking her motives and offering her a mysterious deal: She can have access to information and knowledge, strange powers, if she willingly allows the entity to enter her consciousness. It will merge with her and she will share some of it’s horrible power.

She feels the need to understand this situation she’s in, and accepting the pact seems like the only option that could answer her questions. She accepts the deal and as the entity pervades her being she can feel its power flowing through her, but also feels it watching her, knowing her with emotionless curiosity.

(She doesn’t know this, but the “motivation” of the entity is surveillance. It hasn’t had contact with her world for millennia, and having an avatar there will allow it to collect information quickly and potentially manipulate events. She (and her familiar) will be walking wiretaps recording everything they experience. For RP reasons the character will tend towards mental manipulation and control spells that match this theme and are essentially “chosen” by the entity and not her. The imp-like familiar is essentially a data-collection drone that will be working overtime sending data directly back to the entity. Her access to that data is limited basically just because I don’t want to break the game by giving her invasive telepathy at level 3)

She wakes up back on earth to find that she’s fine, a bit tingly but otherwise normal, but the library around her has been turned inside out and destroyed by her incantation. Horrified by the damage she flees the scene and eventually her life.

Her experiences after this involve discovering her new lvl 1 powers, in particular the ability to project her thoughts into the minds of others, her incredible new charisma (and the persuasion and deception that go with it), and her ability to project psychic damage into people with Eldritch Blast and Dissonant Whispers. She also has minor illusion and charm person, so all her powers are about manipulating the minds of others and their sense of reality. Later she can learn phantasmal force, detect thoughts, and shatter, which I see as mental manipulation and information gathering spells as well.

FAMILIAR: Invisible psychic nightmare being

Her familiar will of course be central as a PotC warlock. My idea is that it’s not actually an imp, but instead an avatar of Yog Sothoth styled after the monster from The Dunwich Horror (which is so scary it can hardly be described, and is usually invisible, but is basically a giant mass of eyeballs and tentacles writhing together). So the concept is that the familiar is horrible and stays hidden almost all the time, but can transmute into a couple of forms like an imp would when it needs to show itself. In its real form it’s so horrible that it can cause fear in people who aren’t ready for it (like that Quasit’s ability, but maybe without control, though that might be too powerful, I would want the fear to be a nuisance, as it could scare allies etc.)

My idea is that when she gets the familiar she rolls for fear and maybe the result is hijinx. Either way, the familiar scans her mind like a transformer might, and looks for a soothing form to take, settling on a memory of an old pet, and taking the form of her beloved cat from the library. It copies both the cat’s form and it’s personality from her memories, so it can quickly ingratiate itself into her heart, even though she knows that really it’s a nightmare flying spaghetti monster that reads everyone’s minds and reports back to the entity. (The cat form would replace the raven/rat forms of the Imp, but otherwise follow the same morphing and invisibility abilities as the imp/quasit have)

I will take the Voice of the Chain Master invocation to make this an invisible scout with infinite range. As said above, the familiar is essentially a spy for the entity, who uses it to empower her to spy on her world better, so there should be RP aspects to this as well, with her struggling with the implications.

Overall the goal is to use the “stats” of an imp to give myself a power that’s useful for exploration and making combat safer, while RPing the familiar as being part and parcel of my other powers. Maybe it’s the familiar that actually lets me Detect Thoughts, and that performs Clairvoyance on my behalf, all enabled through our psychic connection. Maybe it’s the familiar temporarily growing that makes Evard’s Black Tentacles work. To me the worst thing about a PotC Warlock is how the familiar never grows. They have their power at level 3 and it’s static for the rest of the game, which is disappointing (I wish there were better high level invocations affecting the familiar). So this RP element would give a feeling of importance to the familiar at high levels, even if it doesn’t add any actual power to my character.

So there you go. Sorry it’s so long, hope it was interesting! I love the RP potential of the 5e Warlock and it’s such a fun way to integrate Lovecraftian mythos. I can’t wait to play this character!

I have an 16 year old, aasimar Tome/GOOLock who basically follows a deity similar to Hastur. He is gifted with druidcraft, thaumaturgy, and prestidigitation. He is a herald of the great seal and performs a ritual of the seal. He carves the seal of the elder gods with his ritual dagger, then binds it with the magic of the earth (druidcraft), magic of the mind (prestidigitation), then finishing with magic of the soul (thaumaturgy). The ritual is done as secretly as he can manage and in places of congregation: bars, temples, churches, barn dances. The seal has no magic in itself, but the great old one has some other uses which mortals could never comprehend.

The tome he has is full of strange ever shifting text which his patron assist him in understanding through meditative dreams of other worlds and diving into unhinged minds he encounters as he travels. The deeper the madness the easier it is to illuminate the meanings in the text.

I most recently had a celestial pact warlock who's patron was a fallen Solar. Rather than forming his pact with the celestial, the celestial instead formed a pact with their ancestor long, long ago, and their covenant was to continue down their family line. To cut it short, one of his family members who accepted the covenant was a bit of a bad guy and tried to use the Solar's power to kill some other celestials, and as a result he was cast into the 9 hells  while his solar friend was kicked out of paradise. The Warlock's family tried to move on from this dark point in their family history, but through some twist of fate, the last survivor of their family line was awakened to the presence of the celestial. 

The Fallen Solar acts as a mentor of sorts to my warlock rather than a boss, trying to guide him in the path of goodness so that he may redeem both himself and the warlock, though he knows he will never return to the celestial realms.  The mark of their covenant is metal necklace, complete with dark grey and black feathers from his patron.