Quote from trigojon >>

Quote from Baron_Von_Cart >>

Quote from trigojon >>

Quote from Baron_Von_Cart >>

So, players should not even be asking this question. DM's, sure.

 That may be true for YOUR games, but a lot of DMs allow this kind of thing. I allow my players to play any official content character that will be fun for them . It's my job to make the encounters challenging. 

 If "fun" for a player means playing a potentially game-breaking class, that player should really have a hard look at their concept of "fun". And that is BEFORE considering playing a most certainly evil char.

 "Fun" is subjective. You are not the fun police. You don't get to dictate what players should and shouldn't be doing. And again, there is nothing inherently wrong with playing evil PCs. YOU may not allow it, but the point of this thread wasn't for you to tell OP that they shouldn't be building a certain character.

 I almost never allow evil PCs, but other DMs may feel differently.

I say go the other way. 

Your undead pateon is just an ordinary skeleton named Dwight. Just some bones of a normal town shop keeper.

And then plot twist! The skeleton has an undead pateon of his own! A powerful god/fiend/whatever and that's where it's been getting it's own power that it passes on to you!

Quote from Wheezal >>

I say go the other way. 

Your undead pateon is just an ordinary skeleton named Dwight. Just some bones of a normal town shop keeper.

 

And then plot twist! The skeleton has an undead pateon of his own! A powerful god/fiend/whatever and that's where it's been getting it's own power that it passes on to you!

If you're making a patron pyramid scheme, there's gotta be a mummy in there somewhere

I’ve been developing an idea of a Reborn undead warlock, who was a former adventurer that fell in battle to a necromancer, and became one of his pet zombies. He regained his sentience and has been slowly and unwittingly siphoning magic away from his former master, and has given into the former life compulsion to become an adventurer again, while keeping on the move to avoid the necromancer boss man.

Quote from PenelopeTheWeaver >>

Quote from Baron_Von_Cart >>

The Undead subclass was originally available in the DMG for a reason. It is wildly OP for a PC. It also is going to be an evil based char, regardless of how someone tries to spin it. As a DM, I do not allow any player to even think about it, but it most certainly makes a fearsome NPC.

So, players should not even be asking this question. DM's, sure. In that case, the usual suspects all work. Vampires, Lich's, Demi-Lich's, Death Knights, etc. Standard story is the NPC finds an ancient tome, that gives you arcane knowledge, or leads the NPC to a particular crypt, where it meet its patron. The NPC has a choice: serve or die. But the NPC knew that heading in. Acting as the proxy in the outside world for a Lich is go to trope.

 I had a character in an online game who was a proxy for Acererak the Archlich. He never really got to do much though. I might use him again if I ever run Tomb of Annihilation again with a new group.

 Baron_Von_Cart is a lazy DM that rolled a 6 for Charisma and doesn't get invited to parties.

There's a reason none of their posts are still visible.

Quote from AntonSirius >>

Your patron is a wizard who was too wrapped up in their studies and experiments to notice that they'd died of old age. Your arcane focus was their arcane focus, and when you found it their spirit appeared and began bossing you around as though you were some new apprentice, but they begrudgingly "teach" you things now and then that don't really make any sense but somehow manifest as new spells and abilities anyway. Necrotic energy leaks out of the focus, causing your Form of Dread and such, and while sometimes you think you're simply a wizard with an unconventional mentor, at other times you admit to yourself most of your powers aren't actually "magic" in the traditional, learn-it-from-a-book sense. Their demands are bizarre and random, and usually seem tied to fetching components or materials for some experiment that half the time they've forgotten about once you do acquire them.

You don't know what would happen if they realized they were deceased -- would they move on to the afterlife and take your powers with them? Would they get angry and try to punish the messenger? Would they accept it and embrace their new existence? You're afraid to find out.

Oh, I forgot about this thread. I'm actually playing this character now (see the Heroforge mini for him later in the thread), and it's been a TON of fun

A warlock sworn to Szass Tam may be a relative of the lich himself or someone in high standing, who is too lazy or not talented enough to become a proper red wizard. The warlock would basically go to the top of Thayan society and arcane power the easy way.

I’m currently working on creating a warlock or the “undying Court” from Ebberon! Still in the early stages and still trying to figure out the positive energy aspect of “necromancy”! 

the will and combined power of thousands of dead people as a patron would be cool 

Quote from wispinabottel >>

the will and combined power of thousands of dead people as a patron would be cool 

 

 
Oh, I like that. Especially if you can tie it to a plot hook, like the denizens of a town devastated by the BBEG empowering someone to avenge them.

You could probably have drac or a necromancies as a patron

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Quote from wispinabottel >>

the will and combined power of thousands of dead people as a patron would be cool 

 

 
Oh, I like that. Especially if you can tie it to a plot hook, like the denizens of a town devastated by the BBEG empowering someone to avenge them.

 I had this idea a while back for a patron of hexblades or Shadow Sorcerers, it could be easily tweaked ofr the type of patron you mentioned:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/51010-homebrew-patron-idea-the-hungry-village

Ok all, I have a homebrew campaign with a homebrew pantheon.  One of the Gods was killed many years ago.

what do you all think of Him as a patron?  He is looking for a way to come back and regain his power and co trol in the world as he once had.

I am currently playing Curse of Strahd as the bard Agatha. The campaign is only a few months in. Agatha is very weak compared to her companions and uses humor to hide her fear. When Agatha used Vicious Mockery to kill the ghost nanny, she used the insult "What Eldritch horror did you insult to get a face like that?" and a dark entity responded "It was me" and pulled the ghost into another dimension. The entity was the Dark Comedian and offered her power to protect herself and her compainons, so now she has a level in Warlock.

The backstory is that the Dark Comedian was the jester to the gods a millennia ago, serving as entertainment and a messenger for the gods. His sense of humor was dark and twisted, a mockery of life. One day he played a prank which led to the split between elves and drow. The Raven Queen took offense and demanded he be punished. So the gods trapped him in the Amber Temple in Borovia, where he is completely bored. This happened so long ago that nobody on the Material Plane remembers him, even the gods have mostly forgotten his name. The evil that surrounds him has caused him to be even more dark, twisted and death obsessed. Every time adventurers are drawn into Borovia by Stahd, he reaches out to any who amuse him. His ultimate goal is to get out of this prison, but he also has to be entertained... even if it means causing more trouble for the adventurers.  

It will be interesting to see how Agatha develops. She is currently Chaotic Good, but will this Patron pull her to the dark side?