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Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana
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<blockquote data-quote="Serpine" data-source="post: 7685878" data-attributes="member: 13264"><p>One approach is to assume that the energy has a sort of sentience you can align with because of its scale. For instance, in "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" the universe is formed by the interaction between the primal Triat of Wyrm (entropy, ala the negative material plane), Wyld (unfettered creation, ala the positive material plane), and Weaver (order, intended to keep balance between the other two). While they have many go-betweens and you don't normally chat them up, these forces are regarded as great spirits with their own high-end agendas that you can bind yourself to by means ranging from just doing things that support their ethos, being exposed to areas corrupted by their influence, or most spectacularly by being possessed by a lesser spirit aligned with them. The possession is angle is probably the most applicable for a warlock: The riding spirit usually doesn't do the driving, it just serves as the conduit to the energy of the primary entity that drives you to spread its influence (without much specific guidance on how to do that) in exchange for power and usually frightening physical / mental changes. Often the nastier side-effects of the changes kick in when you *aren't* advancing the cause of the triat patron.</p><p></p><p>The latter bit brings up another approach if you assume just the physical / mental changes and discard the entity wanting them. By serving as a conduit to primal energy you are changing (kind of the point behind the Undying Light Flaws, but on a crazier scale). Either because you aren't manifesting the energy enough or are manifesting it to much, you are gradually being pushed into becoming an elemental beyond the purview of being a PC. Research and rituals can be found to stave this off, or doing services for people that have a better understanding of this process (possibly having walked this path before). But in any case your time becomes increasingly dominated by the act of maintaining yourself as you are rather then becoming a thing. I'm thinking for instance of Ignus from "Planescape: Torment," an arcanist whose connection to elemental fire went so far he became a gateway to it and is now reduced to spouting flame and screaming in mad agony most of the time. You could say he failed at his "pact".</p><p></p><p>The above concepts also makes me think of the ideas behind the dark powers of Ravenloft, which also fit a lot of the structures of what you expect from a Warlock (at least one aligned with abstract energy or some sleeping great old one). As the dark powers don't identify themselves, you can't choose to make a deal with them directly. But once they take notice of you odd new abilities are granted whenever you advance their "agenda" by becoming sufficiently more corrupt. This comes with major costs as you start suffering scaling physical / mental changes and losses to your freedom to act or eventually even leave your domain. And forcing the point to gain power from them intentionally is a huge undertaking (likely more convoluted then anything you would do for an infernal sponsor) as you have to do increasingly complicated and profane things to justify higher notice (assuming of course it is actually you being noticed and not that you are being hit by an automated karma trap that people mistakenly define as an entity).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Serpine, post: 7685878, member: 13264"] One approach is to assume that the energy has a sort of sentience you can align with because of its scale. For instance, in "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" the universe is formed by the interaction between the primal Triat of Wyrm (entropy, ala the negative material plane), Wyld (unfettered creation, ala the positive material plane), and Weaver (order, intended to keep balance between the other two). While they have many go-betweens and you don't normally chat them up, these forces are regarded as great spirits with their own high-end agendas that you can bind yourself to by means ranging from just doing things that support their ethos, being exposed to areas corrupted by their influence, or most spectacularly by being possessed by a lesser spirit aligned with them. The possession is angle is probably the most applicable for a warlock: The riding spirit usually doesn't do the driving, it just serves as the conduit to the energy of the primary entity that drives you to spread its influence (without much specific guidance on how to do that) in exchange for power and usually frightening physical / mental changes. Often the nastier side-effects of the changes kick in when you *aren't* advancing the cause of the triat patron. The latter bit brings up another approach if you assume just the physical / mental changes and discard the entity wanting them. By serving as a conduit to primal energy you are changing (kind of the point behind the Undying Light Flaws, but on a crazier scale). Either because you aren't manifesting the energy enough or are manifesting it to much, you are gradually being pushed into becoming an elemental beyond the purview of being a PC. Research and rituals can be found to stave this off, or doing services for people that have a better understanding of this process (possibly having walked this path before). But in any case your time becomes increasingly dominated by the act of maintaining yourself as you are rather then becoming a thing. I'm thinking for instance of Ignus from "Planescape: Torment," an arcanist whose connection to elemental fire went so far he became a gateway to it and is now reduced to spouting flame and screaming in mad agony most of the time. You could say he failed at his "pact". The above concepts also makes me think of the ideas behind the dark powers of Ravenloft, which also fit a lot of the structures of what you expect from a Warlock (at least one aligned with abstract energy or some sleeping great old one). As the dark powers don't identify themselves, you can't choose to make a deal with them directly. But once they take notice of you odd new abilities are granted whenever you advance their "agenda" by becoming sufficiently more corrupt. This comes with major costs as you start suffering scaling physical / mental changes and losses to your freedom to act or eventually even leave your domain. And forcing the point to gain power from them intentionally is a huge undertaking (likely more convoluted then anything you would do for an infernal sponsor) as you have to do increasingly complicated and profane things to justify higher notice (assuming of course it is actually you being noticed and not that you are being hit by an automated karma trap that people mistakenly define as an entity). [/QUOTE]
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