I have a player that wants to be a warlock with the Raven Queen as their patron. That's totally fine, but I'm running into a bit of a roadblock as to why the Raven Queen would even have patrons, when she easily has a mass of followers that includes Palidans and Clerics?
Well there is an old Unearthed Arcana that include the Raven Queen as a Patron for Warlock, it was never implemented in official books I think. http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/20170213_wizrd_wrlck_uav2_i48nf.pdf So might be why your player got the idea and they do give a vague explanation as to why she would make a pact with a Warlock
Kill immortals, kill (some) necromancers, kill those who cheated her, save the lives of people who aren't supposed to die, correct the course of fate unbound, make/collect memories/stories/emotions for her, find out her enemies true name, purify souls, make people deal with their fears/pain, fight rebel shadar-kai, collect fragments/totems of dead deities/immortals, act as one of her "ravens" and bring her information, defeat fire elementals that are a threat to her forest of ice, and/or collect shadow/nercodic weapons.
If you wanna go with the Raven Queen as presented in Mordenkainen's ToF, I would either put her as a Great Old One or maybe even Archfey, thematically. In either case, she's a distant and powerful being with motives that are either unknowable or irrational. It's not 1 to 1 lore-wise, but if you don't wanna go with the UA Raven Queen, I'd go with one of those.
As for why such a being would need a patron, the 5e Raven Queen is sort of a collector of mortal experience. She seeks out strange or unique objects, stories, or even people, according to criteria only she can understand (if there is a reason at all). She was created during some kind of ascension to godhood gone wrong and I think uses these things to hold herself together in a way. She may need an agent to go into the mortal world and, I dunno, live life in a way that makes a good story so that she can have it when they die. Or needs to go collect something, etc.
Or maybe there's just some connection between them that the player never even knows the reason for. The Raven Queen is often thought to be mad, maybe she doesn't even know the reason she's consorting with this mortal, but the divine part of her that knows more than she guesses has its reasons...
Basically there's a lot of reasons you can come up with.
A lot of people I've ran into who've made Raven Queen centric Warlocks have used Hexblade, since Xanathar's alludes to their being a connection to her and artifacts like Blackrazor.
One of my players worships the raven queen. So in my campaign she is the balance of life and death. An old wizard has managed to prolong his life, posess another and cause some serious havok in the world. So, the raven queen has tasked the player to kill the wizard. He's a cleric.
A lot of people I've ran into who've made Raven Queen centric Warlocks have used Hexblade, since Xanathar's alludes to their being a connection to her and artifacts like Blackrazor.
I was about to mention the same thing... that she's overtly called out as a Patron for Hexblade.
I think that a good justification would be to treat the Raven Queen as extremely pragmatic. She already views life and death in a more straightforward, neutral manner that can seem alien to outsiders. So I think it would also make sense that she wouldn't restrict her gifts only to worshipers, but would be willing to bestow power on individuals that she deems would be useful in maintaining the balance of life and death.
I would recommend Hexblade as well, but you could use the Undying from Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. It deals with a lot of death and control over death.
If you end up roleplaying her as more up close and personal patron I've always attributed her with a love of tragedy. Sometimes ripping a mortal soul out of the natural cycles just to watch it relive the most tragic events of its life. Those made stronger by it becoming shadarkai and the most entertaining being kept for her personal collection. Maybe your player's sad fate brought a tear to her eye and she just must see them live to fulfill an even more tragic destiny.
My Hexblade's party has just entered the Shadowfell, in order to try to stop an ancient falling city from crashing into the town they call home. We've fought some shadows, wee spellcasting insects, and some not so wee flying serpent spellcasting things. Now we have flown into the falling city, but have no idea what to do next.
So naturally, my HB will attempt to ask the Raven Queen for help. I can only imagine she will, but I have no idea what the possible consequences will be - what conditions she will place on any assistance...
Touching quickly on why the Raven would want a warlock instead instead of a paladin or cleric. I would think that it'd be a matter of diversity, the right tool for the right job. Same reasoning for the Divine Soul sorcerer or celestial pact warlock. I once played a paladin with an Arch Fey patron, could have played or multiclassed into warlock but it wasn't what my party needed and not what my Fey bey needed.
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I have a player that wants to be a warlock with the Raven Queen as their patron. That's totally fine, but I'm running into a bit of a roadblock as to why the Raven Queen would even have patrons, when she easily has a mass of followers that includes Palidans and Clerics?
Well there is an old Unearthed Arcana that include the Raven Queen as a Patron for Warlock, it was never implemented in official books I think. http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/20170213_wizrd_wrlck_uav2_i48nf.pdf So might be why your player got the idea and they do give a vague explanation as to why she would make a pact with a Warlock
Kill immortals, kill (some) necromancers, kill those who cheated her, save the lives of people who aren't supposed to die, correct the course of fate unbound, make/collect memories/stories/emotions for her, find out her enemies true name, purify souls, make people deal with their fears/pain, fight rebel shadar-kai, collect fragments/totems of dead deities/immortals, act as one of her "ravens" and bring her information, defeat fire elementals that are a threat to her forest of ice, and/or collect shadow/nercodic weapons.
If you wanna go with the Raven Queen as presented in Mordenkainen's ToF, I would either put her as a Great Old One or maybe even Archfey, thematically. In either case, she's a distant and powerful being with motives that are either unknowable or irrational. It's not 1 to 1 lore-wise, but if you don't wanna go with the UA Raven Queen, I'd go with one of those.
As for why such a being would need a patron, the 5e Raven Queen is sort of a collector of mortal experience. She seeks out strange or unique objects, stories, or even people, according to criteria only she can understand (if there is a reason at all). She was created during some kind of ascension to godhood gone wrong and I think uses these things to hold herself together in a way. She may need an agent to go into the mortal world and, I dunno, live life in a way that makes a good story so that she can have it when they die. Or needs to go collect something, etc.
Or maybe there's just some connection between them that the player never even knows the reason for. The Raven Queen is often thought to be mad, maybe she doesn't even know the reason she's consorting with this mortal, but the divine part of her that knows more than she guesses has its reasons...
Basically there's a lot of reasons you can come up with.
A lot of people I've ran into who've made Raven Queen centric Warlocks have used Hexblade, since Xanathar's alludes to their being a connection to her and artifacts like Blackrazor.
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One of my players worships the raven queen. So in my campaign she is the balance of life and death. An old wizard has managed to prolong his life, posess another and cause some serious havok in the world. So, the raven queen has tasked the player to kill the wizard. He's a cleric.
So in the right world anything is possible.
I was about to mention the same thing... that she's overtly called out as a Patron for Hexblade.
I think that a good justification would be to treat the Raven Queen as extremely pragmatic. She already views life and death in a more straightforward, neutral manner that can seem alien to outsiders. So I think it would also make sense that she wouldn't restrict her gifts only to worshipers, but would be willing to bestow power on individuals that she deems would be useful in maintaining the balance of life and death.
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I would recommend Hexblade as well, but you could use the Undying from Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. It deals with a lot of death and control over death.
If you end up roleplaying her as more up close and personal patron I've always attributed her with a love of tragedy. Sometimes ripping a mortal soul out of the natural cycles just to watch it relive the most tragic events of its life. Those made stronger by it becoming shadarkai and the most entertaining being kept for her personal collection. Maybe your player's sad fate brought a tear to her eye and she just must see them live to fulfill an even more tragic destiny.
My Hexblade's party has just entered the Shadowfell, in order to try to stop an ancient falling city from crashing into the town they call home. We've fought some shadows, wee spellcasting insects, and some not so wee flying serpent spellcasting things. Now we have flown into the falling city, but have no idea what to do next.
So naturally, my HB will attempt to ask the Raven Queen for help. I can only imagine she will, but I have no idea what the possible consequences will be - what conditions she will place on any assistance...
Touching quickly on why the Raven would want a warlock instead instead of a paladin or cleric. I would think that it'd be a matter of diversity, the right tool for the right job. Same reasoning for the Divine Soul sorcerer or celestial pact warlock. I once played a paladin with an Arch Fey patron, could have played or multiclassed into warlock but it wasn't what my party needed and not what my Fey bey needed.