What are some of your own homebrew Warlock pacts?

[Sailor Moon]

I am actually working on a few of my own Warlock pacts and I was wondering if anyone else is doing the same?

I will post them fully when I have them completed.

Death Pact Warlock: Made a pact with death.

Chaos Pact Warlock: Made a pact with a Saad Lord.

 

[SirAntoine]

I'm not sure the warlock should have lawful or good patrons. The class is themed for evil in my opinion, and it should remain something spooky and dangerous. If you make a pact with a good or lawful entity, you can trust it to follow their side of the bargain. That isn't dangerous.

 

[Riley37]

When people refer to a Warlock as a Chain Pact Warlock, they are referring to Pact of the Chain pact boon; and so on for Pact of the Blade and of the Tome.

What you're listing sounds more like alternate Patrons, than like alternate Pact Boons.

I house-ruled a Celestial Patron, and its patron-specific abilities, for a warlock of Bahamut who also had levels in Paladin under Oath of Devotion, and who was progressing towards Pact of the Blade.

 

[Sailor Moon]

When people refer to a Warlock as a Chain Pact Warlock, they are referring to Pact of the Chain pact boon; and so on for Pact of the Blade and of the Tome.

What you're listing sounds more like alternate Patrons, than like alternate Pact Boons.

I house-ruled a Celestial Patron, and its patron-specific abilities, for a warlock of Bahamut who also had levels in Paladin under Oath of Devotion, and who was progressing towards Pact of the Blade.

Well the whole concept of the Warlock is that you make a pact or deal with some kind of entity so that's what I was referring to.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I'm not sure the warlock should have lawful or good patrons. The class is themed for evil in my opinion, and it should remain something spooky and dangerous. If you make a pact with a good or lawful entity, you can trust it to follow their side of the bargain. That isn't dangerous.

Good entities have their own agendas and don't forget, they don't think like mortals do.

A pact with death and a Saad Lord is about as spooky and dangerous as you can get.

 

[Farland]

My Ghost Pact warlock: http://www.farlandworld.com/paths.html#warlock

 

[Mallus]

I like the idea of variant patrons. For instance, warlocks sworn to Old Testament angels --who are scary as all get-out. The traditional way to swear an angel-pact, BTW, is to attempt to wrestle an angel to the ground. If you win, the angel dislocates your hip and tells you a secret. The secret is the angel's name. The angel's name is it's bond. Presto, you are now a warlock! (and you get to append -el to your name, and forevermore walk with a limp).

Also, Job-as-a-warlock has potential. He swears a pact with Jehovah, who immediately sics Satan on him (to continually test his bond), but Job remains faithful/loyal and everything works out in the end (except for Job's original family).

Ahem... as for custom Patrons in my campaign, we have two at current count.

The Petitioners are sworn to unnamed (and unnamable?) forces from the far shore of the Astral Sea. They might be Great Old Ones, they might not. They're unusually interested in mortal affairs, but there aims are unclear. What is clear is the Petitioners run a magical racket. Almost like Mafia fixers. People 'petition' them with money, in the hopes the Petitioners will fix their problems, usually via harming someone. If a warlock tries to break their bond and leave the employ of the Petitioner's Hall, they get a visit from Mr. Gladmarrow -- a humanoid figure covered in bony spines who favors wearing top hats. He might be the patron. Or just hired muscle. Anyway, he liquefies the bones of the warlock who wants out, and then drinks them up (just the bones, not the flesh).

The Pig Pact Warlocks are sworn to the Great Treasure of Heaven, a giant dire boar sow who might be a goddess (and a Socialist). Then again, she might not. Miracles have been performed in her name, and many goblins worship her, but the ecclesiastical jury's still out. One of her most consistent & well-documented feats is the ability to free Petitioners from their pacts by somehow scaring away the aforementioned Gladmarrow.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I like the idea of variant patrons. For instance, warlocks sworn to Old Testament angels --who are scary as all get-out. The traditional way to swear an angel-pact, BTW, is to attempt to wrestle an angel to the ground. If you win, the angel dislocates your hip and tells you a secret. The secret is the angel's name. The angel's name is it's bond. Presto, you are now a warlock! (and you get to append -el to your name, and forevermore walk with a limp).

Also, Job-as-a-warlock has potential. He swears a pact with Jehovah, who immediately sics Satan on him (to continually test his bond), but Job remains faithful/loyal and everything works out in the end (except for Job's original family).

Ahem... as for custom Patrons in my campaign, we have two at current count.

The Petitioners are sworn to unnamed (and unnamable?) forces from the far shore of the Astral Sea. They might be Great Old Ones, they might not. They're unusually interested in mortal affairs, but there aims are unclear. What is clear is the Petitioners run a magical racket. Almost like Mafia fixers. People 'petition' them with money, in the hopes the Petitioners will fix their problems, usually via harming someone. If a warlock tries to break their bond and leave the employ of the Petitioner's Hall, they get a visit from Mr. Gladmarrow -- a humanoid figure covered in bony spines who favors wearing top hats. He might be the patron. Or just hired muscle. Anyway, he liquefies the bones of the warlock who wants out, and then drinks them up (just the bones, not the flesh).

The Pig Pact Warlocks are sworn to the Great Treasure of Heaven, a giant dire boar sow who might be a goddess (and a Socialist). Then again, she might not. Miracles have been performed in her name, and many goblins worship her, but the ecclesiastical jury's still out. One of her most consistent & well-documented feats is the ability to free Petitioners from their pacts by somehow scaring away the aforementioned Gladmarrow.

Those sound really cool!

Fair play!

I've also been thinking about a Genie Pact Warlock.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I had a 4E warlock player that was using the Dark Pact for his pact with Mourne, the master lich leader of the Shades of Darkness in the Shadowfell. So when he moved over to my 5E game I had to recreate it. Since it was a Shadowfell pact I basically mirrored the Feywild's Archfey pact with a bit of Fiend/GOO mirroring as well to make sure it was pretty balanced.

THE SHADOWLORD

EXPANDED SPELL LIST
The Shadowlord lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Shadowlord Expanded Spells

Spell Level Spells
1st bane, false life
2nd blindness/deafness, pass without trace
3rd animate dead, nondetection
4th death ward, evard’s black tentacles
5th contagion, dispel evil and good

SPITEFUL GLAMOR
Starting at 1st level, your patron bestows upon you the ability to project the beguiling and fearsome presence of the shadow. As an action, you can cause each creature in a 10-foot cube originating from you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. The creatures that fail their saving throws are all charmed or frightened by you (your choice) until the end of your next turn.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

SHADOWY ESCAPE
Starting at 6th level, you can vanish into the shadows in response to harm. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to turn invisible and teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You remain invisible until the start of your next turn or until you attack or cast a spell.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

ENERGY SHIELD
Beginning at 10th level, you are more resistant to the life draining forces of many creatures. You have resistance to necrotic damage, and you cannot have your maximum hit point lowered due to any attack that dealt necrotic damage.

DARKSPIRAL AURA
Starting at 14th level, when you hit a creature with an attack, you can use this feature to instantly transport the target down a well of impenetrable darkness. The creature disappears and plunges down an inky black vortex through the Shadowfell.
At the end of your next turn, the target returns to the space it previously occupied, or the nearest unoccupied space. If the target is not an undead, it takes 10d10 necrotic damage as it reels from its decaying experience.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

 

[Riley37]

Whoah. Could Vecna be a warlock patron?

There's another thread about whether warlocks can be good guys. I say yes, they *can* be. A warlock with Vecna as patron, however, would be evil, either right from the beginning or soon thereafter.

Death as a patron, however, not so cut and dried. Consider Death as depicted in Gaiman's "Sandman" stories. *All mortals die.* The variables: sooner or later, honorably or dishonored, peacefully or painfully, alone or amid a batch of deaths. The warlock KNOWS that someday they will die and directly meet their Patron. The warlock simply hopes to have earned a good death. Beats the alternative, doesn't it?

I would LOVE to play a euthanatos warlock. The euthanatos finds people in disgrace/dishonor and seeks their redemption in whatever time they have left, like Marley in "A Christmas Carol" but devoted to all intelligent life rather than just to a former business partner. The euthanatos finds people with a non-curable contagious terminal disease... and offers them the option to die *without spreading it further*. (Which doesn't necessarily mean dying *sooner*; it might instead mean living one's remaining days as a hermit and dying *alone*.) The euthanatos does battlefield triage, healing those who might live to fight another day, and numbing the pain of those who have no chance to survive.