I am still working on porting my very first TTRPG character over to D&D.
So far, I have settled on a Fallen Aasimar, Warlock of the Archfey. The character has a child that was stolen from her not long after he was born, and for years, she has been looking for him. Eventually, she discovered that it was the Fey of the Summer Court - a branch of Seelie court, who had taken him. With the help of the child's father - a mortal Bard who once had the dubious pleasure of entertaining the Queen of the Faeries, she travelled to the Feywild and managed to gain an audience with Titania, Queen of the Seelie. My Character directly asked Queen Titania to give her back her child, when the Queen refused, she threatened to take her son back by force.
Suffice to say, that Titania wasn't at all impressed by this, and despite being an Aasimar (a powerful mortal), my character was unable to rescue her child. However, the attempt to do so drew the attention of the Queen of Air and Darkness, who saw two things:
A potential ally, or more precisely, a potential puppet
A chance to strike a blow against Titania, her court and the Fey associated with it
The Unseelie Queen didn't want Titania to have the child, or be able to use the child. If Titania wanted it, Mab was going to make sure that she deprived her nemesis of it and so she played a game with my character. Pretending to want to help Jiang, Mab persuaded her to trade her light - the light of an Aasimar - for the power she needed to save her child. This pact turned my character into a Fallen Aasimar, Warlock of Archfey.
So now she knows where her child is and has a Patron who wants to help her get him back. However, her power level is not yet high enough to face off against such high-level Fey. She needs more power, which means that she has to do things for her Patron, recover lost artefacts, kill monsters, and so on. Whatever her Patron decides is important to her at the time. After completing enough of these tasks, her reward is the power she craves, but it is still not enough, to rescue her child, she needs more and more and more, and as her power grows, she becomes ever darker, more chaotic and more like the Fey she serves than the Aasimar she is.
So, guys, I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Is becoming a Warlock to rescue your child from his kidnappers, something reasonable and is it fair to say that despite doing so willingly, my character had no idea what she was doing, or what she was getting herself into when she made the pact?
Is stealing a mortal child, something the Seelie would do? The Seelie are typically considered to be the good Fey, but in this scenario, who represents good and who represents evil is less evident as it was the Seelie who stole the child and the Unseelie who offered their assistance, albeit, for her ends, Mab still offered to help, where Titania outright refused.
I like the concept. I'm not versed well enough in the lore of the fey to be able to pass off judgement on whether they would or would not kidnap a child, but if the child is destined for greatness and could either be the bane of all existence or among the greatest of heroes, the best of creatures would be persuaded to protect the child from evil influence. If Titania thought that preserving the child's status as a guest of the Seelie Court was worth risking the wrath of the mother (and was "rewarded" by the threats that reinforced her belief that the mother was unfit), it would be easy for her to justify the action.
As for becoming a warlock to gain the power to get back her son, I think that would be fully within the realm of possibility and the fact that your thoughts went that way say that hers would as well. The fact that she's acting on this urge without a full knowledge of what is happening would not be surprising, and the best part about it is that Mab doesn't even need to be aware of the "prophecy" or even be actively engaged in bringing either side of its fulfillment to pass to be engaged in the process. As it stands, she could be the BBEG or she could just be a third party. There doesn't even need to be a BBEG for the plot to proceed, since the BBEG is simply the possibility of the son becoming that person.
Meanwhile, Titania is viewed as the BBEG by the Aasimar because she is working directly against her wishes. She doesn't perceive her actions to be evil because she's caught up in the ends justifying the means. This could end up being the cause of the son going down the spiral towards evil and the redemption of the mother could end up being his saving grace.
Of course, this plays better if the Aasimar is an NPC instead of a PC (and doesn't lend itself well to the character in a campaign) unless there is a BBEG that is forced to pivot and seek another means to his endgame which the party would seek to disrupt after the redemption of the Aasimar (regardless of whether the PC remains a fallen Aasimar or becomes one of the others). It would take some doing to make the other characters parts in the story be as important as this story potentially has, but it would make an epic story overall if it was achieved.
So, guys, I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Is becoming a Warlock to rescue your child from his kidnappers, something reasonable and is it fair to say that despite doing so willingly, my character had no idea what she was doing, or what she was getting herself into when she made the pact?
Is stealing a mortal child, something the Seelie would do? The Seelie are typically considered to be the good Fey, but in this scenario, who represents good and who represents evil is less evident as it was the Seelie who stole the child and the Unseelie who offered their assistance, albeit, for her ends, Mab still offered to help, where Titania outright refused.
Lastly, what do you think of my ideas in general?
Excellent story. In answer to your questions:
1. Making a Warlock's Pact with the Fey for any purpose is an extreme measure, not a reasonable thing to do, but that's what makes playing a Warlock so interesting!
2. And it's fair to say that nobody mortal who deals with the Fey ever really knows what they're getting into. The Fey are otherworldly, capricious, and inscrutable, on the best of days.
3. There are lots of stories about Fey stealing mortal children. In some legends they replace the child with a look-alike, known as a "changeling" but that word means something else in D&D. Anyway, there are legends about folks raising a fey child in place of their own without knowing it. But this is your story; if you prefer they didn't bother leaving a "replacement" then go with that.
In general, I think the Seelie Court might be more likely to leave a "surrogate" child so their theft would go undetected, and the Unseelie Court would be the ones to engage in blatant kidnapping. The whole story would work a bit better if the roles of the respective courts were reversed. However, if you're determined to have a Pact with the Queen of Air & Darkness, leave it as is.
Overall, it's a compelling backstory.
Coincidentally, I'm also playing an Archfey Warlock who wants to save his child. He made the Pact to escape the Death Cult he was born into, but they still have his daughter....
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I am still working on porting my very first TTRPG character over to D&D.
So far, I have settled on a Fallen Aasimar, Warlock of the Archfey. The character has a child that was stolen from her not long after he was born, and for years, she has been looking for him. Eventually, she discovered that it was the Fey of the Summer Court - a branch of Seelie court, who had taken him. With the help of the child's father - a mortal Bard who once had the dubious pleasure of entertaining the Queen of the Faeries, she travelled to the Feywild and managed to gain an audience with Titania, Queen of the Seelie. My Character directly asked Queen Titania to give her back her child, when the Queen refused, she threatened to take her son back by force.
Suffice to say, that Titania wasn't at all impressed by this, and despite being an Aasimar (a powerful mortal), my character was unable to rescue her child. However, the attempt to do so drew the attention of the Queen of Air and Darkness, who saw two things:
The Unseelie Queen didn't want Titania to have the child, or be able to use the child. If Titania wanted it, Mab was going to make sure that she deprived her nemesis of it and so she played a game with my character. Pretending to want to help Jiang, Mab persuaded her to trade her light - the light of an Aasimar - for the power she needed to save her child. This pact turned my character into a Fallen Aasimar, Warlock of Archfey.
So now she knows where her child is and has a Patron who wants to help her get him back. However, her power level is not yet high enough to face off against such high-level Fey. She needs more power, which means that she has to do things for her Patron, recover lost artefacts, kill monsters, and so on. Whatever her Patron decides is important to her at the time. After completing enough of these tasks, her reward is the power she craves, but it is still not enough, to rescue her child, she needs more and more and more, and as her power grows, she becomes ever darker, more chaotic and more like the Fey she serves than the Aasimar she is.
So, guys, I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Is becoming a Warlock to rescue your child from his kidnappers, something reasonable and is it fair to say that despite doing so willingly, my character had no idea what she was doing, or what she was getting herself into when she made the pact?
Is stealing a mortal child, something the Seelie would do? The Seelie are typically considered to be the good Fey, but in this scenario, who represents good and who represents evil is less evident as it was the Seelie who stole the child and the Unseelie who offered their assistance, albeit, for her ends, Mab still offered to help, where Titania outright refused.
Lastly, what do you think of my ideas in general?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I like the concept. I'm not versed well enough in the lore of the fey to be able to pass off judgement on whether they would or would not kidnap a child, but if the child is destined for greatness and could either be the bane of all existence or among the greatest of heroes, the best of creatures would be persuaded to protect the child from evil influence. If Titania thought that preserving the child's status as a guest of the Seelie Court was worth risking the wrath of the mother (and was "rewarded" by the threats that reinforced her belief that the mother was unfit), it would be easy for her to justify the action.
As for becoming a warlock to gain the power to get back her son, I think that would be fully within the realm of possibility and the fact that your thoughts went that way say that hers would as well. The fact that she's acting on this urge without a full knowledge of what is happening would not be surprising, and the best part about it is that Mab doesn't even need to be aware of the "prophecy" or even be actively engaged in bringing either side of its fulfillment to pass to be engaged in the process. As it stands, she could be the BBEG or she could just be a third party. There doesn't even need to be a BBEG for the plot to proceed, since the BBEG is simply the possibility of the son becoming that person.
Meanwhile, Titania is viewed as the BBEG by the Aasimar because she is working directly against her wishes. She doesn't perceive her actions to be evil because she's caught up in the ends justifying the means. This could end up being the cause of the son going down the spiral towards evil and the redemption of the mother could end up being his saving grace.
Of course, this plays better if the Aasimar is an NPC instead of a PC (and doesn't lend itself well to the character in a campaign) unless there is a BBEG that is forced to pivot and seek another means to his endgame which the party would seek to disrupt after the redemption of the Aasimar (regardless of whether the PC remains a fallen Aasimar or becomes one of the others). It would take some doing to make the other characters parts in the story be as important as this story potentially has, but it would make an epic story overall if it was achieved.
Excellent story. In answer to your questions:
1. Making a Warlock's Pact with the Fey for any purpose is an extreme measure, not a reasonable thing to do, but that's what makes playing a Warlock so interesting!
2. And it's fair to say that nobody mortal who deals with the Fey ever really knows what they're getting into. The Fey are otherworldly, capricious, and inscrutable, on the best of days.
3. There are lots of stories about Fey stealing mortal children. In some legends they replace the child with a look-alike, known as a "changeling" but that word means something else in D&D. Anyway, there are legends about folks raising a fey child in place of their own without knowing it. But this is your story; if you prefer they didn't bother leaving a "replacement" then go with that.
In general, I think the Seelie Court might be more likely to leave a "surrogate" child so their theft would go undetected, and the Unseelie Court would be the ones to engage in blatant kidnapping. The whole story would work a bit better if the roles of the respective courts were reversed. However, if you're determined to have a Pact with the Queen of Air & Darkness, leave it as is.
Overall, it's a compelling backstory.
Coincidentally, I'm also playing an Archfey Warlock who wants to save his child. He made the Pact to escape the Death Cult he was born into, but they still have his daughter....
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!