ah, my favourite pact by far was one made for an NPC warlock, Kirin.
deities/patrons in this universe are pretty retired and resigned, but the one she managed to snag is pretty active. maeve - the goddess of spirits and war. her contract is very flexible, but occasionally maeve will call on her for favours. kirin has lots of magical talent and is therefore very involved in the business of harnessing and banishing souls, as well as cleansing battlegrounds. it's a simple pact, but maeve is such a nice character and i just... love the relationship. they're more friends than anything.
ah, my favourite pact by far was one made for an NPC warlock, Kirin.
deities/patrons in this universe are pretty retired and resigned, but the one she managed to snag is pretty active. maeve - the goddess of spirits and war. her contract is very flexible, but occasionally maeve will call on her for favours. kirin has lots of magical talent and is therefore very involved in the business of harnessing and banishing souls, as well as cleansing battlegrounds. it's a simple pact, but maeve is such a nice character and i just... love the relationship. they're more friends than anything.
That's probably my favorite warlock pact ever, but it could just be the Christmas music talking. I'm in a sentimental mood, apparently.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
I'm soon going to play a drow celestial warlock in my brothers campaign. My character was abandoned as an infant in an enchanted forest. The forest's guardian, a Unicorn, found and raised her. Now the unicorn serves as her patron, guiding her to do good and making the world a better place. Which, as a drow, will hopefully be harder as everyone distrusts her.
My patron is basically my mom trying to keep me on the right path while teaching me magic.
Thpas is an Aasimar who was sold into slavery as a child after the Devils had taken over the nine hells. He was enslaved by a greater pit fiend he only knew as "The Overgeneral" who had seemed to take favor with him. Thpas would beg and plead for years for the opportunity to live as he had heard other did, on the material plane. Eventually, he had curried enough favor for his master to allow him freedom to live out his days in freedom...under one condition: Thpas must sign his soul to The Overgeneral for eternity. Thpas relented, as a short life of adventure against an eternity of torment was well worth risking when the alternative is servitude and the permanence of nothingness thereafter.
I want to take his character on an arc that starts out as something of a "paid vacation" to ambition that he may become powerful enough to destroy his patron to save his soul, leading to his final decision of destroying the pact and losing his powers, or keeping his powers and forfeit his soul having tasted freedom. How will he live with his decision? Will he remain a party boy until old age? Will he die before he has the chance to regain his soul? I'm excited for the possibilities.
I'm playing a warlock currently with a Great Old One that I've vaguely sketched out as something like The Watcher of the Wood... inspired a bit by the Weirwood trees in A Song of Ice and Fire series, and generally wanting some creepy nature imagery. I think the patron may be the embodiment of vengeful nature, like all the sacred groves that have been cut down over time, trees that were home to other spirits or awakened trees themselves that were destroyed by humanoids. The Watcher bears an ancient grudge against encroaching civilization and wants to have an influence on the material plane.
My character is only 3rd level and doesn't yet understand that he's made a pact (he opened a mysterious book, etc) but I think will start receiving more visions and impulses to pour the blood of enemies onto tree roots, etc, in a very "Old Gods" pagan way. Maybe, possibly, there could be a path to becoming a Druid in the future?
One of the players in my campaign made a Warlock when we started Lost Mine of Phandelver. He said his patron would be one of the Old Ones, however, knowing that eventually they would be playing Storm King's Thunder after LMoP, I secretly made his pact with the Kraken, Slarkrethel (the MM says that Krakens are sometimes worshipped like gods, ie. the Kraken Society, and can possibly grant spells).
As he has been adventuring, he's been having visions of a tentacled beast, but he has assumed it's one of the great old ones, because tentacles. Over time he has also started growing scales and small eyes all over his body. Eventually he will be transformed into a Kraken Priest from Volo's Guide to Monsters, and will have to choose between his party and his master during a pivotal moment in the game.
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You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Not something I would be ok with as a player, without knowing about it beforehand, but I assume you know your players well enough to know what they find agreeable.
Not something I would be ok with as a player, without knowing about it beforehand, but I assume you know your players well enough to know what they find agreeable.
Yes, I know them well enough, and I know he will do well with it for the RP and story. Ultimately he will be faced with choice to keep or abandon his patron, in which case he will need to find a new patron, which could be an adventure in itself.
I also find that you need some surprised for your player's characters in the course of a story. If they know everything about their character in advance, there little drama for them.
Not something I would be ok with as a player, without knowing about it beforehand, but I assume you know your players well enough to know what they find agreeable.
Yes, I know them well enough, and I know he will do well with it for the RP and story. Ultimately he will be faced with choice to keep or abandon his patron, in which case he will need to find a new patron, which could be an adventure in itself.
I also find that you need some surprised for your player's characters in the course of a story. If they know everything about their character in advance, there little drama for them.
Yeah as long as your players are cool with that sort of thing.
Of course there’s A bit of a gap between having surprises for your characters and having those surprises be something that could potential he make a player feel like the agency for their character has been taken from them.
Drama can come from a near infinite number of sources, not just the discovery that a character’s basic story isn’t what the player thought it was.
Also, for many players, surprises that come from outside the character itself are fine, while the character, as such, is 100% under player authority. Many DMs never consider this until it actively comes up, so I pointed out a potential source of concern, in case you haven’t done this sort of thing before with this player/group.
I know for me, and when I GM, most of my players, this is the sort of thing that would need to be discussed on some level beforehand. Not in detail or anything, and with plenty of room for surprises, but at least the basic idea that playing a warlock might mean having to choose between patron and party, or the idea that your patron may not be exactly what your character thinks, or might end up at cross purposes, etc, so that the player can decide if they’re interested in even exploring that type of story with their character.
Ive definitely made warlocks where that wouldn’t fly, and ones where I’d be excited to not be sure, as the player or character, what my patron is, or wants, etc.
He also specifies how you don’t lose your powers if breaking a pact, but you might still owe something... what do you all think about what is owed by the warlock? My character wasn’t aware of an explicit pact (it’s a Great Old One), only that he’s gaining new powers the more he uses them. But maybe he doesn’t know that the patron is watching through his eyes and possibly planting ideas in his mind while it enjoys having it’s influence on the material plane...
I feel like not knowing the fine print of the deal is a given, otherwise why would you rationally get into it?
I used to have Dendar as my great old one patron. I loved that whole 'eater of nightmares' concept, my DM would play it well and give me messages through disturbing dreams. Some of those dreams we'd actually play out as combat scenarios that other players would get sucked in to.
My current warlock is a hexblade and he worships The Chained Oblivion, Tharizdun. It's a pretty epic god to grant me power, but it's cannon he wants to be set free, and has tons of minions that do his bidding, so I either got it from him or one of his demonic allies.
I've always had it so my warlocks owe something continuously, meaning there's always this control the DM can have over you to throw you in to the unexpected evils of the world.
In my first campaign ever I had a Warlock who made a pact with The Great Old Ones, but she's from a prehistoric civilisation who revered them as gods. Things happened and she was transplanted to the modern setting, and people have completely forgotten the Old Ones- the quest her patrons have laid out for her is to make the Old Ones' enemies realise this mistake. So technically her own people would have seen her as a Cleric, but she has the Warlock spells and in the modern setting people refer to her as a Warlock simply because they don't see her gods as gods anymore. Leads to some fun roleplay options with a character who is essentially a time-travelling cave-woman.
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Wind, blow through me, til the nostalgic candles of laburnum fuse with the dogwood in a single flame to touch alight these sapless memories.
Has anyone tried the Pact of the Raven Queen? I realize she is "Popular" now but in an undead filled home-brew i'm developing i'd imagine she might fit in nicely.
I am currently playing a warlock that made a pact with the raven queen and it honestly just doesn't work as well as you would think. Almost every spell you have access to does no damage or has no effect on undead at all which makes you almost useless on your own quests. To me it is frustrating to play a character that hates undead but has no useful abilities to fight them.
My present character has Fierna, Duchess of the 4th layer of Hell, as a patron. Playing into how she has been presented in previous editions, they met in a tavern. Amusingly, the pact was struck as a result of my character attempting to romance her. He mistook her as being another Tiefling. What she wants is for my character to serve as a 'priest' and work towards forming a cult dedicated to her. My character is in over his head, which is part of the fun.
My Forgotten realms halfling warlock (gloom Pact hexblade, 4e) had Drasek Riven, minor God of Shadow, as a patron for a while. That was interesting.
A player in a campaign I run has basically the lady of the lake as his patron, and carries Caledfwlch (Excalibur). The Lady is a Tuatha de Danann, possibly one of The Morrigan's sisters.
Do you use this as an archfey patron or as a celestial patron?
ah, my favourite pact by far was one made for an NPC warlock, Kirin.
deities/patrons in this universe are pretty retired and resigned, but the one she managed to snag is pretty active. maeve - the goddess of spirits and war. her contract is very flexible, but occasionally maeve will call on her for favours. kirin has lots of magical talent and is therefore very involved in the business of harnessing and banishing souls, as well as cleansing battlegrounds. it's a simple pact, but maeve is such a nice character and i just... love the relationship. they're more friends than anything.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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I'm soon going to play a drow celestial warlock in my brothers campaign. My character was abandoned as an infant in an enchanted forest. The forest's guardian, a Unicorn, found and raised her. Now the unicorn serves as her patron, guiding her to do good and making the world a better place. Which, as a drow, will hopefully be harder as everyone distrusts her.
My patron is basically my mom trying to keep me on the right path while teaching me magic.
Thpas is an Aasimar who was sold into slavery as a child after the Devils had taken over the nine hells. He was enslaved by a greater pit fiend he only knew as "The Overgeneral" who had seemed to take favor with him. Thpas would beg and plead for years for the opportunity to live as he had heard other did, on the material plane. Eventually, he had curried enough favor for his master to allow him freedom to live out his days in freedom...under one condition: Thpas must sign his soul to The Overgeneral for eternity. Thpas relented, as a short life of adventure against an eternity of torment was well worth risking when the alternative is servitude and the permanence of nothingness thereafter.
I want to take his character on an arc that starts out as something of a "paid vacation" to ambition that he may become powerful enough to destroy his patron to save his soul, leading to his final decision of destroying the pact and losing his powers, or keeping his powers and forfeit his soul having tasted freedom. How will he live with his decision? Will he remain a party boy until old age? Will he die before he has the chance to regain his soul? I'm excited for the possibilities.
I'm playing a warlock currently with a Great Old One that I've vaguely sketched out as something like The Watcher of the Wood... inspired a bit by the Weirwood trees in A Song of Ice and Fire series, and generally wanting some creepy nature imagery. I think the patron may be the embodiment of vengeful nature, like all the sacred groves that have been cut down over time, trees that were home to other spirits or awakened trees themselves that were destroyed by humanoids. The Watcher bears an ancient grudge against encroaching civilization and wants to have an influence on the material plane.
My character is only 3rd level and doesn't yet understand that he's made a pact (he opened a mysterious book, etc) but I think will start receiving more visions and impulses to pour the blood of enemies onto tree roots, etc, in a very "Old Gods" pagan way. Maybe, possibly, there could be a path to becoming a Druid in the future?
One of the players in my campaign made a Warlock when we started Lost Mine of Phandelver. He said his patron would be one of the Old Ones, however, knowing that eventually they would be playing Storm King's Thunder after LMoP, I secretly made his pact with the Kraken, Slarkrethel (the MM says that Krakens are sometimes worshipped like gods, ie. the Kraken Society, and can possibly grant spells).
As he has been adventuring, he's been having visions of a tentacled beast, but he has assumed it's one of the great old ones, because tentacles. Over time he has also started growing scales and small eyes all over his body. Eventually he will be transformed into a Kraken Priest from Volo's Guide to Monsters, and will have to choose between his party and his master during a pivotal moment in the game.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Not something I would be ok with as a player, without knowing about it beforehand, but I assume you know your players well enough to know what they find agreeable.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
We do bones, motherf***ker!
This recent video, on the warlock-patron relationship, was interesting: https://youtu.be/iiS5mkIff_8
He also specifies how you don’t lose your powers if breaking a pact, but you might still owe something... what do you all think about what is owed by the warlock? My character wasn’t aware of an explicit pact (it’s a Great Old One), only that he’s gaining new powers the more he uses them. But maybe he doesn’t know that the patron is watching through his eyes and possibly planting ideas in his mind while it enjoys having it’s influence on the material plane...
I feel like not knowing the fine print of the deal is a given, otherwise why would you rationally get into it?
I used to have Dendar as my great old one patron. I loved that whole 'eater of nightmares' concept, my DM would play it well and give me messages through disturbing dreams. Some of those dreams we'd actually play out as combat scenarios that other players would get sucked in to.
My current warlock is a hexblade and he worships The Chained Oblivion, Tharizdun. It's a pretty epic god to grant me power, but it's cannon he wants to be set free, and has tons of minions that do his bidding, so I either got it from him or one of his demonic allies.
I've always had it so my warlocks owe something continuously, meaning there's always this control the DM can have over you to throw you in to the unexpected evils of the world.
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
In my first campaign ever I had a Warlock who made a pact with The Great Old Ones, but she's from a prehistoric civilisation who revered them as gods. Things happened and she was transplanted to the modern setting, and people have completely forgotten the Old Ones- the quest her patrons have laid out for her is to make the Old Ones' enemies realise this mistake. So technically her own people would have seen her as a Cleric, but she has the Warlock spells and in the modern setting people refer to her as a Warlock simply because they don't see her gods as gods anymore. Leads to some fun roleplay options with a character who is essentially a time-travelling cave-woman.
Wind, blow through me, til the nostalgic candles of laburnum fuse with the dogwood in a single flame to touch alight these sapless memories.
I thought about using Santa Clause as a patron. That would be fun.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
I was thinking a rock gnome tinker.
Look up the movie Rare Exports for a fun dark twist on Santa as an ancient evil ice demon, etc.
My present character has Fierna, Duchess of the 4th layer of Hell, as a patron. Playing into how she has been presented in previous editions, they met in a tavern. Amusingly, the pact was struck as a result of my character attempting to romance her. He mistook her as being another Tiefling. What she wants is for my character to serve as a 'priest' and work towards forming a cult dedicated to her. My character is in over his head, which is part of the fun.
Fierna is the best Duchess of Hell
Do you use this as an archfey patron or as a celestial patron?