I know that, by RAW, any warlock, of any pact, can be any alignment.
However, some of the fluff is, shall we say...a bit a on the "amoral" side.
For me, this isn't a problem-while my warlocks can be quite willing servants of the entities that gave them their powers, none of the entities are evil, just selfish and untamed.
However...
What, besides the old standbys of "being fooled" and "they were bad once, but not anymore", are your reasons for having a Good or Lawful Good warlock?
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Demons, devils, mysterious forces, energy from beyond the stars, the very essence of shadows, you can't get rid of it. It's there, and it can be deadly stuff. The problem is that the bad guys always seem to get hold of it. Praying and being good isn't enough to protect yourself because evil doesn't obey the rules. You want to keep the Legions of Hell from dragging your soul into the Abyss? Rule them. Make them do your bidding no matter how distatseful they find it. By the time they come to collect you at the end of your journey, you'll be more than strong and crafty enough to take them all, and you'll have hedged your bets with a life dedicated to Good.
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No force in and of itself is inherently good or evil. It simply "is". To wager your soul on a pact is no diffrerent from swearing your loyalty to the Crown or to an Order. In the end, the devoted are willing to die for whichever one they chose. What makes anything "Good" or "Evil" is how we use it. I simply choose to use controversial methods.
Just an RP question.
I know that, by RAW, any warlock, of any pact, can be any alignment.
However, some of the fluff is, shall we say...a bit a on the "amoral" side.
For me, this isn't a problem-while my warlocks can be quite willing servants of the entities that gave them their powers, none of the entities are evil, just selfish and untamed.
However...
What, besides the old standbys of "being fooled" and "they were bad once, but not anymore", are your reasons for having a Good or Lawful Good warlock?
You can make a pact for any reason. So what if you told the Demon King of Jing that you'd give him souls if he gave you Warlock power? You didn't specify what kind of souls, so you could even feed him demon souls.
I would leave it up to how the player describes their pact (even if they don't).
It doesn't have to be like the Dark side of the Force. You might just have sold your soul for power, but you don't have to missuse it.
Their back story is that as a child his parents gave him over to a Cult of Orcus who had plans for him. Namely that when he comes of age, he would be used in rituals to bring about a new breed of undead that are born of living beings.
He escaped and denounced Orcus, and began worshipping the Raven Queen.
In my world, I explain warlocks as beings who have been marked with power, but require some otherly world being to activate their power. So his pact wasn't nessecarly with Orcus. I'm still working that part out, it won't come up for some time.
So they made the infernal pact, and are basically good. There will come times when I plan on testing the player as part of the campaign.
The power belongs to the warlocks, regardless of the type of being that activated the power, so it's really what they do with the power that matters. After all, they can pick powers that are more aligned with a different pact.
B) You inherited your power from your parents... sort of a re-flavoring.
I did this with my psudodragon warlock (3.5)
In exchange, they grant you a small boon on the spot for that soul, and they just in general teach you how to bend magic so that you'll be able to kill things and collect souls for them.
If the power (or anything else) turns you evil, that source will have those souls, but if you don't turn evil, you've gained nothing aside from those powers. That makes it rational from both sides of the bargain.
"Power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."
You have to fight the temptation to be selfish every single time you use your powers... giving in means you no longer have to justify being Good.
(that'd be stupid and dangerous)
Heroes are known for staying safe?
The good warlock I was going to play had obtained his infernal powers by way of infiltrating a cult, learning of a secret ritual that they intended to use to restore power to devil that was stripped of it, and then betraying the cult by interposing himself during the ritual to steal the power which he then intended to use to bring this cult to justice for the murder of his family and all their other crimes against humanity - once he sorts out how to fully utilize his powers.
That... is awesome.
He knows that one of these days his debt will come due and he'll have to pay the price. But, he doesn't plan to go down without a fight. As he's fond of saying: "I hope that demon enjoys my soul while he has it, because I'm not waiting for him to call my debt in...I'm gonna take it back. And if I can't take it back, then I'll make sure neither of us survives."
Remember: Good is not the same thing as Nice.
That... is awesome.
Thank you. It is a little cliche, but with enough of a twist that I feel good about it. I'm just waiting for the chance to play him, which will probably be a while since I intentionally avoid playing characters that would mean there are two of the same non-human race in the group unless everyone is of the same race as part of the campaign's premise. Since my group seems to be enjoying playing Tieflings, which is what I built the character as, I won't be playing him in the near future.
Remember: Good is not the same thing as Nice.
Very good thing too. Otherwise my human fighter wouldn't be so comfortable with killing sentient beings if it means "normal folk" get to be safe and prosper.
You didn't specify what kind of souls, so you could even feed him demon souls.
Demons don't have souls.
There is no light. There is no dark. There are only many shades of grey.
Demons don't have souls.
There is no light. There is no dark. There are only many shades of grey.
So... Dark v Grey, or Grey v Grey?
1) The sealed demon will die if the hero dies. So, it gives it's power to the hero in order to maintain its existence. However, it is not above tempting the hero into performing evil deeds with the allure of even greater power.
2) The sealed demon can be released by the hero, and promises the hero great powers in exchange for releasing it. It grants various powers to the hero as a means of buttering him up, a free sample of sorts with the intent of getting the hero addicted to power.
Neither of these examples requires the hero to be evil, particularly if the hero actively resists the temptations of the demon.
You know what I think would be cool? A Warlock Pact granted by the Power of Love. As in, your boyfriend/girlfriend is the one who grants you your crazy magic abilities.
I can see that. Your wife, a loving and loyal but very bad person, get's sent to hell. From there she channels hellfire through herself to you. You release the hellfire, completing the double goal of killing your enemies and reducing her torment (until you can go rescue her).
You know what I think would be cool? A Warlock Pact granted by the Power of Love. As in, your boyfriend/girlfriend is the one who grants you your crazy magic abilities.
And somewhere, thousands of D&D players who are cutesy anime fans went 'squeeee'.
I actually thought about it, and refluffed warlocks into an alternate arcane tradition. Whereas Wizards draw from the magic of the home dimension, Warlocks draw on the magic of other planes; The Abyss (infernalock), Feywild (feylock), Shadowfell (darklock), Far Realm (Starlock). It's a purely external power (like wizardry), so there's no 'corruption' crud going on.
You know what I think would be cool? A Warlock Pact granted by the Power of Love. As in, your boyfriend/girlfriend is the one who grants you your crazy magic abilities.
Done that, my warlock, Sacer, lived with his succubus wife, Ta'alixa, happily, she wasn't being evil or anything, just teaching Sacer warlockery. Paladins of heironous (or was it zeus? lightning bolt on the shield) found out Ta'alixa's demon heritage and attacked the home, but only attacked the succubus, thinking that Sacer was just under her domination.
Anyway, they kill her as she gets a parting kiss off to her husband, transferring her rogue levels and soul, Sacer gains rogue gestalt-ness, goes insane and starts a murderous rampage against heironous. Love goes beyond good and evil, what the paladins took from Sacer, would be paid for in blood.
Sort of like a Crow plot.
As time goes by, however, his desire to punish paladins extends beyond just those of heironous, his murdering spree starts against those who seem happier than he. Possibly due to the innate corruption of sharing a body with an abyssal spirit.
Has anybody done a Mother-In-Law Pact? Or is that too dark and evil? :D
Whenever your mother-in-law nags you you unleash your passive aggressive rage in the form of arcane energy...
...nah, it'd be overpowered.
The source material sounds better suited for a Paladin, but it can easily be reskinned for a warlock. A fey warlock could receive power from an infatuated fey maiden or a warlock of any pact could draw his power from the abstract concept of love.
In the case of tiefling infernal pack warlocks their powers could simply be part of their bloodline. For feypact warlocks it could simply be that their patron happens to be good or perhaps unaligned. The power might instead took the form of reward. In which case the patron could have been any alignment. For the star pact the entities that the warlock made the pact with migth not even remember that they made the pact in the first place. It might have only been a one time bargin that needed to be done or it might simply be automatic on the part of the patron. It could simply be a form of astrology. For any pact it could simply be another form of magic.
The other ones aren't so easy. Maybe they should have included an "exalted" pact?
I like the idea about different dimensions.
take a "fight fire with fire" mentality, to fight dark eldritch powers with dark eldritch powers, or make it a curse, maybe the hero raided the wrong crypt
or their god cursed them with these powers for breaking their rules
all those are good for infernals
fer starlocks, they believe that the power of the stars could be used for good intents, maybe their power is simply a result of enough studying and research.
and then of course maybe they picked up their powers to survive, to keep themselves alive, nothing else about it.
Just an RP question.
I know that, by RAW, any warlock, of any pact, can be any alignment.
However, some of the fluff is, shall we say...a bit a on the "amoral" side.
For me, this isn't a problem-while my warlocks can be quite willing servants of the entities that gave them their powers, none of the entities are evil, just selfish and untamed.
However...
What, besides the old standbys of "being fooled" and "they were bad once, but not anymore", are your reasons for having a Good or Lawful Good warlock?
Familiar with the trope "Cursed with awesome" from tvtropes.org?
Your Warlock can be tormented by this curse. His family is cursed with demonic blood which makes them prone to evil, or cursed to be outcasts. But with it comes demonic abilities, a curse they use to do good.
In a nutshell: HELLBOY.
Anyway, some warlocks are fey bound, not demonic bound. There are non-evil fey.
Anyway, some warlocks are fey bound, not demonic bound. There are non-evil fey.
For that matter, there are (admittedly, very few) non-evil devils and star-entities. Anything sentient is capable of determining its own moral and ethical path (aka alignment).
Anything sentient is capable of determining its own moral and ethical path (aka alignment).
Yay, alignment debates Reloaded!
Let's just say I consider it debateable in cases of entities that are essentially sentient embodiements of concepts.
My star pact warlock will begin with his powers explained as normal wizard spells since he had a wizard-y education (which he flunked out of due to not being interested in the more theoretical parts). Later, he'll discover new sources of power in the (much more fascinating) stars until he finally devots himself to Caiphon. That should probably cover his descent from Good (if somewhat lazy) to Unaligned (and a little bonkers).
Yay, alignment debates Reloaded!
Let's just say I consider it debateable in cases of entities that are essentially sentient embodiments of concepts.
What's the difference between can't act against alignment and won't act against alignment?
I've been planning a Aboleth character that is NE and NG at the same time. :D
He helps others (G) For self Benefit (E). Probably end up letting him be true neutral for spells.
However justifying it can be simple or complicated.
The example in the PHB is someone who agreed and then regretted it.
Another option would be someone who has a change of heart.
Someone who has this ability to channel the power but it affects their sanity or health.
You could also homebrew that their are demonic and angelic forces at war apart from the Gods themselves.
Or you can label it as there being only one source of magic but various aspects that different groups can access through different types of spells.
OT, I'm just curious why they decided to ban them. (I rarely see incidents of players limiting choices (for better or worse) in a campaign, it's usually the DM who does this.)
I asked them to tell me the kind of world they wanted to play in. Their choice was a world that had suffered a cataclismic war of magic. Their choice was to limit PCs to Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Halflings. Wizards are despised and sometimes persecuted as the people most responsible for causing the near destruction of civilization. Clerics and Paladins are nearly extinct. All warloks are evil and controlled to a certain extent by the powers they tap in to.
Now I know one of the women has some religious views that makes her uncomfortable with warloks as heroes, but I have no clue what motivated the others to agree. It was not even her that floated the idea out.
So I designed a campaign world to suit their tastes and banned them as good guys.
Familiar with the trope "Cursed with awesome" from tvtropes.org?
Your Warlock can be tormented by this curse. His family is cursed with demonic blood which makes them prone to evil, or cursed to be outcasts. But with it comes demonic abilities, a curse they use to do good.
In a nutshell: HELLBOY.
Anyway, some warlocks are fey bound, not demonic bound. There are non-evil fey.
MOST of the fey are non-evil. (Fomorians notwithstanding.)
I asked them to tell me the kind of world they wanted to play in. Their choice was a world that had suffered a cataclismic war of magic. Their choice was to limit PCs to Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Halflings. Wizards are despised and sometimes persecuted as the people most responsible for causing the near destruction of civilization. Clerics and Paladins are nearly extinct. All warloks are evil and controlled to a certain extent by the powers they tap in to.
Now I know one of the women has some religious views that makes her uncomfortable with warloks as heroes, but I have no clue what motivated the others to agree. It was not even her that floated the idea out.
So I designed a campaign world to suit their tastes and banned them as good guys.
And now, as a campaign twist, you should present a hidden sect of Warlocks that are paragons of good, and have found a source of "good" otherworldly power, and are being hunted for their beliefs by another group. Twist their tails.
Fay locks are easy...Starlock...bit hard for me to tell how but the flavor is nice.
I asked them to tell me the kind of world they wanted to play in. Their choice was a world that had suffered a cataclismic war of magic. Their choice was to limit PCs to Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Halflings. Wizards are despised and sometimes persecuted as the people most responsible for causing the near destruction of civilization. Clerics and Paladins are nearly extinct. All warloks are evil and controlled to a certain extent by the powers they tap in to.
Now I know one of the women has some religious views that makes her uncomfortable with warloks as heroes, but I have no clue what motivated the others to agree. It was not even her that floated the idea out.
So I designed a campaign world to suit their tastes and banned them as good guys.
Well, that sounds like one interesting campaign! I hope it's going well... and thanks for the cool idea...:lightbulb
1 -- The agreement made was unclear. Possibly the entity with which the pact was made was disguised as something else, or perhaps the terms were deceptive. Perhaps the warlock powers were a misunderstood side affect towards accomplishing some other desire of the character. Case in point, albeit a cheesy one, they sought a wish for themselves (or a family member), and the pact resulted
2 -- The pact wasn't even consciously made by the character in question. Perhaps it is inherited, or perhaps they didn't realize what was going on/ "wished upon a star." This works especially well with star pact, but a devil with a creative understanding of agreements or a bored fey might have arranged this.
Any alignment can fit with these sorts of backgrounds. Remember, your class is just what you do, and to a certain extent how. But there are gaps in the how left there intentionally, and why is up to player and dm whims.
During a long stint in prison, he got religion: Pelor. Now he's a fire and brimstone-style preacher, trying to bring the light of Pelor to the heathens... using a lot of the same tactics he used for the mob.
He thinks he's getting his powers (and his orders) directly from Pelor. The fire powers are the burning light of the Sun god. The cold and darkness powers are the terrible absence of Pelor's blessings. Just about anything can be explained this way.
Is my character really working for Pelor, or is he just deluding himself? I don't know. That will be for the DM to decide. In the meantime, it's a lot of fun to play a character that turns one of the stereotypical "goody two-shoes" religions on its head.
((this gives the dm all sorts of options for having your char get into some plot heavy rp, as you re-meet your brother, or suddently forget the secret you discovered about the BBEG))
you got the better of the deal, you somehow kided a kider, and cheated a cheater, now the power is yours.
You don't even realise you made a deal with such a force, you thought the power was coming from something entirely different, maybe someday you will discove the trooth, and try to atone.
One good way to run a good infernal Warlock is to have the player be the one who is sealing the demon away in some manner. There are two ways to go about this:
1) The sealed demon will die if the hero dies. So, it gives it's power to the hero in order to maintain its existence. However, it is not above tempting the hero into performing evil deeds with the allure of even greater power.
2) The sealed demon can be released by the hero, and promises the hero great powers in exchange for releasing it. It grants various powers to the hero as a means of buttering him up, a free sample of sorts with the intent of getting the hero addicted to power.
Neither of these examples requires the hero to be evil, particularly if the hero actively resists the temptations of the demon.
*COUGH COUGH NARUTO COUGH COUGH*
No, it's a good idea, actually.
Just as long as no one else watches/reads Naruto or you fluff it up so it doesn't resemble it so much.
*COUGH COUGH NARUTO COUGH COUGH*
No, it's a good idea, actually.
Just as long as no one else watches/reads Naruto or you fluff it up so it doesn't resemble it so much.
Or ... if nobody cares ...
*COUGH COUGH NARUTO COUGH COUGH*
No, it's a good idea, actually.
Just as long as no one else watches/reads Naruto or you fluff it up so it doesn't resemble it so much.
I was actually going to call my first set-up the Naruto Uzumaki route, but then I couldn't come up with a name for the other one.
The idea of a demon inside that a hero can barely control is a pretty common anime trope though.My source of inspiration for the second route is the relationship between the main protagonist of Soul Nomad and the World Eaters and the demon overlord Gig.
Right now I'm playing a Warforged who was built as a prison for the soul of a dead devil killed by his subbordinates. After a couple hundred years the two have a Student/Teacher relationship and devil is for the most part unaligned.
Well, in the case of a Warforged it could have just been built with "foreign" parts that grant him some inherent power.
Maybe some meteoric metal that was part of... Something out there (star pact), maybe some wood taken from a tree in the feywild (fey pact), or any old bit of anything that came from the nine Hells (infernal pact). No pact necessary, just a natural ability to wield power in a certain way.
Edit: And I suppose this could extend to any character, really. Maybe some parasite from beyond the stars took up residence in your body and gives you powers so that it can have some souls to eat. Maybe your parents were both adventurers that caused the plans of some devil to go awry... The devil curses their first-born to have extraordinary magical abilities, but these abilities actually serve to supply the devil with power. That splinter you got as a child when you were lost in the feywild? Yeah, it wasn't all pulled out and somehow now you can use weird feywild-y magic.
/thread
Not all Warlocks have an inherently (or, for that matter, card-carrying) evil pact, or malicious reasons for taking a pact. Its all in how you spin the character, really.
I kept it in the gaol for six months. I talked to it every day, trying to find out why they came to us, why my sister. All I got were threats and vague allusions. It made me angry. Too angry.
One day, well, it broke the last straw. I beat the wossname out of it. Punched it till my fists bled. I knew it was wrong, but I just couldn't help myself. That's when it made me an offer.
'Set me free, and I'll give you the power to find your sister. To free her. To right all the wrongs done to you.'
Maybe I shouldn't have believed it. I set it free, and I was bathed in hellfire. I could feel it soak into me, and when the flames cleared, the devil was gone. It was gone, and I could feel power coursing through me.
I puked.
The next few days were hell. Hah. Mind the pun.
The rest of the village cast me out, and I hooked up with some wandering adventurers. Strange people, but for some of us it's the only choice.
The devil lied. I couldn't save my sister. She was dead long before I made my deal. Maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe my soul is damned forever now. I guess I'll find out eventually, but not until I've purged hell, and the world, of all the evil I can."
~C
Well, that sounds like one interesting campaign! I hope it's going well... and thanks for the cool idea...:lightbulb
It is going remarkably well. It has the feel to it of a darkages world where superstition and myth plays high. The party's wizard is perpetually trying to hide his powers from non-party members while scrambling for clues on how to increase his magic abilities.
A Tiefling G ( or LG) Paladin with MC into Infernal Warlock. The stuff I as a player choose for the warlock stuff is not actually the character's choices - they are aspects of his Tiefling side getting even more evil.
It's the classic temped soul trying to be good kind of thing.
I expect lots of fun character rping with him.
Feylocks don't make pacts with evil beings, the creatures of the feywild probably don't even think in terms of good and evil, starlocks are similar alien\=evil. It is also possible that when the devils rebelled, the player felt that the devils were shafted (regardless of the actual truth) and seek to "right the injustices"
Flavor man.
More like a 6ft tall version of that guy.
Most Awesome Warlock Evar!!!
I don't get why you have to justify ANY alignment in dnd.
For some reason, people continually interpret warlocks as having to be dark, brooding anti-heroes or outright villains. A lot of the flavor text in the class does support this, but many people are unwilling or unable to look past flavor text.
How you got the power doesn't matter. What you do with it does.
I haven't got to play him yet, but my next character will be a warlock that grew up homeless. He's 'Good', and spent his childhood living a damn rough life and watching out for his two younger siblings. He was seperated from them during an orc raid on the town, captured, and sold into slavery, eventually ending up in the hands of a wizard/summoner. After so many years of this, a demon under the wizards "control" made him a deal. In exhange for enough power to escape, he had to make a small blood sacrifice for the demon, which would free him as well. Getting two other slaves together (promising their freedom for the help, too), he cut all their arms to spill the needed blood. The demon tricked him though, and the magic sucked all the life out of both other slaves. I'll save the details on him trying to remove his powers (unsuccesfully, of course), but in the end, he's devoted to good deeds to make up for the wrong he caused, and has sworn off dealing with demons/devils in the future.
This backstory also fit great with multiclassing into wizard to go blood mage. I get my powergaming and my roleplay too!
For some reason, people continually interpret warlocks as having to be dark, brooding anti-heroes or outright villains. A lot of the flavor text in the class does support this, but many people are unwilling or unable to look past flavor text.
How you got the power doesn't matter. What you do with it does.
Fey and Star warlocks probably shouldn't have any problems, since fey creatures can be good or unaligned, and the entities behind the star pact seem more inscrutable than malign.
Infernal is probably the hardest to justify alignment-wise, which is likely why the flavor text for the pact mentions "secrets left behind by forgotten devils". That way, they don't necessarily have to make a 'deal with the devil' to get their power; they can just stumble upon the 'demon magic' and turn it to more benign pursuits.
Otherwise, there can be some head-scratching as to why a good-aligned character would make such a pact, unless they weren't always good and had a change of heart, or got the short end of the pact and are looking for revenge. Though, some of the backstory explanations in this thread have been quite good, and there's always the option to reflavor some elements.
As for Demon Pact..
There is a text, which I do not have with me.. that discusses Qaballah (Jewish mystricism) in ancient times. The Jews frequently forced demons.. using rites handed down by the angels.. to do their bidding. Now, the reason (according to this text) that "magic" is forbidden now.. is that various bits of knowledge were lost.. so, now, the demons would not be so completely under control. Which, of course.. would be outrageously bad (in theory).
ANYWHO.. now, presumably.. when an angelic being gives you the rites to summoning and controlling demonic entities.. then it isn't really "evil." You believe you are in control (and, perhaps you are). You force, with rites you have learned.. these demonic entities to be forthcoming with mysterious secrets. Of course.. should the bound entity every find a way to undo you.. it will.
That is actually how I percieved the WoW warlock. A demonic jailer. I wasn't evil.. I was holding as many demons as I could (conveniently.. one of each type) imprisoned and forced to do my bidding. I always joked that my imp was trying to get me killed whenever it found an opening.
So.. that is how I would go about justifying the "Good" Demon Pact warlock.
The gnoll article in Dragon also suggested that "infernal" pact warlocks are common among the race. (They're actually forged by the demon Yeenoghu, but the infernal pact describes the effects just as well.) The thing is, in their case it may be entirely involuntary; Yeenohgu just chooses one and bestows its 'blessing' - which can be a bit nerve-wracking for those gnolls who have turned away from it.
'Locks in general: They don't even know why they have these powers. Just sort of manifested, and now they're setting things on fire with their minds or something.
'Locks again: The ends justify the means. It's only a tool, you keep telling yourself.
'Locks yet more: A nemesis bound a demon/devil/fey/starthing/etc. into you, hoping its power would prove too much for your mortal frame. But your nemesis underestimated both your hardiness and your...guest's will to keep its new home alive. The guest gave you powers, on the condition that you use them to not get killed. (As added fluff, damage represents your patron's punishing you for endangering yourselves, instead of stamina or being hit.)
A starlock can be justified as an astrologer/nomer who looked a bit too closely at the wrong star... Orran, from Final Fantasy Tactics, is another good way of dealing with it.
Helllock: Sometimes the best method of protecting one's friends is to set some things on fire. And if a few souls--perhaps yours among them--get sent to Hells, what's that compared to defending the innocent from a horrendous fate?
Feylock: You'd always liked nature, right? So you took up the pact to do your part to defend the homes of your fey patrons.
Other PC: "So, what brings you to (town name forgotten)?"
Me: "Oh, I'm in exile."
Other PC: "Why?"
Me: "Everybody's afraid of my powers."
Other PC: "Why's that?"
Me: (deadpan) "They come from Hell."
2) You have always been good, good enough to be worth tempting to the side of evil. The demon who made the pact with you is gambling that the power will go to your head and you will eventually turn evil. After all power corrupts doesn't it?