Help picking source of a hexblade pact.

[Davrix]

One thing that sort of annoyed me with the hexblade (any power debates aside) Its just very vague.

It just sort of says you make a pact with shadowfay / maybe the raven queen?

I chose this option on my conquest paladin to MQ into, probably going in at least to lv 3 for Devil-sight darkness combo for shenanigans fun and pact boon.

I'm toying with the idea of light and dark here. Sense it does say shadow, I'm not the best on dnd lore so I don't know exactly what im dealing with here.

So suggestions are welcome or even an alternate idea of how to make this more fitting thematically

[GreyBlack]

One thing that sort of annoyed me with the hexblade (any power debates aside) Its just very vague.

It just sort of says you make a pact with shadowfay / maybe the raven queen?

I chose this option on my conquest paladin to MQ into, probably going in at least to lv 3 for Devil-sight darkness combo for shenanigans fun and pact boon.

I'm toying with the idea of light and dark here. Sense it does say shadow, I'm not the best on dnd lore so I don't know exactly what im dealing with here.

So suggestions are welcome or even an alternate idea of how to make this more fitting thematically

So, this is a future character I have planned, but feel free to steal it.

In a past campaign, I had a character who wound up seducing a goddess and making godlings. The character I have planned is a descendent of this goddess, and after picking up his great-great grandfather's ancient weapon, he forged a pact with his great-great grandmother: the goddess of Life and Death. He has to stop in every so often and say hi to grandma in order to maintain the pact, and every so often pick up some pie from that one baker on the corner who's just fabulous.

[Wilb]

It is vague to help you come up with stuff like this.

You may flavor it as a pact with a shadow being that is not completely evil or has some curiosity about the material plane.

You may also flavor it as a curse driven power that comes from dark magics cast to usurp Excalibur's (generic holy power sword) true power even after King Arthur's (Genericus) been long dead but England (Insert Kingdom Here) needs its power.

Maybe as an intelligent evil sword that was used to kill a really powerful good celestial and ended up being affected by it, and in its guilt tries to aid the mortals beloved by its victim.

Or even a sword of a long dead god of war and evil that simply wants its power to cause strife in the world of mortals again, after thousands of years being left beside the corpse of its dead master.

Heck, maybe it is the fusioned prison of a demigod of good and an evil one, and when both give powers to a mortal, the cage weakens a bit and both want freedom.

[Glorthindel]

It kind of worked when it was a pact with a powerful sentient magic weapon, but then, only if the weapon is actually there, in the Warlocks hand (it gets kind of strange if the sword is doing it in absentia).

When I DM I might rule that to be the case - obviously I wont give the Warlock a freebie artifact magic item, i'll just flavour his Warlock powers to be the powers manifested by the weapon itself, using the Warlock as a conduit.

[Mortis_Elrod]

I’d go with an old Warlord who ascended to higher power. Not Godhood but Patronhood. A name lost to time but his knowledge of Warcraft and martial prowess is still there ready to be taken by the worthy. Perhaps the being was once a powerful Death Knight, or being from the Shadowfel. What matters is what he can teach you, not what he once was.

And what he teaches is a ruthless calculation that refuses to lose, without care for Honor or other such nonsense.

“There is only one sin. Defeat. One grace. Victory.”

[Quoz]

I would in many ways treat hexblade like most other patrons, but the channel for how they receive their power is through a ceremonial weapon. This does not need to be a pact blade, but many do go that route.

Since this is the OotS forum, I would point out that Roy could very easily be considered a Hexblade after he learned to channel power through his ancestral sword (Probably more accurate to say a magic initiate in 5e terms, I know he's a purist who wouldn't even consider multiclassing :smallsmile:)

Short version, warlock patrons follow rule of cool. You're bargaining for power, might as well have them throw a level of badass in as well.

[Master O'Laughs]

I am playing a Hexblade in the Tal'Dorei campaign setting (Matt Mercers) and I have a pact with Raven Queen via touching one of her artifacts.

[GreyBlack]

Short version, warlock patrons follow rule of cool. You're bargaining for power, might as well have them throw a level of badass in as well.

Isn't that a class feature?

[Oramac]

Personally, I prefer the idea of following an ideal rather than a deity. To that end, I'd fluff it as my character gaining power through dedication to [cool ideal].

It's also possible (even likely), that his power really comes from a deity, but he doesn't know it. To him, it's his own power. Maybe the deity reveals itself, maybe not. But it would make for some really fun story.

[Vogie]

It could be a pact with

A sentient weapon in itself, similar to the Witchblade, Frostmourne, the mace Sharur, or the Darkin weapons from League of Legends
A memento or fetter tied to a person in the past, a la Geist: The Sin-Eaters, or Wraith from Shadows of Mordor. It could be either an object possessed by the deceased person, or an object in which that spirit was bound to after the fact.
The Raven Queen, or one of her multiverse counterparts, such as The Morrigan, Ares, The Three-Eyed Raven, Kindred, or valkyries
Any of the more minor deities that hand out magical weapons, from The Lady of the Lake, Vulcan, Unferth, Norse dwarves, et cetera.

[prototype00]

I’ve fluffed it as bearing a weapon haunted by the jilted lover of an ancestor, who from time to time comes out to play (possession).

Edit: Ack! Ninjaed by a ninja!

[Davrix]

I think my confusion comes from I just don't know much about the shadow realm or whatever there calling it in this ed.

That being said I know it can be re-fluffed to any patron sort of. (also sorry about getting back to this post a bit late, made it late last night and slept in today)

Some things that might help would be that yea Greyblack your on the same page as me kind of already :P

The character in question has the last spark of a dead god inside of him Io from 4th ed. (Character was made in 4th with the idea of going for the avatar of Io epic destiny path) But we converted to 5th last year and I've been struggling with how to progress him in this ed. So far he's just been straight conquest paladin, was using the UA at first until it became official. But he's lv 9 and while the character has largely based himself around Bahamuts ideals, Io was a god of balance and the idea of playing with something darker and augmenting the fear aspect of conquest appealed to me while. (if you have read my post my good is your evil thread in the role-playing main forum you know who this character is and when he needs and does lay down strict judgment for the really bad guys) Now I suppose the spark might have enough power to grant a pact and i thought of that but it doesn't exactly fit perfectly. Another thought was making a pact with Tiamat which would be a fitting foil considering IO's origins. But sadly I know my DM and he gets a little finicky sometimes on how I try to fluff things.

The other option would be making a pact with the raven queen as we have actually interacted with one of her avatars in the campaign so far. I think part of my problem is its a cool idea to play with light and shadow but fitting it into the narrative I want and not making it sound gimmicky in my head at least is proving difficult.