Shackles of Power

A warlock can refuse a patron, instead drawing power from the dialectic energy of opposing forces. Your power is derived from balancing enmities - demons against devils, fiends against celestials, living against undead, fey against shadow, law against chaos, water against fire, and so on. What begins with trapping and binding one familiar, turns into two different familiars, eventually turns into a host of thralls battling and bidding for supremacy and the favor of the master, who shackles them all for more power. Though not necessarily evil, a warlock who takes up the Shackles of Power is widely feared and disliked, though still respected and desired by the many powers he or she entreats with. 

 

Master of Chains Expanded Spells

1st    -    Find Familiar, Protection from Evil and Good

2nd   -    Find Steed, Flock of Familiars

3rd    -    Magic Circle, Spirit Guardians

4th    -    Conjure Minor Elementals, Conjure Woodland Beings

5th    -    Conjure Elemental, Planar Binding

Pactless Chains

You have committed yourself to no patron. Rather, you have discovered the means to conjure beings capable of granting some magical power, and the secret by which you can unlock more. You know the spell Find Familiar and can summon more advanced creatures when you cast it - including Awakened Plants, Imps, Mephits, Magically Animated Objects, Pseudodragons, Pixies, Sprites, Quasits and lesser varieties of Undead (all subject to DMs discretion).

At 3rd level, you must take the Pact of the Chain feature and obtain a second familiar of a different type. Your power is derived from balancing opposing forces - demons against devils, fiends against celestials, living against undead, fey against shadow, law against chaos, water against fire, and so on. Include your selection of a mount when casting Find Steed in the balancing of opposing servitors.

You are able to have both (or all three including a steed) companions with you at the same time, but you can only command one on your action - and perhaps a second on your bonus action if you select the Investment of the Chain Master Invocation (Tasha p.71) - the others will continue to try and fulfill the last command you gave them, or see to their own wants (DM discretion) if you have not given them a command. If you banish a familiar to a pocket dimension both familiars are banished, where they will at a minimum bicker but likely fight, but are incapable of actually harming one-another. When you recall a familiar, both are summoned to unoccupied spaces you can see within 30 feet. If you cast Flock of Familiars you create two duplicates of one of your familiars which cannot harm you, but are under the DMs control until you command them. 

Bidding Patrons

Calling upon an array of extraplanar beings, you have drawn the attention of wary patrons who would entice you to their service. Each offers you a boon to sway your decision. At 6th level choose the first level features of two warlock patrons, which you are 'trying out' and must change one on each Long Rest. 

One patron has decided to offer a more powerful servant to sway your decision. You have been gifted with a thrall, which may be a creature up to CR 2, including Faerie Dragons, Spinagons, Shadow Mastiffs, Will-o-Wisps or similar creatures at the DMs discretion. This creature should also feature in the opposing balance of your previous two familiars and steed. If your thrall dies, it is at the DMs discretion whether it can be raised or reanimated, or if you need to find, bind, capture, summon, barter for or otherwise acquire a new one. Generally extraplanar beings that die on a plane other than their home plane reform on their home plane and can be summoned on a long rest, those killed on their native plane are destroyed outright.  

Playing All Sides

As a contested agent in the planar struggle, you draw yet more suitors wishing to be your patron. At 10th level, choose three first-level features of warlock patrons, and the sixth-level feature of one of those three. You must change one of these features on each Long Rest. 

Another patron has offered a boon - when you cast Find Steed - your summoned mount may be a creature with a CR up to one-third your warlock level, which could include a variety of creatures including  Hell Hounds, Nightmares, Griffons, Winter Wolves and other creatures. The creature must be large enough for you to ride in your normal form. 

Master of Chains

You coyly pay lip service to - but have not sworn fully to a pact - with several patrons which still tempt you with their offers of power. You tread carefully lest you dismiss one too casually and risk its anger and aggression over a perceived insult. At 14th level choose three 1st level warlock features, two of their 6th level features and one of those 10th level features. You must change one feature on each long rest.

Your experimentation with familiars and thralls has taught you the necessary steps and precautions to bind more powerful creatures to your service. Provided you have the means to keep them captive, or at least separated, you can bind a thrall with a CR up to your Arcana modifier. There is no limit to the number of thralls you could have, but you may only command one thrall at a time, and so you will need the means to keep the others occupied and likely separated by methods more than what a common house or stable could manage. These thralls do not simply appear - each one should entail a separate side-quest or adventure unto itself (studying and selecting a target, gathering needed resources, crafting the appropriate runes or items to bind it, discovering its true name or trapping it's soul/essence by some means, etc) and some effort should be maintained to keep forces in balance. At the DMs discretion, having too many similar thralls and over-utilizing a 10th level patron ability for too long may lead to being forced into a pact, being cut off from those abilities or facing a personal visit from a very angry patron.

You also learn the spell Find Greater Steed and can use it to summon a loyal mount with a CR up to half your level, which must be large enough for you to ride in your normal form, and substantially different from your previous steed. This is a separate mount from the one you summon with the Find Steed spell, which you may still call upon, though never both at the same time.