Hey all, looking for some advice for a warlock-patron relationship. In my campaign, I have a Hexblade warlock whose patron is an adaptation of Vesh from EGtW. Up to this point, I have been RPing her as more of an elder evil that has roots in demons and the origin of my world. Most interaction has consisted of a few word messages and symbology interaction. I typically have her speak this way to impart the idea that she is this really old, powerful entity. The player is still figuring out Vesh's background throughout the story. The player has come to me a couple of times now about having Vesh change to be more of a typically NPC-like patron with consistent dialogue, interaction, and humanistic.
I guess I have been hesitant to do this for a couple of reasons. In my world, Vesh is so ancient that to have her begin talking like a normal person would, I think would diminish her presence and power and would go against the idea of what she is in my world. I am also concerned that this would work to begin humanizing her thematically when the premise of her as a patron and god has some problematic aspects when it comes to relationships and I think humanizing her would make those behaviors seem ok. The main reason that this is a concern for me, is that this player has a habit of collecting NPCs in campaigns and taking over them, and them doing that to Vesh is something that I am not super ok with since I think the result would end up carrying some problematic ideas.
The player has said that they aren't super engaged because of this interaction and we haven't really been able to come to a good consensus. I have tried to pitch having an intermediary (a la mouth of Sauron) and changing patrons and they haven't been receptive to those ideas. I really want to come up with a good solution to this problem, but have been stuck for quite a while and I can tell this is really affecting their engagement at the table.
Patrons are gods, or beings with godlike power. If they don't want to talk to someone, they don't. If Vesh needs an intermediary, have the Pact Blade talk.
The player has come to me a couple of times now about having Vesh change to be more of a typically NPC-like patron with consistent dialogue, interaction, and humanistic.
Who says that other patrons are like “typical” NPCs?!? They are pretty much demigods. They don’t have to interact at all once a pact is made. Heck, they don’t have to interact before a pact is made, someone else could have done that for them.
For me I think I would say that (as Geann noted above) patrons don't have to talk if they don't want to.
Maybe Vesh is waiting for the Warlock to do something or accomplish something.
Maybe there is some "small print" in the pact the warlock has that they haven't noticed yet.
Maybe Vesh is talking but not in a language the Warlock can understand such as Primordial or Deep Speech and the Warlocks "limited" ability to speak other languages is the problem.
Four possible solutions for keeping Vesh as you want her/him/it:
Option 1) You could have Vesh take control of the Warlock, talk to the rest of the party to convey her wishes by speaking through the Warlock (imagine the warlocks voice overlaid with this unearthly godlike entities voice), once the conversation is done the warlock regains control and you can either give them full understanding of the conversation or maybe impose a Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma Saving throw against the warlocks own spell DC, if they succeed on the save they are fully aware of the conversation that took place, if they fail then they blacked out and have no idea what happened and you can have the rest of the party fill in the blanks. Keep these interactions to a mimium such as periods of downtime so the player doesn't feel his character has become a DMPC.
Option 2) A variation on Option 1. Have the warlock start "spirit writing" when they rest/meditate to regain spell slots. If playing in person then give them hand outs that are mostly gibberish to start of with, assign some ability checks to decipher the text and eventually give them coherent messages. If someone in the party can cast comprehend languages then this can help, should the Warlock successfully decipher 5 messages then give them the Eyes of the Rune Keeper invocation as a freebee/reward and Vesh can then start to communicate via this writing.
Edit: Spirit writing is also known as automatic writing, its when a medium enters a trance and writes or draws things and messages from spirits or ghosts without consciously be aware of it, although famed psychic debunker James Randi would likely say its all poppycock.
Option 3) Give the Warlock visions of a shrine and make a little side quest for them, I'd likely base it off of the House of Horrors quest from Skyrim (wiki for quest here: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_House_of_Horrors). If they complete the quest then they gain Vesh's attention and she/he/it talks with them normally.
Option 4) Contact Other Plane and similar spells. Now tha player may not be aware of this spell on the Warlock list or may not want to take it so I would ask the player o make sure they have an idea of what spells they want to take as they level up. If they get the hint and take the spell when they get high enough level great, if not maybe suggest to them that their are spells and rituals capable of speaking/contacting powerful entites and then leave it to them to figure out how to do this. You could have a trip to visit a powerful spell caster who can cast the spell for them (in which case refer to option 2 above but have Vesh speak through the caster).
I think this is more of an out of game issue. You’ve made some great suggestions and your player hasn’t been willing to compromise. At this point, I think you need to have a tough conversation with them about collaborative games. Because as the DM, you’re not a performer here to entertain your friends: you’re a player too, and your fun matters.
These are tricky issues, and I can’t tell you exactly how to approach them, but you’ll probably need to have a talk with your player, friend to friend. Tell them what you told us (leaving out the talking over NPCs or anything else accusatory) and focus on working together to find something that works for everyone. If they’re a decent person they should get it.
It sounds like you're invested in the game world you built, including what entities will make pacts with warlocks. It sounds like the player wants you to create an imaginary friend out of the patron so the player can get "cool role playing" interaction with their new imaginary friend (made and portrayed by you).
The old school DM way of handling this is being firm on your game world, "In this world Warlocks make pacts to obtain powers from things they don't, especially at the outset of their pact, fully understand. Your pact patron isn't a friend. Your pact patron sees some value in using you, a value you don't yet understand. If your pact patron was as active in your plane of existence as you'd want them to be, they wouldn't need a warlock."
More contemporary views would say this injures player agency. But Warlock patrons aren't supposed to be toys for Warlocks nor are they at the Warlock's disposal. Simply make this clear that a warlock's relationship with a pact patron is very different from the players usual experience with PC/NPC interaction (maybe they're misreading the patron section of Tasha's as applying to pact patrons, in which case they need to be corrected). You've offered NPC intermediaries but their bond and allegiance will be closer to Vesh than the Warlock. The drama of the character is not puppeteering the pact patron. Rather, its the Warlock's de facto side quest to understand the patron and the meaning of the pact. A pact patron is not a friend.
Maybe you and the player should have had a more in depth discussion of this before the character choice was made, it sounds though like you've been pretty transparent about your intentions in welcoming a Warlock into your game, if a player doesn't connect to you or seems to willfully ignore your explanations, there's not much you can do about defiance other than shift your focus to the players who are actually playing the game with you. After however many session 0esque conversation the DM has to take it on good faith that the player will endeavor to play in the world, not break it. The social contract requires the player to listen to the DM, and the DM to honor the player's desires within the parameters of the game world. A well oiled table can do collaborative world building, but collaborative world building does not mean erasing the DMs maps so the player can assert something they were already told was not the case.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The player is still figuring out Vesh's background throughout the story. The player has come to me a couple of times now about having Vesh change to be more of a typically NPC-like patron with consistent dialogue, interaction, and humanistic.
As IamSposta suggested, this player seems to have a very odd or limited idea of what a warlock patron can be, and would prefer it to be someone/thing who just hands out powers and quests.
I would be very tempted to give the player what they (think they) want with a long, epic quest to help Vesh find a form that is more "humanistic" -- at the end of which, they can no longer progress as a warlock because now that Vesh can easily interact with people herself she doesn't need the player to do stuff for her and be her mouthpiece. Maybe the form she inhabits is one of those other NPCs the player has been collecting. Maybe it's even their favorite NPC.
So now they've unleashed this thing on the world, and the player either has to multiclass into something else if they want to keep levelling up, since warlock is no longer available to them, or scramble around to find some other entity who might want to stop whatever Vesh is up to and is willing to be their new patron... which might end up being an even worse arrangement than the one the player wasn't happy with in the first place.
I mean, there are WAY WORSE WAYS a patron could be communicating their wishes than with symbols and short messages.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Hey all, looking for some advice for a warlock-patron relationship. In my campaign, I have a Hexblade warlock whose patron is an adaptation of Vesh from EGtW. Up to this point, I have been RPing her as more of an elder evil that has roots in demons and the origin of my world. Most interaction has consisted of a few word messages and symbology interaction. I typically have her speak this way to impart the idea that she is this really old, powerful entity. The player is still figuring out Vesh's background throughout the story. The player has come to me a couple of times now about having Vesh change to be more of a typically NPC-like patron with consistent dialogue, interaction, and humanistic.
I guess I have been hesitant to do this for a couple of reasons. In my world, Vesh is so ancient that to have her begin talking like a normal person would, I think would diminish her presence and power and would go against the idea of what she is in my world. I am also concerned that this would work to begin humanizing her thematically when the premise of her as a patron and god has some problematic aspects when it comes to relationships and I think humanizing her would make those behaviors seem ok. The main reason that this is a concern for me, is that this player has a habit of collecting NPCs in campaigns and taking over them, and them doing that to Vesh is something that I am not super ok with since I think the result would end up carrying some problematic ideas.
The player has said that they aren't super engaged because of this interaction and we haven't really been able to come to a good consensus. I have tried to pitch having an intermediary (a la mouth of Sauron) and changing patrons and they haven't been receptive to those ideas. I really want to come up with a good solution to this problem, but have been stuck for quite a while and I can tell this is really affecting their engagement at the table.
Patrons are gods, or beings with godlike power. If they don't want to talk to someone, they don't. If Vesh needs an intermediary, have the Pact Blade talk.
<Insert clever signature here>
Who says that other patrons are like “typical” NPCs?!? They are pretty much demigods. They don’t have to interact at all once a pact is made. Heck, they don’t have to interact before a pact is made, someone else could have done that for them.
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An interesting problem.
For me I think I would say that (as Geann noted above) patrons don't have to talk if they don't want to.
Maybe Vesh is waiting for the Warlock to do something or accomplish something.
Maybe there is some "small print" in the pact the warlock has that they haven't noticed yet.
Maybe Vesh is talking but not in a language the Warlock can understand such as Primordial or Deep Speech and the Warlocks "limited" ability to speak other languages is the problem.
Four possible solutions for keeping Vesh as you want her/him/it:
Option 1) You could have Vesh take control of the Warlock, talk to the rest of the party to convey her wishes by speaking through the Warlock (imagine the warlocks voice overlaid with this unearthly godlike entities voice), once the conversation is done the warlock regains control and you can either give them full understanding of the conversation or maybe impose a Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma Saving throw against the warlocks own spell DC, if they succeed on the save they are fully aware of the conversation that took place, if they fail then they blacked out and have no idea what happened and you can have the rest of the party fill in the blanks. Keep these interactions to a mimium such as periods of downtime so the player doesn't feel his character has become a DMPC.
Option 2) A variation on Option 1. Have the warlock start "spirit writing" when they rest/meditate to regain spell slots. If playing in person then give them hand outs that are mostly gibberish to start of with, assign some ability checks to decipher the text and eventually give them coherent messages. If someone in the party can cast comprehend languages then this can help, should the Warlock successfully decipher 5 messages then give them the Eyes of the Rune Keeper invocation as a freebee/reward and Vesh can then start to communicate via this writing.
Edit: Spirit writing is also known as automatic writing, its when a medium enters a trance and writes or draws things and messages from spirits or ghosts without consciously be aware of it, although famed psychic debunker James Randi would likely say its all poppycock.
Option 3) Give the Warlock visions of a shrine and make a little side quest for them, I'd likely base it off of the House of Horrors quest from Skyrim (wiki for quest here: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_House_of_Horrors). If they complete the quest then they gain Vesh's attention and she/he/it talks with them normally.
Option 4) Contact Other Plane and similar spells. Now tha player may not be aware of this spell on the Warlock list or may not want to take it so I would ask the player o make sure they have an idea of what spells they want to take as they level up. If they get the hint and take the spell when they get high enough level great, if not maybe suggest to them that their are spells and rituals capable of speaking/contacting powerful entites and then leave it to them to figure out how to do this. You could have a trip to visit a powerful spell caster who can cast the spell for them (in which case refer to option 2 above but have Vesh speak through the caster).
I hope those help.
I think this is more of an out of game issue. You’ve made some great suggestions and your player hasn’t been willing to compromise. At this point, I think you need to have a tough conversation with them about collaborative games. Because as the DM, you’re not a performer here to entertain your friends: you’re a player too, and your fun matters.
These are tricky issues, and I can’t tell you exactly how to approach them, but you’ll probably need to have a talk with your player, friend to friend. Tell them what you told us (leaving out the talking over NPCs or anything else accusatory) and focus on working together to find something that works for everyone. If they’re a decent person they should get it.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
It sounds like you're invested in the game world you built, including what entities will make pacts with warlocks. It sounds like the player wants you to create an imaginary friend out of the patron so the player can get "cool role playing" interaction with their new imaginary friend (made and portrayed by you).
The old school DM way of handling this is being firm on your game world, "In this world Warlocks make pacts to obtain powers from things they don't, especially at the outset of their pact, fully understand. Your pact patron isn't a friend. Your pact patron sees some value in using you, a value you don't yet understand. If your pact patron was as active in your plane of existence as you'd want them to be, they wouldn't need a warlock."
More contemporary views would say this injures player agency. But Warlock patrons aren't supposed to be toys for Warlocks nor are they at the Warlock's disposal. Simply make this clear that a warlock's relationship with a pact patron is very different from the players usual experience with PC/NPC interaction (maybe they're misreading the patron section of Tasha's as applying to pact patrons, in which case they need to be corrected). You've offered NPC intermediaries but their bond and allegiance will be closer to Vesh than the Warlock. The drama of the character is not puppeteering the pact patron. Rather, its the Warlock's de facto side quest to understand the patron and the meaning of the pact. A pact patron is not a friend.
Maybe you and the player should have had a more in depth discussion of this before the character choice was made, it sounds though like you've been pretty transparent about your intentions in welcoming a Warlock into your game, if a player doesn't connect to you or seems to willfully ignore your explanations, there's not much you can do about defiance other than shift your focus to the players who are actually playing the game with you. After however many session 0esque conversation the DM has to take it on good faith that the player will endeavor to play in the world, not break it. The social contract requires the player to listen to the DM, and the DM to honor the player's desires within the parameters of the game world. A well oiled table can do collaborative world building, but collaborative world building does not mean erasing the DMs maps so the player can assert something they were already told was not the case.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
As IamSposta suggested, this player seems to have a very odd or limited idea of what a warlock patron can be, and would prefer it to be someone/thing who just hands out powers and quests.
I would be very tempted to give the player what they (think they) want with a long, epic quest to help Vesh find a form that is more "humanistic" -- at the end of which, they can no longer progress as a warlock because now that Vesh can easily interact with people herself she doesn't need the player to do stuff for her and be her mouthpiece. Maybe the form she inhabits is one of those other NPCs the player has been collecting. Maybe it's even their favorite NPC.
So now they've unleashed this thing on the world, and the player either has to multiclass into something else if they want to keep levelling up, since warlock is no longer available to them, or scramble around to find some other entity who might want to stop whatever Vesh is up to and is willing to be their new patron... which might end up being an even worse arrangement than the one the player wasn't happy with in the first place.
I mean, there are WAY WORSE WAYS a patron could be communicating their wishes than with symbols and short messages.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
These have all given me some ideas of how to work this out. Thank you so much!
Ironically, this has been the one thing that in talking we've been able to agree on