Re-opening an old can: Warlocks and Angels

[Bold or Stupid]

What fluff we've seen on warlocks (in R&C) seems to imply that you don't give power to Asmodeus or whoever, but to the ghostly shades of slain archdevils or to ancient fey gods that sleep beneath the hills. Thus an angelic pact would not be with an actual angel but with something else maybe the remnants of dead gods or some such. Warlock pacts appear to be with what 3e called vestiges.

 

[Engilbrand]

Why can't a king or anyone else just be raised if they're assassinated?
Because they don't have a destiny. There's nothing special about them.
Why doesn't everyone just make pacts with angels or other beings of good instead of being lame and normal?
Because they ARE lame and normal. There's nothing special about them. They don't have a destiny. Angels wouldn't want to make pacts with them.

 

[Pale Jackal]

Personally I'd go with: being a warlock requires some degree of arcane training, you just get "more bang for your buck."

 

[Roger]

I think that a Warlock making a pact with an angel might actually make a whole lot of sense.

I think as a 4E DM I'd allow that, based on what I've seen of the rules so far.

Might work well with a warlock multiclassing into a divine class (or vice versa.)



Cheers,
Roger

 

[deathdonut]

Currently, warlocks don't make pacts with Astral Sea entities. Both Demons and Fey are members of adjacent realms. On the otherhand, clerics and paladins DO make such "pacts".

 

[med stud]

However, ultimately the question of Warlocks making pacts with angels always comes down to one question for me: If you can just make a pact with an Angel to do good, why wouldn't everyone do it? It's a whole hell of a lot easier than being a priest or a paladin, right?

I have an analogy: I take my bike to my job every day. I have a car. So why don't I take the car to the job? It takes me there much faster and much more comfortably. The answer is that I think the effects on my health is worth all the pain and discomfort (yes, I am in that bad shape right now ).

I would say it's the same thing with the priests and paladins. The power is not the goal, it's an effect of their spiritual journey. They are part of something bigger and they have something to strive for and to set their minds on. This even goes for the evil priests and paladins; look at the Rote Arme Fraktion for a real world example of this.

The warlock, OTOH, wants the power as a tool for something else. It might be an altruistic warlock that wants power for doing good or it might be the stereotypical sociopath that wants to rule everyone.

For the warlock, the power is the goal. For the priest and paladin, the power is an effect of striving towards the goal.

 

[loseth]

Making pacts with angels could be really interesting. With a god, you generally know what you're getting, since gods have priests, tomes, prayers etc. to inform the general public about what they stand for. But angels are lower down in the pecking order--low enough to be off the radar as far as public information on them goes.

Is the angel you're making a pact with loyal to its god, or is its pact with you part of a treasonous plot against said god? Unfortunately, there's not enough info on the angel to say. Does the angel merely serve its god as a messenger while recruiting you to help the angel pursue its own agenda? Is the angel really a servant of the god you thought it was when you made the pact, or can angels pretend to be a servant of a different god when making pacts with gullible mortals? In what capacity, exactly, does this particular angel serve its god? For example, you know that Bahamut is the god of justice and honor, so making a pact with one of his angels might seem like a good idea, but what if this particular angel's portfolio is focussed on raining hellfire down on the unjust and dishonorable as divine retribution? Too bad you didn't know that before you agreed to be its bitch...

 

[kennew142]

Demons may be from an adjacent realm, but devils are from the astral sea.

If a GM wants to use pacts with angels in their own game, more power to them. The rules should be flexible enough to allow for new types of pacts.

IMC, there are no gods (although there are astral beings who claim to serve a god). The Church of the Nine Citadels makes pacts with mortals, but the Lords of Light do not. There's a reason, but the players don't know what it is. They will probably never know, although they may get hints. It's a matter of campaign flavor. The players in my campaign are good about accepting flavor-based rulings. They respect my authorial control over the background of the game world, and I respect theirs when I'm playing in their settings.

 

[Quickleaf]

How could an angelic pact warlock work?

* Yathos, a repentant evil-doer, is approached by Angel of Penance to change his ways, and agrees to do as the angel says, becoming a warlock. While the Angel fully intends to lead Yathos down the path of righteousness as a cleric/paladin, the Angel uses Yathos to accomplish its goals until that time - the path of a mortal's willing transformation is a slow one. Yathos is charged with convincing/tricking the wicked into acts of self-mortification and devotion to show sorrow for their wrongdoing.

* Jherac, a troubled clergyman, is imprisoned when he violates the tenets of his church by advising laypeople to revolt against an oppressive patriarch. In prison he is approached by an Angel of Vengeance to do the will of his god outside the hidebound institutional church and lay low the oppressive patriarch. Little does the Angel reveal that it is dissatisfied with service to Jherac's god and believes an age of bloodshed is necessary to purify the land of wickedness, and it seeks to use Jherac to usher in that age. As Jherac gathers power against the patriarch, he slowly begins to realize the true intentions of the angel, and must make a choice.

* Miranda, a shepherd's wise daughter, retrieves water from a desert cave when an Angel of Liberty approaches her to emancipate her tribe from slavery to the witch-king. Taking it as her sacred duty, Miranda tries to convince her tribe to travel to a promised land while conducting raids to recover enslaved family members. Unattached to a deity in the wake of a god's death, the Angel of Liberty supports the rights of all beings to choose their own destiny, even the charmed servants of the witch-king who may very well decide to continue serving their magnanimous lord. Will Miranda care to emancipate her tribes' oppressor? And what happens when the Angel of Liberty's true agenda is revealed, to free a beloved devil from hell?

 

[kennew142]

I would say it's the same thing with the priests and paladins. The power is not the goal, it's an effect of their spiritual journey. They are part of something bigger and they have something to strive for and to set their minds on. This even goes for the evil priests and paladins; look at the Rote Arme Fraktion for a real world example of this.

The warlock, OTOH, wants the power as a tool for something else. It might be an altruistic warlock that wants power for doing good or it might be the stereotypical sociopath that wants to rule everyone.

For the warlock, the power is the goal. For the priest and paladin, the power is an effect of striving towards the goal.

This is the key to understanding how pacts work IMC. The Lords of Light are interested in encouraging spiritual progression. The Lords of the Nine are interested in servitors. It's said that they had a rather strong disagreement over this issue in the distant past.

Faerie Monarchs, Far Realms entities and creatures from the Shadowfell are also interested in servitors.

This is the key reason why I won't allow pacts with warm and fuzzy beings in my setting. I do think the mechanic should be transparent enough to allow other GMs who do favor such things to include them in their games.