D&D 5E Eberron - Mourning causing a PC's warlock's powers?

Hi,

This is my first run of Eberron and have had some other really good advice here, so just wanted to run this one past you all!

I started the campaign using The Mark of the Prophecy in the back of the 4e campaign guide. In the first session, the PCs rescued the two NPCs, and the mourning happened. The warlock in the party hadn't really worked on any backstory, so after a chat with her, we decided a good source of the warlock's powers might be that she was caught in the mourning and developed powers from there. So just before the mourning, I had a 'voice' in her head beckon her outside toward the blast area of the mourning before it went off. The rest of the party had shelter inside a tower. The blast then knocked her unconscious.

The party were also delivered the prophecy as written in 4e Campaign Guide - 'five stand as one against the tempest's roar'.

I was thinking of continuing to use The Mark of the phrophecy (though I could abandon it for something else), but know I should try to figure what was behind the mourning and who/what might be granting the PC warlock their powers, and for what in return? The villain in the mark of the prophecy could also be working for whatever had a hand in (helping) to cause the mourning.

I understand that it needs to be something more than a single Lord of Dust/Rakshasa, but want to consider a few options, and any pointers would be mighty helpful! I would quite like to have the campaign BBEG as Vol, as I have other characters in the party who have connections to Blood of Vol, but is it possible that she could be behind this?

Tl;dr the mourning grants warlock their powers, but what might be behind mourning?

Thanks for any help!

I actually disagree that you need to settle on a cause for the Mourning, any more than you need to pick which specific archfey or Great Old One is a patron for warlocks taking those paths.

To my mind, one of the great appeals of Eberron is the unknown and unknowable aspects, like the Mourning. I would worry that deciding on any discrete cause would be a let down compared to the tension of not knowing.

It's your game, but in your shoes I'd just come up with interesting abilities and not worry about the cause. Though thinking about it, it would be interesting if the powers of a Mourning warlock we're related to the Lord of Blades and mechanical stuff. That could also provide a weird clue toward what the Mourning was about, and one that hasn't been postulated to death and clichéd already.

Yes, I completely agree with [MENTION=6798775]Ath-kethin[/MENTION]. Perhaps the Mourning was a kind of catalyst that allowed the player to develop powers, kinda like in comic books (Hulk anyone?). If you want it traced back to one of the Rakshasa or Lords of Dust, it could be that one of them influenced this player unknowingly, because it was connected to the Prophecy as a means to further the freeing of one of the Overlords. The rakshasa/Lord of Dust would not be so much a patron, but a manipulator nurturing along part of the Prophecy and using the player as a pawn in furthering it's own goals.

Alternatively, you could always say it's the Traveler. Even if it's not, you could always say it. That is why the Traveler is interesting. His ways are mysterious, he is the only deity believed to actually walk upon Eberron, and also seems mischievous enough that when ever things go wrong or wonky, the Traveler is a reasonable, even if incorrect, suspect.

My advice is going to be a little vague here since I never looked at this 4e "Mark of Prophecy" adventure, but does the voice guiding the Warlock have the be from the same one responsible for the Mourning? If prophecy is already a plot element for the game then it shouldn't be out of place for some third party to have caught a hint that something was about to happen. That third party then lured the PC into the event area as a proxy, and the Warlock now serves as a test subject as they try to use the PC to identify the cause behind the Mourning themselves.

This gives you leave to insert literally any major supernatural power as the Warlock's patron and still leave the cause behind the Mourning unclear.

Do you intend the Warlock's patron to be interacting with them regularly, or would a "You were forever changed by the Mourning."-type origin and leave it there work?

What sort of patron/relationship with the patron does the Warlock want? What patron do they have in game terms, and what kind of powers are they intending to develop?

Did the Warlock have a Dragonmark?

I'll agree with the others about not giving a formal reason for the Mourning. Definitely don't do it casually. If you ever do it, it should probably be the end of a campaign, instead of the beginning of one.

As to your original question: Being caught in the Mourning, even in a shelter seems unlikely to have any survivors. Then again, PCs aren't exactly the norm, so it could work. Getting her power directly from the Mourning seems more likely to produce a Sorcerer (Wild? New kit?) than a Warlock, IMO.

That said, what I might do would be to have the "voice" be something other than the (cause of) Mourning. Maybe some entity caught wind of the Mourning moments before it happened and saw a chance at gaining a pawn. That entity could be a Lord of Dust (Infernal patron), angelic being (there's a UA with additional patrons), Daelkyr (Great Old One), member of the Chamber (Dragonblood Sorcerer is very easy to convert to a Warlock pact), or something else (when in doubt, GOO patron works well). Heck, maybe the PC doesn't actually know the nature of her patron and you leave the patron choice as an explicit "hint".

One interesting idea might be to have the character have been knocked into a Cannith creation forge. There's a pretty strong indication that Cannith didn't really invent these so much as they reacquired ancient tech. Maybe there's some sort of intelligence behind it and the Warlock was told she could be saved, but had to serve the intelligence. The result is a Hexblade with no real good idea about her patron. It may be the original creator of the forges. The forges could have gained some sort of collective intelligence. Maybe the souls of the Warforged come from somewhere and she's now serving the guardian of those souls.

Regardless of what you decide, I'd definitely play up the need for a quick choice with minimal information. "Would you like to die or see what's behind door number two? I need an answer in 5... 4... 3... 2...."

I'm not seeing what Patron this Warlock has chosen; it's a mechanical thing that has to be chosen at 1st level as it grants spells and a power. To me, that's a big deal. For example, I like the idea of Vol being the Patron, but for me it doesn't make sense for her to be a Great Old One, or a Hexblade's patron - is she Fey? Fiend?