Base Class: Warlock

The Reaper’s Pact (Warlock Patron)

A homebrew subclass for Dungeons & Dragons 5e

“Death is not your enemy, Warlock. It is the truth beneath every heartbeat. You need not summon the grave’s chill — you are the chill.”

Expanded Spell List

Warlock Level	Spells
1st	false life, inflict wounds
2nd	gentle repose, blindness/deafness
3rd	animate dead, speak with dead
4th	blight, death ward
5th	cloudkill, raise dead

Reaper’s Presence (1st Level)

Your soul is forever bound to the stillness of the grave. Death follows you like a shadow, and all who meet your gaze feel a quiet dread.

Constant Death Aura

A faint necrotic aura surrounds you at all times — a chill that whispers of mortality. This aura has the following effects:

Unearthly Presence. Any creature that comes within 10 feet of you feels an instinctive unease. The air grows cold, colors dull, and sounds seem muffled.
- You gain advantage on Intimidation checks, but disadvantage on Persuasion checks with living creatures who can feel fear or discomfort.
Fear of the Reaper. As a bonus action, you can focus your aura’s dread upon nearby creatures. Each hostile creature of your choice within 10 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
- While frightened in this way, creatures also take necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) at the start of their turns.
- You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses after a long rest.

Ethereal Vision

Your eyes pierce the veil between life and death. You can see 30 feet into the Ethereal Plane as if it overlapped your own. Ghosts, spirits, and ethereal creatures appear as faint, luminous figures to you. Invisible creatures can also be seen if in close proximity to you within this 30 feet.

Reaper’s Cantrip: Soul Reap

(Custom Cantrip)
Necromancy cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

You swing your hand, blade, or a spectral scythe in a sweep of necrotic energy.
Make a melee spell attack against one creature within range. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 necrotic damage, and you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier.

If this attack reduces a creature to 0 hit points, you gain advantage on your next attack roll before the end of your next turn, as a fragment of their soul empowers you.

At Higher Levels. The damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

Gravewalker’s Boon (6th Level)

You have learned to walk on the line between life and death.

You gain resistance to necrotic damage.
When you would be reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point as your patron anchors your spirit.
When you succeed on this saving throw, your Death Aura’s unease intensifies, causing all creatures of your choice within 10 feet to make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
You can use this feature once per long rest.

Spectral Reaping (10th Level)

When battle begins, the Reaper’s shadow walks beside you.
Whenever you use your Fear of the Reaper or deal damage to a creature with a Warlock spell, you can summon a Spectral Reaper to strike at another target within 10 feet of the original.

This phantom lash deals necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.
The Reaper fades if you are incapacitated.

Avatar of Death (14th Level)

You are no longer a mortal who serves death — you are death’s vessel.

As an action, you can assume your Reaper Form for 1 minute:

You are immune to necrotic damage.
Your Death Aura expands to 30 feet, and enemies within it have disadvantage on saving throws against fear effects.
When a hostile creature dies within your aura, you regain one expended Warlock spell slot (once per transformation).
You can use this feature once per long rest.

In this form, your eyes glow like distant lanterns, your voice echoes as if spoken in a tomb, and your shadow stretches and shifts like a skeletal figure holding a scythe.

Reaper’s Pact Boons

Pact of the Blade: Soul Scythe

Your patron grants you a weapon forged from death’s own essence.

The weapon manifests as a Soul Scythe (or other reaping tool). It deals necrotic damage and counts as your pact weapon.
When you kill a creature with it, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Warlock level + your Charisma modifier.
Once per turn, when you hit a creature frightened of you, you deal extra necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.

Pact of the Chain: Whispering Skull

Your familiar is bound spirit matter — a skull, ghost raven, or flickering wisp.

It can speak telepathically and perceive the Ethereal Plane.
When a creature dies within 30 feet of your familiar, it gathers a Soul Fragment.
- You can expend a fragment to deal +1d8 necrotic damage with a spell, or grant advantage on a death saving throw to a creature you can see.
- You can hold fragments up to your Charisma modifier. They fade after a long rest.

Pact of the Tome: The Ledger of Souls

Your Book of Shadows becomes a tome of names — a death ledger that records those you slay.

You can cast speak with dead once per long rest using the book as your focus.
You automatically learn toll the dead, and it doesn’t count against cantrips known.
As an action, you can read from the ledger to invoke mortal dread. One creature within 30 feet must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
- You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

Flavor & Roleplay Summary

Your aura is constant, visible only as subtle cues — the light seems a bit dimmer around you, your breath frosts the air, animals avoid your path, and the living instinctively lower their voices when you draw near. You are a walking omen, an agent of inevitability.

Your Reaper Patron does not speak often. It doesn’t need to. Its will manifests as whispers in dreams, tolling bells, or the feeling that someone unseen is standing just behind you.

The Reaper Patron: Lore & Roleplay Guide

“All souls must be counted. All debts must be paid. And when your final hour comes, child of mortality, you will not escape my gaze.”

Who (or What) Is the Reaper?

The Reaper is not a single being, but a cosmic archetype — the inevitable hand that ends every story. In some worlds, it is a true god of death: Kelemvor, Wee Jas, The Raven Queen, or a forgotten underworld deity. In others, the Reaper is a primordial spirit who existed before gods and mortals, embodying entropy and the balance of souls.

Some Reapers are cold and impartial, simply enforcing the laws of death. Others are compassionate psychopomps who shepherd the lost dead, or cruel harvesters who delight in the moment a soul passes on.

Regardless of alignment or personality, all Reapers share one trait: they respect the natural balance between life and death, and punish those who defy it — such as necromancers, liches, and soul thieves who seek to cheat fate.

The Bargain

When a Warlock forms a pact with the Reaper, it is rarely out of greed or lust for power. It is often:

A dying soul’s desperate plea to survive.
A grieving soul’s wish to reunite with the dead.
A mourner’s vow to serve Death itself in exchange for forbidden truths.

In return, the Reaper grants them the tools to enforce balance: the ability to slay the living when their time has come, to speak to the departed, and to walk unseen between the mortal world and the veil.

The Reaper’s Warlocks are not evil by default — many act as death’s agents, ensuring that the cycle continues and that the restless dead find peace.

Roleplaying a Reaper Warlock

Mannerisms and Aesthetic

You speak softly, as if in reverence to silence.
You rarely laugh loudly — your humor, when it appears, is dry and macabre.
Your eyes may appear faintly reflective or shadowed, and your breath might mist even in warmth.
You instinctively sense when a life is near its end.

Personality Themes

The Merciful Ferryman: You bring peace to those whose souls are trapped or suffering.
The Reluctant Servant: You made a deal to save a loved one or avoid your own death, and now bear the burden of that promise.
The Cold Arbiter: You act without emotion, balancing scales of life and death like a celestial accountant.
The Grim Jester: You find irony in mortality, treating death with sardonic humor and fatalistic wit.

Reaper’s Demands and Expectations

Your patron doesn’t demand worship — only balance.

Here are examples of what the Reaper might expect from you:

Harvest What Must Be Harvested. You are commanded to end lives that have unnaturally extended beyond their time (liches, undead, oathbreakers).
Respect the Dead. Desecrating graves or abusing corpses earns your patron’s fury.
Keep the Ledger Balanced. When you take a life that was not destined to die, you may be tasked to preserve another — a form of atonement.
No Resurrection Without Reason. You may be forbidden from raising the dead unless sanctioned by your patron.

The Reaper’s Gifts

The Reaper often leaves subtle marks upon their chosen:

Your shadow moves independently of you when you are angry or afraid.
In quiet moments, you hear the faint tolling of distant bells.
When you close your eyes, you see flickers of wandering souls in the dark.
The dying may see you as the Reaper itself, mistaking you for their final guide.

Sample Patron Personalities

Name / Title	Alignment	Description
The Veiled Shepherd	Lawful Neutral	The cosmic keeper of balance; neither cruel nor kind. Grants power to mortals who enforce death’s order.
Morrigan, the Battle-Crow	Chaotic Neutral	A goddess of war and prophecy who sends her warlocks to reap souls on blood-soaked battlefields.
Nerul, the Pale King	Lawful Evil	A tyrant of death who believes all life is theft, and seeks to reclaim it.
Kharos, the Silent Bell	Neutral Good	A gentle psychopomp who comforts the dead and guides their souls to peace.
The Faceless One	True Neutral	A reaper spirit that never speaks; its will is known only through omens and whispers of the dead.

DM Hooks and Story Ideas

The Soul Ledger: The Warlock’s tome begins recording names before the deaths occur — are they fated, or is the Warlock now the instrument of prophecy?
Broken Cycle: Necromantic forces disrupt the natural order, and your patron commands you to restore the balance — by any means.
Debt to Death: Your patron spared your life once. Now it wants repayment: a certain life must be claimed.
The False Reaper: Another Warlock or necromancer claims the same patron, twisting their power for selfish gain.
Soul Hunt: You are sent to collect the soul of a powerful being who refuses to die — a lich, vampire, or cursed immortal.

Quotes from the Reaper

“Do not mistake mercy for weakness. Even mercy can wear a blade.”
“The living fear me because they have forgotten their place.”
“You are my hand upon the mortal coil. Strike, and let the soul rest.”
“You cannot cheat me, mortal. I am the silence that follows every song.”

⚖️ The Reaper’s Pact — Tone Variants

🕊️ 1. The Psychopomp — The Merciful Reaper

Alignment Theme: Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral
Tone: Gentle, mournful, and guiding.

Patron Personality:
This Reaper is not cruel, but kind — a ferryman of souls who seeks to bring peace to the departed and comfort to the dying. They detest undeath, not because it is foul, but because it is a trap for the soul. Their Warlocks are chosen to ease suffering and to remind mortals that death is not the end — merely the next step.

Aura Flavor:
Your constant Death Aura feels like calm twilight — a still, cold breeze, the hush before the final sigh. Those near you feel uneasy, not from terror, but from sorrow and reverence. The living instinctively grow quiet, as though they’ve stepped into sacred ground.

Visual Motifs:

Wisps of pale light drift around you like souls seeking rest.
When you speak, your voice echoes softly, as though through water.
Your eyes reflect starlight — or the lanterns of the dead.

Roleplay Hooks:

You close the eyes of the fallen and whisper rites for them.
You dislike cruelty — you prefer to end lives swiftly and painlessly.
You see yourself as death’s healer, not its executioner.

Reaper’s Quote:

“Do not fear the stillness, child. In silence, all songs are heard again.”

💀 2. The Harvester — The Cold Arbiter

Alignment Theme: True Neutral or Lawful Neutral
Tone: Impartial, inevitable, and commanding.

Patron Personality:
This Reaper is pure inevitability — not good, not evil, simply absolute. They count every soul and collect each when its time has come. To them, death is a sacred law of existence, and they grant their Warlocks the authority to enforce that law without hesitation or bias.

Aura Flavor:
Your aura is the stillness of the grave — air goes cold, candles flicker, and people instinctively step back. Your presence demands silence. Even your allies feel the primal truth of your existence: you are what waits for them in the end.

Visual Motifs:

Shadows cling unnaturally close to your feet.
A faint tolling bell echoes when you arrive or leave.
The temperature around you drops slightly — breath frosts, even indoors.

Roleplay Hooks:

You judge all things in terms of balance. Life and death are numbers on a scale.
You have no interest in mercy or malice — only in what must be.
You speak little. When you do, it carries the weight of finality.

Reaper’s Quote:

“There is no malice in my work — only order. I am the end that makes all beginnings possible.”

🔥 3. The Devourer — The Dark Reaper

Alignment Theme: Neutral Evil or Chaotic Neutral
Tone: Terrifying, hungry, and predatory.

Patron Personality:
This Reaper does not merely collect — it hungers. It is a devourer of souls, a god of endings that feeds on entropy and decay. Its Warlocks are the teeth of death itself, harvesting life to feed their master’s endless appetite. It whispers in battle, demanding more — always more.

Aura Flavor:
Your Death Aura radiates palpable dread. The air seems to rot around you. Living creatures instinctively recoil; plants wilt slightly in your presence. Those who meet your gaze see a flicker of their own death reflected in your eyes.

Visual Motifs:

A faint black mist drifts from your skin.
Your shadow sometimes moves like a skeletal figure wielding a scythe.
The smell of cold earth and ash follows wherever you go.

Roleplay Hooks:

You delight in fear — it’s the last emotion of the living.
You talk to the souls you’ve reaped, hearing their whispers in your dreams.
You believe death is not a punishment, but a cleansing fire.

Reaper’s Quote:

“All that lives must die. And all that dies must feed me. The wheel turns, and I am the hand that spins it.”

💬 Using the Aura in Roleplay

Regardless of tone:

Your aura is always present, but its intensity depends on emotion.
- Calm → faint chill, distant echoes.
- Angry or wounded → shadows deepen, voices dim, the aura becomes oppressive.
NPCs react differently based on their familiarity with death:
- Peasants and commoners may avoid eye contact or cross themselves.
- Priests and clerics of death gods might bow in respect.
- Undead feel drawn to you — or terrified by you, depending on your patron.

Expanded Spell List

The Soul Reaper lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Soul Reaper Expanded Spells

Spell Level	Spells
1st	false life, Inflict wounds
2nd	blindness/deafness, gentle repose
3rd	animate dead, speak with dead
4th	blight, death ward
5th	cloudkill, [Tooltip Not Found]

Level 1: Reaper's Presence

Starting at 1st level you gain Constant Death Aura,

A faint necrotic aura surrounds you at all times — a chill that whispers of mortality. This aura has the following effects:

Unearthly Presence. Any creature that comes within 10 feet of you feels an instinctive unease. The air grows cold, colors dull, and sounds seem muffled.
- You gain advantage on Intimidation checks, but disadvantage on Persuasion checks with living creatures who can feel fear or discomfort.
Fear of the Reaper. As a bonus action, you can focus your aura’s dread upon nearby creatures. Each hostile creature of your choice within 10 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
- While frightened in this way, creatures also take necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) at the start of their turns.
- You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses after a long rest.

Level 1: Ethereal Vision

Gravewalker's Boon

You have learned to walk on the line between life and death.

You gain resistance to necrotic damage.
When you would be reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point as your patron anchors your spirit.
When you succeed on this saving throw, your Death Aura’s unease intensifies, causing all creatures of your choice within 10 feet to make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
You can use this feature once per long rest.

Spectral Reaping

This phantom lash deals necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.
The Reaper fades if you are incapacitated.

Avatar of Death

As an action, you can assume your Reaper Form for 1 minute:

You are immune to necrotic damage.
Your Death Aura expands to 30 feet, and enemies within it have disadvantage on saving throws against fear effects.
When a hostile creature dies within your aura, you regain one expended Warlock spell slot (once per transformation).
You can use this feature once per long rest.

In this form, your eyes glow like distant lanterns, your voice echoes as if spoken in a tomb, and your shadow stretches and shifts like a skeletal figure holding a scythe.

GravBender

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