Warlocks get the best gifts

I have dark ages on the brain. Belswick has a society like a cage, with nobles who rule your life and priests who decide what happens when you die. Even wizards have locked themselves into sanctioned colleges. In short: know your place in the dirt. An excellent setting for people who like to break the rules. Sound like any players you know? Then tempt them to go all the way and become a damned witch or warlock!

Society mistrusts you anyway. Why be a rogue when you could be a warlock? From

Design goal: to make warlockry tempting and dangerous. 5e does an ok job in balancing all the classes, so how do I make this one class more attractive than others? One, by throttling regular casters, for instance having their cantrip spells cost precious spell slots while warlocks cast cantrips for free. Two, by tying caster types to controlling hierarchies and class advancement to quests for their masters, while warlocks get power with a simple rite.

Warlock Patrons are servants of the Exile, the big Satan figure of my setting. S/he is way too filled with rage over being kicked out of Heaven to tempt mortals. That's what the Patron spirits are for. Warlock patrons exist to unbalance the orderly society of the Authority. They seduce members of all Three Estates with easy power, in return for the occasional service.

Summoning circles, complex incantations? You won't need anything that complicated to get a Patron's attention.
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ON INSPIRATION

Mateo Diaz Torres wrote a series of inspiring posts about warlock Patrons; what I've done here is take his idea of service-for-power and write up Patrons for a feudal game of D&D 5e. The powers are reskins of existing warlock abilities, services and forbiddances come either directly from Mateo, from a Goblin Punch / Coins & Scrolls wizard school, or from myself.

ON TONE

How do you run black magic - quick and awesome power, vile and soulcrushing heresy, high farce? I have no illusion where my group will end up falling. Ultimately, it's up to your taste as a player, DM and gaming group how much horrific detail you want to give to warlocks and their dark pacts. I'll do this write-up in a serious tone, but without making everything too grimdark. Season to taste.

There are certain downsides to being suspected of warlockry or witchcraft. But that keeps life interesting.
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BECOMING A WARLOCK

Making a Pact with a Patron
Patrons offer their services to many and getting their attention is seductively easy. So is getting power out of the relationship. Followers from any class can make a minor pact with a Patron by taking the Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster feat (summary below). Taking actual warlock levels means making a major pact - no way around that.

Both the minor or the major pact bind you to observe a Patron's forbiddance, something you have to do or refrain from at all times. Roll a Wisdom save at difficulty 10+1/day of disobedience or suffer a Severe Curse. Roll this save at disadvantage for heinous transgressions. (Like a warlock of the Hungry Crone being in a loving marriage, or the master of the Blistered Squire helping put out the inferno in the monks' library.)

Major pact: warlock levels
It's one and the same: sign (or add to) a Major Pact to take a level in the Warlock class. Each patron gives access to extra spells and specific powers. You'll have to observe the Patron's forbiddance and perform services for it whenever you gain a level after becoming a warlock.

• The Hungry Crone: powers of cold and dark curses
• The Emerald Saint: insight and illusion and madness
• The Scandalous Courtier: glamour and debauchery
• The Blistered Squire: fire and ruin

At least one of these fine people got to their exalted position by warlockry. From

Minor pact: magic initiate feat or ritual caster
You summon a Patron spirit and make a pact to bargain your soul for power. You have to perform a service for your Patron and observe its forbiddance.

When: whenever you gain a feat, or swap out an existing feat, or give up 2 ability points.
Service: roll once on the Patron's list of tasks.

In return you gain either:

• magic initiate: learn two cantrips of your choice from the bard/warlock/wizard list that you can cast as an action every round. You also know one 1st level spell from the warlock list or from your Patron's spell list; you can cast this spell once per day at its lowest level and it refreshes after a long rest.
• ritual caster: receive a book with two ritual spells from the bard, warlock or wizard lists. You can copy in other ritual spells from these lists that you find, at the regular cost of (50 gp and 2 hours) per spell level. Roll Arcana skill, difficulty 10+spell level; failure means you lose 2 hours and 50 gp. You can only learn spells of half your character level (round up).

Note: regular casters in my game also always know their cantrips without having to explicitly memorize them, but activating a cantrip costs a 1st level spell slot until these casters perform a minor rite with their mentor. For warlocks, cantrips are free to cast every round as an action.

Enough rules - let's party
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