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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6535085" data-attributes="member: 2067">So, again, just to be clear, I'm totally not trying to "sell" celestial-pact warlocks. The way I figure it, what a warlock makes a pact with vs. what a cleric worships vs. what a paladin follows vs. whatever can be a pretty campaign-defining element, and I don't even know that my idea dovetails with anything WotC would be interested in pursuing for the Warlock class (they may WANT the division between gods/"others" for some narrative reason). That disclaimer out of the way, the way I figure it, the thing with warlocks is that they use secret knowledge. This is true even if that knowledge is of divine origin -- warlocks have access to divine mysteries that the clerics don't have, that the Church has suppressed, that Bahamut doesn't want his rank-and-file to really know about. Maybe its a Lost Gospel of Bahamut, maybe it's a mystery cult that takes pilgrimages to Celestia through a secret portal, maybe its a quiet cult of dragon-assassins who pursue "officially unsanctioned" business in the wilds where the church's laws cannot follow. Divine warlocks follow apocrypha and belong to heretical sects and seek suppressed lore. This is part of what makes them good to represent various prophets or cult leaders - half-mad with divine wisdom and emerging from the wasteland with divine revelations that are completely outside of the church's bounds. They can be vessels through which the gods speak what should not be spoken, agents of apocalypse and harbringers of dark times. These are useful to the gods as ways to correct and challenge their churches, as agents in places that churches cannot go (a marching army draws attention, a cleric represents the head of a church, but a single warlock comes in beneath the radar and might be working for anyone - or no one), as speakers of the forbidden in places where it is forbidden to speak the truth. A cleric has a concern for the fellow-faithful and the people in the temple...but a warlock is only concerned with themselves, and can do things that would otherwise put innocent lives at risk. They can be useful pawns - a god has no responsibility to a warlock, there's no expectation that the god will "save" them, no real investment. The warlock came by this power in secretive and obtuse methods, "earned" it by his actions, and it isn't a gift. This does imply that the clerics aren't receiving all of a god's details -- that there's "dirty laundry" out there that maybe they'd want hidden, that being loyal and trusting in the gods who aren't entirely trusting back, that there's lore that they don't want revealed. Which is part of why clerics and warlocks don't get along -- the clerics ascribing the divine magic of the warlocks to lies and tricks and deceptions of the evil lords who have just learned to impersonate the divine, the warlocks protesting...but never protesting in great enough numbers to convince people.Warlocks also have distinct abilities from clerics - their spell list has quite a different theme. Warlocks may be useful for those abilities alone. Who knows to what use an eldritch bolt might be put in the hands of a creature working with a god? Why would Bahamut bestow divine gifts on a warlock? Maybe because the warlock has learned something that Bahamut does not want revealed. Maybe because Bahamut sees the utility of a free agent unconnected to the church. Maybe because Bahamut's non-cleric church heirarchy is made up of pretenders and apostates. Maybe because the warlock learns a long-forgotten prayer form that Bahamut still honors. Maybe because they learned how to "wear" a part of Bahamut's power and walk around with it. Maybe lots of things. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />You might also ask: why does Nerull need clerics and also necromancers? Why does Oghma need clerics and also druids? Why does any god of war need cleircs and also paladins and also maybe fighters? Does Asmodeus have clerics as well as warlocks? Part of this might just be that Bahamut, being a god, doesn't need 'em, but perhaps creatures like Zaphkiel, Talisid, and Morwel (the rough equivalents of Demogorgon, Asmodeus, and the General of Gehenna) do!</blockquote>

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