Warlocks
✒️ The Nature of the Pact: Power Through Bargaining
While a Cleric serves through devotion and a Paladin through conviction, a Warlock gains power through a bargain. They are the universe's deal-makers, pragmatists, and desperate souls who have reached out to a powerful entity and offered something in exchange for a sliver of its power. This "something" could be loyalty, service, a piece of their soul, or a promise to act as the patron's eyes and hands in the Material Sea. The power they wield is not truly their own; it is a loan, and the patron can always come to collect.
The Patron's Leash: Pacts and Whispers
A Warlock's communication with their patron is never a request; it is a summons or a symptom of their binding pact. The leash is always there, and the patron can pull on it at any time.
Infernal Summons (Archdevils): A pact with a devil is a contract that establishes a permanent psychic tether. The patron can communicate at will, often as an intrusive, commanding voice in the Warlock's mind or as a fleeting, fiery illusion only they can see. It is a direct, undeniable summons that cannot be ignored.
Abyssal Eruptions (Demon Lords): There is no subtlety with the Abyss. A Demon Lord's "communication" is a chaotic, painful eruption of raw emotion and violent imagery that floods the Warlock's consciousness. The Warlock must decipher their patron's desires from a maelstrom of rage, hunger, and alien thoughts—it is less a message and more a psychic seizure.
Saiyan Directives (The Crimson Fist): A Saiyan patron is direct and brooks no argument. Communication is typically a blunt, untraceable message sent to a personal communicator: "A worthy opponent has appeared at these coordinates. Defeat them and prove your worth." This can be punctuated by a flare of Ki Resonance, allowing the Warlock to feel their patron's approval or intense impatience from across a solar system.
🔥 Fiendish Patrons: Deals with Damnation
This is the most common and perhaps most dangerous path for a Warlock. The Infernal Depths are always eager to invest in mortal ambition.
The Devil's Contract (Archdevil Patron):
The Pact: A Warlock who deals with the Archdevils of Hell signs a literal, soul-binding contract. These pacts are intricate, filled with loopholes, and always favour the house. The Warlock trades their eternal soul or unending service for power to achieve their goals: wealth, political influence, or revenge.
The Power: Warlocks of Asmodeus or his vassals wield powers of fire and shadow, social manipulation, and the ability to bind others to their will. Their magic is often subtle, focused on charming senators or striking fear into business rivals.
The Service: They act as infernal agents, subtly destabilizing governments, corrupting noble bloodlines, and ensuring the Syndicate of Mercane's most ruthless contracts are fulfilled, all to spread the "perfect order" of Hell.
The Abyssal Bargain (Demon Lord Patron):
The Pact: There are no artful contracts here. A pact with a Demon Lord is a raw, desperate bargain, often made in a moment of life-or-death terror or supreme rage. The Warlock surrenders their body and will to become a vessel for pure chaotic energy.
The Power: This magic is raw, destructive, and physically transformative. Warlocks of Orcus may find their flesh becoming cold and corpse-like as they master necromancy, while a Warlock of Y'gnoloth, the Star-Eater might develop a maw of jagged teeth and gain powers of gravity and void.
The Service: Their mission is simple: spread chaos. They are living rifts, tasked with weakening the fabric of reality in a specific area to prepare it for a full-scale demonic incursion.
✨ Celestial Patrons: Covenants of Light
Not all pacts are made with the darkness. Some are desperate bargains made with the light, often with a steep price of servitude.
The Solar Mandate (Angelic Patron):
The Pact: This is for the soul who is not a cleric, but is so desperate they directly petition an angel or even a god of Heaven or Elysium for intervention. "Grant me the power to save my people from this plague, and my life is yours to command." It's a pact born of necessity, not faith.
The Power: The Warlock is infused with a shard of celestial light, granting them abilities of healing, radiant damage, and divine protection. They can serve as a beacon of hope, but the power feels borrowed, an echo of the true faith a Cleric possesses.
The Service: They are now bound to the will of their patron. They might be tasked with hunting down a specific devil, protecting a holy site for a century, or acting as a bodyguard for a chosen prophet. Their personal freedom is the price of their power.
👽 Great Old One Patrons: Whispers from the Void
Some powers are not good or evil; they are simply ancient, alien, and utterly mad. In a vast cosmos, there are many things sleeping in the dark between the stars.
The Aeon's Echo:
The Patron: The most common "Great Old Ones" in this reality are the fractured, insane Aeons drifting in the Astral Sea. These broken beings of pure law now perceive reality through a shattered lens.
The Pact: There is no negotiation. A scholar, a starship pilot, or an unlucky prospector might simply stumble upon a dead Aeon's corpse and have their mind forcibly opened to its impossible, broken logic.
The Power: Their spells are glitches in reality. They might temporarily delete gravity in a localized area, force an enemy to perceive time backwards, or speak a mathematical truth so profound it shatters a lesser being's mind.
The Service: They are often unknowing agents, driven by mad compulsions to arrange cosmic dust in a specific pattern or to chant the coordinates of a lost star system, all part of the broken Aeon's attempt to "fix" a reality it no longer understands.
👊 Homebrew Patrons: Pacts of the New Age
The arrival of the Saiyans and the new state of the cosmos has created new, unconventional sources of power.
The Crimson Fist (Saiyan Patron):
The Patron: A powerful Saiyan Elite, such as the brutal Commander Kado or the challenge-seeking Mistress Zukini.
The Pact: A non-Saiyan warrior, desperate for strength, swears an oath of absolute loyalty to their patron, becoming their student, servant, and agent. They must uphold the Saiyan ideal: grow stronger, seek challenges, and prove their patron's superiority.
The Power: The Warlock is granted a small spark of Ki. Their spells are re-flavored as Ki techniques. Eldritch Blast is a volley of energy blasts. Armor of Agathys is a crackling battle aura. Fly is the art of Ki-assisted flight. Mechanically, they are Warlocks, but thematically, they are Z-Warriors in training.
The Inevitable (Elder God Patron):
The Patron: The Elder God of Fate and Time—the sentient consciousness of the Axiom of Law.
The Pact: This pact is never sought, but offered. The Warlock is identified as a key variable in a critical timeline. The Patron makes contact, offering them power in exchange for becoming an "agent of causality."
The Power: The Warlock can subtly manipulate probability and time. Their abilities allow them to impose advantage or disadvantage, glimpse possible futures (augury), and step between moments (blink).
The Service: Their tasks are esoteric and vital: ensure a specific diplomat misses their transport, protect a scientist from an unknown assassin, or retrieve a seemingly mundane object that will be crucial a century from now. They are the secret fixers of the universe's timeline.
✒️ Warlock:
Deal-makers who bargain with powerful cosmic entities for power. Their pacts range from iron-clad contracts with devils to desperate pleas to celestial beings.
Established Archetypes (Patrons): The Archdevil, The Demon Lord, The Celestial, The Great Old One (Aeon's Echo), The Crimson Fist, The Inevitable.