The party is looking for 2 warlocks, one is stealing souls and making an army, and another is tricking nobles, kings, and the like into signing demonic contracts. You then find out it is one warlock, who signed contracts with 2 patrons, without them knowing the warlock had signed with 2.
Early in the game, a young boy npc joins the party. (no, he is not the BBEG) He is a cleric, but a bad one, as he says his initiation ritual was cut short because of an orc attack, and as he had a little cleric powers, but no responsibilities, wants to travel the world a little before finishing his initiation.
When the party finds out about the warlock having 2 patrons, the boy (if the party doesn’t figure it out themselves) says “lets go to a library, a lot of demons don’t like each other, and lets see if they like each other or not. When they find out the demons don’t like each other, the boy helps them contact the demons.
When the demons get contacted and told of what happened with the warlock, the demons look shocked, then the big one hands his hand out to the other “It's time to peacefully put our differences aside, brother. This is the biggest opportunity we have ever had.” Then they vanish laughing (demonically of course).
When they fight the warlock, he is stronger, as he can now use both demons' powers together, without worry one or both would find out. When he is finally defeated, a party member gets infected with the warlock's soul, and the boy puts him in a coma to stop the soul from corrupting him.
The boy then tells the party that they need to go to a church, even an abandoned one (conveniently one close by.) so he can exercise the soul. When they do the ritual, the boy starts to laugh, more and more, louder and louder, starting to get demonic. He then absorbs the warlock's soul.
The whole time the boy was actually a warlock, with a small stone that can heal people, but it was weak. And that the boy was actually a full grown woman. Now the party has to fight a warlock with the power of 3 pacts, but only the restrictions of one. Fun.
what would two or three pacts do? your first warlock would probably only have feind characteristics, while warlock Numero dos would conceivably have more abilities, they would only get 2 sets. I recommend changing one of the feinds so something else(an evil something else) unless the two feinds are like- levistus and zariel, they seem to similar to have any measurable boost to the OGW's powers
sorry to be so critical
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Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Seems a bit of a railroad when you need the party to do specific things like this. What if the party doesn’t want the young boy, or just drops him off in the next town. Or makes their insight checks to realize he’s lying (he will, of course, need to be making regular deception checks to keep up appearances).
What if instead of contacting the demons, the party cleric decides to contact their god. Or they just decide, nope, we’re not contacting any demons, we’ll find another solution.
You’ve got it too planned out for what will happen and in what order. If I’m a player, there’s little point in me showing up, since what’s going to happen has already been decided.
There is nothing wrong with the concept itself. A villain with multiple pacts trying to increase their personal power is an interesting twist. Having another villain who wants to absorb their power when they are defeated is also an interesting plot element.
However, as Xalthu mentioned, the problem is that instead of writing an adventure for D&D, you have written a story. In this story, the players are expected to do certain things which I can almost guarantee that they won't if only because everyone comes up with different ways to solve problems.
1) A young boy attempts to join the party. They claim to be a cleric acolyte wanting to see the world before taking their final vows. They have some limited healing capability.
Your story assumes the party allows them to join and tag along. However, the party could say adventuring is dangerous and you should return to your church and go traveling later in life. Someone else might well be suspicious of why a young boy is out traveling on their own and decide they won't keep them in the party. Perhaps the party decides to drop the boy off at an orphanage or other church? Hunting evil warlocks with armies and undead is not a place for a "young boy" no matter what they say.
So, the party refuses to take the boy with them ... do you force them to do so? If not, how will you change the narrative/story?
2) The party is likely to discover that a warlock has two patrons because that is information you can tell them based on their in game actions and information they discover. However, what the party does with that information isn't up to you. For example, why would the party EVER want to contact the demons? The demons are powerful patrons. Any information on whether they like each other or not is pretty irrelevant because they are demons. Not only that, you are assuming that the party will want to "tell" on the warlock but the party has no idea whether the demons are aware of the situation or not. You do as DM. The players don't. The players are probably more likely to think that the demons are already working together.
3) You assume the party will win and defeat the warlock. You also force a plot point where a party member gets taken over by the soul of the warlock without apparently any choice or way to avoid it.
4) The boy is an apprentice who hasn't even been initiated. However, they can suddenly put a party member into a coma and perform an exorcism? The party is unlikely to go along with this if they didn't figure out long before that the NPC has ulterior motives.
5) Pacts don't impose any constraints or restrictions. The patron does and it depends on the type of agreement and patron. There really isn't any reason to believe that this "young boy" turned "woman" is going to be even more of a threat than the previous warlock - though they are if you say they are.
Anyway, the basic concept of the narrative is fine but the job of a DM is to present the world and resolve how the players interact with it. If you find that you are creating a story that already includes player decisions along the way to give the narrative you are looking for ... you might want to back up and reconsider a bit. You can likely achieve most of the story elements you've outlined but they won't necessarily happen the way you originally intend and that is perfectly ok.
The most important question to ask yourself, Gienieve, is "Where does a dungeon fit into all of this?" Very important question to ask, because without a dungeon you have no stage on which your campaign takes place.
I do have the plot, but I REALLY don't want to railroad. Thanks.
Generally speaking the way to have a plot without railroading the PCs is not design for what will happen -- it's to design for what the BBEG wants to happen, and to design in some key events that the PCs can interfere with that will cause the original plan to fail. The PCs should eventually disrupt the BBEG's plot, but don't force them to use the methods you came up with initially -- they may never notice something you offer, they might come up with a method you never considered.
Once the PCs have done things that mean the BBEG's original plot no longer works, the BBEG will adjust its plot to try and make it still work. This interference/adjustment process continues until the BBEG is defeated.
As a first time DM, it can feel daunting designing an adventure. New DMs often have a "vision" for some cool idea and how it will work out and one of the first things the DM should do is set their expectations and create the situation that the players get to interact with then assess that interaction as it occurs as neutrally as you can. It may turn out as you imagine but much of the time the players do something cool and unexpected so the adventure takes a different path than you imagine and that is very cool.
In addition, the DM isn't on the side of the bad guys, the DM doesn't win when the bad guys do :). The DM is creating a world with things going on in it that the players get to interact with.
So in your idea, there is a warlock with two patrons that aren't aware of each other, that warlock is stealing souls on the one hand to build up a cult/followers/army while on the other hand, they are also either a noble or pretending to be one that has infiltrated high society to get them to sign deals with his other patron. To be honest, one patron sounds like a demon while the one making deals is far more like a devil.
Devils and demons traditionally hate each other and don't talk to each other which would explain why the warlock has managed to have two patrons ... but you could create a reason why these two might work together when they discover the duplicity of the warlock.
However, this is the behind the scenes, big story that is playing out. It isn't relevant to the characters when they first start since they don't know about the warlock.
Depending on what level you start the players at (1st or 3rd are often good choices), they aren't experienced enough for these challenges yet.
So what might the warlock be doing that the players could interact with now?
1) Perhaps there have been unusual disappearances in the poor quarter. Not that unusual, but the people are upset and the town guard needs someone to investigate but it isn't important enough for them to allocate resources. The lords in charge of the guard mostly think what happens in the poor quarter stays there and don't really care about the people.
- so perhaps the first adventure is investigate the disappearances. You could have a small group of warlock followers with a hideout beneath the slums where they imprison folks before sending them out of town to the facility where their souls are removed. You could have occasional wagons loaded with prisoners moving through the poor quarter late at night with the cult bribing a gate guard to let them out.
- you could also have a thieves guild smuggling goods in and out of the city.
As the characters look for info on the cult they may learn things about the thieves guild. It could be the guild thinks the characters are working for the town guard looking into the guild rather than the disappearances. The players could choose to interact with one or both of these plot lines.
Other city plot lines could include
- noble increasing food prices to increase profits ... resulting in unrest in the poor quarter. Why is this one noble pushing for higher prices? Because they made a deal with a devil to pay them a certain amount of gold every month and cause unrest and suffering to folks in the city. However, the noble isn't aware that the money is actually going to the warlock to fund his activities ... the devil has no use for gold usually so doesn't care if the warlock lines his pockets as part of the contracts he gets these people to write. The noble received an increased charisma and powers of persuasion and deception from the devil so that their other business is going quite well.
- add a couple of other noble contracts whose side effects the characters might find out about and want to stop or correct.
Anyway, several of these types of encounters eventually lead the characters back towards the warlock him (or her) self. The party may or may not pick up NPCs along the way and your idea of a woman pretending to be a child isn't really needed. On the other hand, if you really want to include it, you could have the characters first encounter the "child" outside a temple in the poor quarter perhaps begging for donations. Perhaps this woman/child is a spy for the warlock or someone in their organization keeping an eye on operations in the city and becomes aware of the characters investigating. As a result, they try to get "in" with the party - though if it doesn't work out, that is fine, they can set themselves up as wanting to become wealthy like the adventurers to justify crossing paths in the future.
In any case, the woman is ambitious, has met the warlock (probably best if they work for an underling of the warlock), learned about the warlock and how they gained their power. After watching the warlock a few times and asking around at some of the darker temples in the city, she attempted to call out to one of these beings to take her on as a patron - you decide whether a great old one with some ambitions on the prime material plane, an evil fey, the lady of shadows from the shadowfell, another fiend, or perhaps a djinni of some sort answered her call. Anyway, her plan is to amass power and to eventually backstab the warlock and take over. If the characters can become enough of a problem that will allow her to take over while if she knows all about the characters it should make them easy to crush when she takes power.
--------------------
The key to building an adventure is understanding your NPCs, what they are doing and why they are doing it - then consider how those goals translate into concrete things in the game world like hideouts, cults, NPCs, guilds and the actions they are taking - finally consider how the players could learn about these actions and consider possible encounters. When the party learns something interesting and chooses which direction to go, you will have a decent idea of what they will encounter. Ideally, you get the players to let you know which direction they are going at the end of last session so that you can create the details of the encounters they run into with that choice of direction. Some DMs are able to create that content spontaneously without planning in detail (they just have the general ideas) but I don't recommend that approach for a first time DM since it requires a lot of knowledge about monsters/creatures/NPCs so that the DM can come up with a reasonable and logical encounter on the spur of the moment.
When I am building an adventure that uses a town, I often like to have a general map of the town since just looking at it can spark ideas. There are lots of town maps available on the internet or you can create your own.
Anyway, good luck and have fun :) ... DMing seems intimidating at first (and it can be) but it is lots of fun once you get used to it.
The main thing that hasn't been said yet that's important for a campaign is to populate the game world with enough side content. Main quest alone isn't going to hold interest for long, and you get increased investment in the game world when the players feel like there is a lot going on around them and that they can effect things in the world.
Building up a repoirte of sidequests and encounters takes a long time (but you can often re-use them in different campaigns if you're playing with different people so you're not always having to start over) is essential, and a huge part of the fun, of being a DM.
I recommend trying to come up with some yourself, but there is also a good deal of smaller anthologies of published content that you can put out in your world for your players to discover.
Tales from the Yawning Portal, Candlekeep Mysteries, Tales from the Radiant Citadel, and others are all great tools for adding complexity and the potential for discovery to your world.
First regarding railroading, sometimes key plot points need to happen and while you should be flexible in how they happen you also sometimes need to force it. If your players won't accept that and are actively avoiding a key plot point you really need to consider if they want to engage with that story at all and it may be time for a new campaign.
Seems a bit of a railroad when you need the party to do specific things like this. What if the party doesn’t want the young boy, or just drops him off in the next town. Or makes their insight checks to realize he’s lying (he will, of course, need to be making regular deception checks to keep up appearances).
What if instead of contacting the demons, the party cleric decides to contact their god. Or they just decide, nope, we’re not contacting any demons, we’ll find another solution.
You’ve got it too planned out for what will happen and in what order. If I’m a player, there’s little point in me showing up, since what’s going to happen has already been decided.
This is actually a pretty easy problem to get around it just requires some flexibility.
If the warlock gets discovered, they vanish. Having been using something like an astral projection or mind control on the cleric. Now there is a mysterious third party for the players to speculate on which can really add to the adventure
If the fake cleric can't give the demon information in person they can use other means. Anonymous letters, visions in dreams, alternative personas ect...
It's a very similar thing to Shadow heart in BG3. She will just keep having opportunities to pop up until she has filled her plot role and your fake cleric will need to do that same.
3) You assume the party will win and defeat the warlock. You also force a plot point where a party member gets taken over by the soul of the warlock without apparently any choice or way to avoid it.
Good luck!
I don't agree that the soul aspect is inherently an issue. It's just a mechanic of the monster like a lich reforming at it's phylactery or a werewolf bite leaving a curse. Its an extra step to defeating the monster exactly like finding a lichs phylactery.
The main problem is that taking a player out of the game is a no no but this needn't do that because the player returns to the game in dream form when they enter their mind to fight the warlock . You'll just want to avoid keeping that player out of action for too long and that may mean your fake cleric needs to use force. They can ambush the players when weakened to force them into it with a fight or do it to them in their sleep so they just wake up in a collective dream at the next rest ect... It needs to happen fast so you need to just make it happen.
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The party is looking for 2 warlocks, one is stealing souls and making an army, and another is tricking nobles, kings, and the like into signing demonic contracts. You then find out it is one warlock, who signed contracts with 2 patrons, without them knowing the warlock had signed with 2.
Early in the game, a young boy npc joins the party. (no, he is not the BBEG) He is a cleric, but a bad one, as he says his initiation ritual was cut short because of an orc attack, and as he had a little cleric powers, but no responsibilities, wants to travel the world a little before finishing his initiation.
When the party finds out about the warlock having 2 patrons, the boy (if the party doesn’t figure it out themselves) says “lets go to a library, a lot of demons don’t like each other, and lets see if they like each other or not. When they find out the demons don’t like each other, the boy helps them contact the demons.
When the demons get contacted and told of what happened with the warlock, the demons look shocked, then the big one hands his hand out to the other “It's time to peacefully put our differences aside, brother. This is the biggest opportunity we have ever had.” Then they vanish laughing (demonically of course).
When they fight the warlock, he is stronger, as he can now use both demons' powers together, without worry one or both would find out. When he is finally defeated, a party member gets infected with the warlock's soul, and the boy puts him in a coma to stop the soul from corrupting him.
The boy then tells the party that they need to go to a church, even an abandoned one (conveniently one close by.) so he can exercise the soul. When they do the ritual, the boy starts to laugh, more and more, louder and louder, starting to get demonic. He then absorbs the warlock's soul.
The whole time the boy was actually a warlock, with a small stone that can heal people, but it was weak. And that the boy was actually a full grown woman. Now the party has to fight a warlock with the power of 3 pacts, but only the restrictions of one. Fun.
what would two or three pacts do? your first warlock would probably only have feind characteristics, while warlock Numero dos would conceivably have more abilities, they would only get 2 sets. I recommend changing one of the feinds so something else(an evil something else) unless the two feinds are like- levistus and zariel, they seem to similar to have any measurable boost to the OGW's powers
sorry to be so critical
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Seems a bit of a railroad when you need the party to do specific things like this. What if the party doesn’t want the young boy, or just drops him off in the next town. Or makes their insight checks to realize he’s lying (he will, of course, need to be making regular deception checks to keep up appearances).
What if instead of contacting the demons, the party cleric decides to contact their god. Or they just decide, nope, we’re not contacting any demons, we’ll find another solution.
You’ve got it too planned out for what will happen and in what order. If I’m a player, there’s little point in me showing up, since what’s going to happen has already been decided.
I'd tend to agree with Xalthu.
There is nothing wrong with the concept itself. A villain with multiple pacts trying to increase their personal power is an interesting twist. Having another villain who wants to absorb their power when they are defeated is also an interesting plot element.
However, as Xalthu mentioned, the problem is that instead of writing an adventure for D&D, you have written a story. In this story, the players are expected to do certain things which I can almost guarantee that they won't if only because everyone comes up with different ways to solve problems.
1) A young boy attempts to join the party. They claim to be a cleric acolyte wanting to see the world before taking their final vows. They have some limited healing capability.
Your story assumes the party allows them to join and tag along. However, the party could say adventuring is dangerous and you should return to your church and go traveling later in life. Someone else might well be suspicious of why a young boy is out traveling on their own and decide they won't keep them in the party. Perhaps the party decides to drop the boy off at an orphanage or other church? Hunting evil warlocks with armies and undead is not a place for a "young boy" no matter what they say.
So, the party refuses to take the boy with them ... do you force them to do so? If not, how will you change the narrative/story?
2) The party is likely to discover that a warlock has two patrons because that is information you can tell them based on their in game actions and information they discover. However, what the party does with that information isn't up to you. For example, why would the party EVER want to contact the demons? The demons are powerful patrons. Any information on whether they like each other or not is pretty irrelevant because they are demons. Not only that, you are assuming that the party will want to "tell" on the warlock but the party has no idea whether the demons are aware of the situation or not. You do as DM. The players don't. The players are probably more likely to think that the demons are already working together.
3) You assume the party will win and defeat the warlock. You also force a plot point where a party member gets taken over by the soul of the warlock without apparently any choice or way to avoid it.
4) The boy is an apprentice who hasn't even been initiated. However, they can suddenly put a party member into a coma and perform an exorcism? The party is unlikely to go along with this if they didn't figure out long before that the NPC has ulterior motives.
5) Pacts don't impose any constraints or restrictions. The patron does and it depends on the type of agreement and patron. There really isn't any reason to believe that this "young boy" turned "woman" is going to be even more of a threat than the previous warlock - though they are if you say they are.
Anyway, the basic concept of the narrative is fine but the job of a DM is to present the world and resolve how the players interact with it. If you find that you are creating a story that already includes player decisions along the way to give the narrative you are looking for ... you might want to back up and reconsider a bit. You can likely achieve most of the story elements you've outlined but they won't necessarily happen the way you originally intend and that is perfectly ok.
Good luck!
please be critical, this is my first campain idea, not dm'd yet, and any advise is very wanted. Thanks for helping.
I do have the plot, but I REALLY don't want to railroad. Thanks.
thanks. I haven't dm'd before, so any help is REALLY appreciated. I want to avoid railroading at all costs so this helps a lot.
The most important question to ask yourself, Gienieve, is "Where does a dungeon fit into all of this?" Very important question to ask, because without a dungeon you have no stage on which your campaign takes place.
Generally speaking the way to have a plot without railroading the PCs is not design for what will happen -- it's to design for what the BBEG wants to happen, and to design in some key events that the PCs can interfere with that will cause the original plan to fail. The PCs should eventually disrupt the BBEG's plot, but don't force them to use the methods you came up with initially -- they may never notice something you offer, they might come up with a method you never considered.
Once the PCs have done things that mean the BBEG's original plot no longer works, the BBEG will adjust its plot to try and make it still work. This interference/adjustment process continues until the BBEG is defeated.
Makes sense, thanks so much
As a first time DM, it can feel daunting designing an adventure. New DMs often have a "vision" for some cool idea and how it will work out and one of the first things the DM should do is set their expectations and create the situation that the players get to interact with then assess that interaction as it occurs as neutrally as you can. It may turn out as you imagine but much of the time the players do something cool and unexpected so the adventure takes a different path than you imagine and that is very cool.
In addition, the DM isn't on the side of the bad guys, the DM doesn't win when the bad guys do :). The DM is creating a world with things going on in it that the players get to interact with.
So in your idea, there is a warlock with two patrons that aren't aware of each other, that warlock is stealing souls on the one hand to build up a cult/followers/army while on the other hand, they are also either a noble or pretending to be one that has infiltrated high society to get them to sign deals with his other patron. To be honest, one patron sounds like a demon while the one making deals is far more like a devil.
Devils and demons traditionally hate each other and don't talk to each other which would explain why the warlock has managed to have two patrons ... but you could create a reason why these two might work together when they discover the duplicity of the warlock.
However, this is the behind the scenes, big story that is playing out. It isn't relevant to the characters when they first start since they don't know about the warlock.
Depending on what level you start the players at (1st or 3rd are often good choices), they aren't experienced enough for these challenges yet.
So what might the warlock be doing that the players could interact with now?
1) Perhaps there have been unusual disappearances in the poor quarter. Not that unusual, but the people are upset and the town guard needs someone to investigate but it isn't important enough for them to allocate resources. The lords in charge of the guard mostly think what happens in the poor quarter stays there and don't really care about the people.
- so perhaps the first adventure is investigate the disappearances. You could have a small group of warlock followers with a hideout beneath the slums where they imprison folks before sending them out of town to the facility where their souls are removed. You could have occasional wagons loaded with prisoners moving through the poor quarter late at night with the cult bribing a gate guard to let them out.
- you could also have a thieves guild smuggling goods in and out of the city.
As the characters look for info on the cult they may learn things about the thieves guild. It could be the guild thinks the characters are working for the town guard looking into the guild rather than the disappearances. The players could choose to interact with one or both of these plot lines.
Other city plot lines could include
- noble increasing food prices to increase profits ... resulting in unrest in the poor quarter. Why is this one noble pushing for higher prices? Because they made a deal with a devil to pay them a certain amount of gold every month and cause unrest and suffering to folks in the city. However, the noble isn't aware that the money is actually going to the warlock to fund his activities ... the devil has no use for gold usually so doesn't care if the warlock lines his pockets as part of the contracts he gets these people to write. The noble received an increased charisma and powers of persuasion and deception from the devil so that their other business is going quite well.
- add a couple of other noble contracts whose side effects the characters might find out about and want to stop or correct.
Anyway, several of these types of encounters eventually lead the characters back towards the warlock him (or her) self. The party may or may not pick up NPCs along the way and your idea of a woman pretending to be a child isn't really needed. On the other hand, if you really want to include it, you could have the characters first encounter the "child" outside a temple in the poor quarter perhaps begging for donations. Perhaps this woman/child is a spy for the warlock or someone in their organization keeping an eye on operations in the city and becomes aware of the characters investigating. As a result, they try to get "in" with the party - though if it doesn't work out, that is fine, they can set themselves up as wanting to become wealthy like the adventurers to justify crossing paths in the future.
In any case, the woman is ambitious, has met the warlock (probably best if they work for an underling of the warlock), learned about the warlock and how they gained their power. After watching the warlock a few times and asking around at some of the darker temples in the city, she attempted to call out to one of these beings to take her on as a patron - you decide whether a great old one with some ambitions on the prime material plane, an evil fey, the lady of shadows from the shadowfell, another fiend, or perhaps a djinni of some sort answered her call. Anyway, her plan is to amass power and to eventually backstab the warlock and take over. If the characters can become enough of a problem that will allow her to take over while if she knows all about the characters it should make them easy to crush when she takes power.
--------------------
The key to building an adventure is understanding your NPCs, what they are doing and why they are doing it - then consider how those goals translate into concrete things in the game world like hideouts, cults, NPCs, guilds and the actions they are taking - finally consider how the players could learn about these actions and consider possible encounters. When the party learns something interesting and chooses which direction to go, you will have a decent idea of what they will encounter. Ideally, you get the players to let you know which direction they are going at the end of last session so that you can create the details of the encounters they run into with that choice of direction. Some DMs are able to create that content spontaneously without planning in detail (they just have the general ideas) but I don't recommend that approach for a first time DM since it requires a lot of knowledge about monsters/creatures/NPCs so that the DM can come up with a reasonable and logical encounter on the spur of the moment.
When I am building an adventure that uses a town, I often like to have a general map of the town since just looking at it can spark ideas. There are lots of town maps available on the internet or you can create your own.
Anyway, good luck and have fun :) ... DMing seems intimidating at first (and it can be) but it is lots of fun once you get used to it.
Sounds sick for a first idea campaign. Definitely way better than mine - just a bunch of loosely related one shots basically. Well done!
Drow Shadowblades are so good! Give them a Google!
The main thing that hasn't been said yet that's important for a campaign is to populate the game world with enough side content. Main quest alone isn't going to hold interest for long, and you get increased investment in the game world when the players feel like there is a lot going on around them and that they can effect things in the world.
Building up a repoirte of sidequests and encounters takes a long time (but you can often re-use them in different campaigns if you're playing with different people so you're not always having to start over) is essential, and a huge part of the fun, of being a DM.
I recommend trying to come up with some yourself, but there is also a good deal of smaller anthologies of published content that you can put out in your world for your players to discover.
Tales from the Yawning Portal, Candlekeep Mysteries, Tales from the Radiant Citadel, and others are all great tools for adding complexity and the potential for discovery to your world.
First regarding railroading, sometimes key plot points need to happen and while you should be flexible in how they happen you also sometimes need to force it. If your players won't accept that and are actively avoiding a key plot point you really need to consider if they want to engage with that story at all and it may be time for a new campaign.
This is actually a pretty easy problem to get around it just requires some flexibility.
It's a very similar thing to Shadow heart in BG3. She will just keep having opportunities to pop up until she has filled her plot role and your fake cleric will need to do that same.
I don't agree that the soul aspect is inherently an issue. It's just a mechanic of the monster like a lich reforming at it's phylactery or a werewolf bite leaving a curse. Its an extra step to defeating the monster exactly like finding a lichs phylactery.
The main problem is that taking a player out of the game is a no no but this needn't do that because the player returns to the game in dream form when they enter their mind to fight the warlock . You'll just want to avoid keeping that player out of action for too long and that may mean your fake cleric needs to use force. They can ambush the players when weakened to force them into it with a fight or do it to them in their sleep so they just wake up in a collective dream at the next rest ect... It needs to happen fast so you need to just make it happen.