this is not a thread about defiling or preserving, how do you think WotC will deal with pacts? probably, they will introduce a new one. Infernal could easily be linked to sorcerer kings; or the dragon himself (or Dregoth, who of any high-power creature on the planet we know of lends himself best to a more traditional infernal pact); would fey pacts be signed with arch-pyreens and do people see pyreens becoming less goody-goody and more like arch-fey? Star pacts, the grey? Dark pacts the black? Any thoughts, speculation, hopes? Could the pristine tower and the shadow giants play a role in any of this? If the cerulean storm makes it to 4e, that could be a pact source in itself.
Another star pact thought: the hollow? Rajaat himself?
Vestige pacts: powerful characters from extirpated races? Or the spiritual remnants of those races themselves?
Sadira, did she basically make a sun pact from the pristine tower? At the very least multiclassing into warlock?
It seems like the developers want all aspects of the Core 4E cosmology to be part of each setting; so even thought the gods seem absent on Athas, I believe they will have to make room for devils so that these monsters will be useable; that will allow for the Infernal pact. I think that Baator should be another planet in the Solar System with Athas, and when the Stars are right some Defilers will have the ability to summon devils on missions of evil.
Star Pact; Coming from unspeakable Far-Realms entities outside of standard Cosmology, this pact could fit anywhere, in any cosmology, simply because it doesn't belong anywhere, so wherever it is, it's an intrusion from unwholesome, alien forces. But if a DM doesn't want portals to the Far Realm that pit out Mind-Flayers and Beholders, in the Monster Manual 2 there are also Star-Spawn; horrible, unknowable entities that qualify as aberrations, who send monstrosities to the mortal world on missions of madness, mayhem, and death. Insane entities of horrific aspect living inside of stars might impart power to Warlocks in the service of an abominable agenda that will plunge all of creation into horror and madness.
The Dark Pact is vague and seems unspecified, so it could be any ancient entity from the Gray, the Black, or maybe an Athasian Underdark. Something that might work would be entities from the Athas Shadowfell.
Vestige Pact; in the Cleansing Wars, many species were violently exterminated, and if a portion of their spirits remain in the Gray. it's easy to imagine them granting powers to Warlocks in the hopes of revenge or rebirth.
Fey Pact; In the style of Dark Sun I'm going to run, the Feywild of Athas was also defiled earlier in history, and to survive, the Fey must feast on the lifeforce of Athasian mortals, they try to lure travelers into the Feywild to feast on their lifeforce, and may imbue other mortals with fey powers that they might secure victims for Fey to feed upon.
I think that, in general a Warlock should gain his powers from some otherworldly being, but he has the option of boosting his powers by defiling the land, for even greater destructive impact, but at the cost of the lifeblood of the planet itself.
Well, I think they need to keep Athas very hard cut off form all other planes except the Elemental Chaos and Shadowfell (maybe a very nasty Athasian form of Feywild?)
Infernal Pact is fine as, well frankly, I don't always think pacts should be seen as "pacts made with foreign powers", but instead, mysterious and disturbing natural abilities. If Athas has strong links ot the Elemntal Chaos, then pacts linked ot the Abyss might be logical, as well?
Devils are inhabitants of the Astral Sea and thus must be exluded from Athas, in general. Remember, if there are Astral connections ot Athas, there'd be gods....
They really need ot add an Elemental pact!
They may give individual DM's a lot of leeway in how to design the world. In the quote described below, the developers worry about 'fragmenting the player base' as occurred in 2nd edition, in the original Dark Sun. Instead of deeply defining each world, it seems like the new pattern will be to include as many core elements as possible, and let the DM's take it from there.
www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/g...
What is the release schedule for campaign settings?
A: 2nd Edition released a lot of campaign settings, but which fragmented the player base. In 3rd Edition, we moved from a broad and deep, to a narrow and deep approach to campaign settings. In 4th Edition, we're looking for a broad and shallow approach; we want to give you the setting, but then step back and encourage you to tell your story within that setting.
With Broad and shallow, I don't think there will be a lot of sharp differences between worlds that exclude certain classes and races. When I run my own setting, I'll squeeze in enough otherworldly elements so that as many classes and monsters as possible are useable.
As for gods, it would allow for more adventuring possibilities if there is something like the Astral Sea, but all the dominions have been destroyed or abandoned, (not clear by what) There can be angels, but the angels will rally behind their own kind, declaring other angels to be 'gods'.
I don't think you could ever really have an Abyssal pact; the demons of the abyss would much rather tear you asunder than make some kind of shady deal.
I think all the existing pacts are do-able in DS with the proper tweaking of fluff. (Infernal and Fey would need the most tweaking if they are even possible.)
Ideas of new pacts:
Templar pact: Warlock defilers who have made a pact with a sorceror king.
Elemental pact: Warlocks who have made a pact with elemental powers.
Shadow pact: Warlocks who have made a pact with denizens of the Gray or Black.
IMO, Gods are simply high level characters/monsters (high 20s) that have follows and bestow gifts to these followers. Some live on the Astral Plane. Others, like the Primordials or Devil Princes live in other planes. They are difficult to kill, but with a little effort and the right circumstances, one could potentially kill off a God.
Sorcerer-kings and queens are essentially Gods... but they live on Athas. And tend towards evil. No?
So...what about pacts with the sorceror kings and queens?I understand this interferes a bit with the ideas of Templar, but there are countless references to the sorcerer-kings and queens employing and training their own cult of defilers.
Dark Pacts with Nibenay. Fey Pacts with the Oba. Infernal Pacts with Kalak.
Just another take....
Dark Pacts with Nibenay. Fey Pacts with the Oba. Infernal Pacts with Kalak.
Just another take....
The big problem with that is; while it's clear that the Sorceror Kings do grant spells to their Templars, you have to be a Templar. That means you have to serve some corrupt, wicked immortal megalomaniac. So you'd have to be at his beck and call... probably in his city or close to his city. No real adventuring freedom. You can't run off and seek your own fortune and explore the world, because you've got to enforce the will of your Sorceror King. If you weren't evil, you'd have to be tolerant of HIS evil. This is bad, bad, bad for any kind of heroic adventurer. In many circumstances, the Sorceror King can and should be the central enemy of a Dark Sun campaign.
I suppose you could be a renegade Templar who wants to strike out on his own, ooooh.... but wait a sec.... whoopsie! You actually depend on the King for your magic! He won't give you spells if you run off on your own to be a hero, join the Veiled Alliance, and fight for freedom and treasure around the world! You're powerless unless you stick close by and follow HIS orders.
There must be another source of power independent of the established political order to allow for adventurers to use these power sources.
Templars should be enemies or NPC's, not heroic characters.
Templars should be enemies or NPC's, not heroic characters.
Doesn't this have to be the case for Warlocks and Tieflings too? I thought the idea of Warlocks was to introduce a "shady" (aka cool) option for players. I mean, Infernal Pact Warlocks get their magic from Infernal powers... Dark Pact from some entity in the Shadows, etc... Warlocks are far from nice individuals.
That's not to say that Templars are for every PC or DM... but there are some decent Templars that progress the law of the Sorcerer K/Q in a more decent manner - in a similar manner that good clerics of neutral Gods act. It totally depends on the adventure and the DM!
Also, not everything sorcerer kings do is evil. Sometimes they combat evil: ie the end of the PP series. Besides, isn't Dark Sun more of a Black vs Gray world rather than a Black and White world? DS is unique that the PCs don't necessarily have to be LG paladins.
Eliminating the option goes completely against 4e mentality.
Warlock templars having a pact withtheir sorceror king makes good sense! 
The sorceror kings aren't gods...maybe demigods, but they aren't onthe Astral Plane, real gods have VAST influence (area), the sorceror kings have very limited influence (a city), but incredible perosnal power.
Players can pick where/how they got a pact. It could be that they signed away thier soul, but they may have also won it in a drinking game. Story wise the source of the pact is 100% up to the player and DM to work out and anything goes.
There are several great threads over in Character Development full of ideas.
Mechanincally, since Warlocks are Arcane there will be the whole Defiler/Preserver thing for the Devs to tackle. That would be the important bit, because every single idea that has been posted in this thread about "where does the pact come from?" is perfectly valid. Because there is no one correct answer, they're all correct.
It's not about whether and how evil the Templars are - the biggest problem is that Templars have to enforce laws and administer the regime of the Sorceror King. They get their spells by permission, and they can't go off and be independent, or oppose their sorceror king, or else all their class-powers will simply be denied them. It's easy to imagine that a King with these powers could grant something like Warlock spells, but their needs to be some other source for Warlock Pacts or else you can't be your own character, you're just a pawn of a megalomaniacal dictator. Bad for adventuring!
As for Tieflings, or Warlocks in general, they have a dark bent, but can do and achieve whatever they want to as adventurers, they don't have to check-in with the Boss before they get their class powers, and they can go anywhere they want without having to worry about paperwork. (Which a Templar, working as a civil administrator, would have to do on occassion)
Who's to say that having a rogue agent at large on Athas wouldn't be to a SK's advantage? If the character is defeating slavers, uncovering resources, battling other SKs then he could be inadvertently advancing his SK's agenda.
Another consideration is that all pacts come with the knowledge that some future favor or service may come due in return for the powers granted to the warlock. This is a tremendous hook for adventures and campaigns. Having to fulfill your part of the bargain, although grudgingly, is part of the price for gaining power as a warlock. Trying to find a loophole in your "deal" could also be a major theme for paragon tier.
When the character gets more powerful and is drawing more from them, things would change. Especially if the PC was able to keep getting power from the SK by stealing it. They would certainly be keen to put a stop to it, but by that time, it'd make cool adventures.
Myself, I don't like warlock pacts to dominate game plots as other seam to. But whatever floats your boat, right?
In my games, it just doesn't even come up. Though if I run that whole big Far Realms campaign I've been thinking of, I might ask my wife to play a Starlock who's service is a bit of a plot point (mostly a conduit for information on the goings-on of the big players in the scenario).
Also, I think, again, folk take "pacts" far too literally! and this causes problems across D&D
why the heck does it HAVE to be that an Sorceror King would necessarily grant such powers? what if they are some weird manifestation, a conduit, he can't control or doesn't even know about? Maybe it's natural ability of the person, maybe they are descendants of the sorceror king, or whatever? maybe the Sorceror king grants such powers, maniuplating the person for obscure reasons?
A multi-millenia demigod power like a sorceror king IS WAAAAAAY beyond the ken of us mere mortals ;)
It's pretty clear from the description of the Warlock class, and the way the names of the powers make reference to other beings that it's clearly magic that comes from some outside entity. If it was a natural, innate ability, then they'd be (core) Sorcerors from PH2. It's clear that the Sorceror Kings do grant some kind of magic, something not unlike the 'clean' magic of clerics. But they grant it to their Templars, who are beholden to the Sorceror Kings, at their beck and call, and who depend on them. It's probably a bad idea to make Templar's PC's, but great enemies.
Ah but that's where I disagree Sorcerors have a specific "flavour", much like a wizard but barely in control of their innate magical powers. Warlocks have strange eldritch power that's VERY nasty, powers beyond the mortal world etc etc gifted at birth by the Faerie Folk (in a normal campaign setting), by a cursed bloodline to unleash chaos, or in Athas, foisted without choice by the Spirits of the Land to avenge them on the defilers...
One PC could be a descendant of say, King Kalak, and starts displaying raw, horrible energies...(Infernal pact)...because of his bloodline, he can evoke some of Kalak's power..
Now, if that doesn't suggest a great story line.... ;)
Warlocks could get their pact from an energy source. A vestige pact, in many ways, comes from the energy, not the being. Dark pact is rather undefined.
I could see warlocks on Athas getting their power from defilement, from the destruction of Athas itself. I could see them getting pact energy from raw elemental power or from the Gray/Black or from the planet's own pain as life fades. There are a lot of neat themes. Realistically, though, we would be lucky to see one pact, or perhaps we will see just a way to convert the pacts (on Athas, an infernal pact is fueled by...)