Warlock Patron Thematic Ideas Sought

[Speely]

We are playing the Light of Xaryxis (Spelljammer) mini-campaign soon and I have decided on a character. We start at level 5, which I have been told is standard for this adventure.

I've decided on an Astral Elf Soulknife 3/Genie Warlock 2 (Marid) to start. Been wanting to try this one for a minute (minus the Astral Elf part, but that just made it even more appealing mechanically) and this seems like a good time to do so.

Well, almost.

I am struggling with an Astral Elf having a Noble Marid Genie as a patron. I've tried marrying the idea of the Astral Sea with the plane of water, but my ideas feel a bit forced. It's not actually a "sea" beyond the imagery the word conveys and I can't seem to think of a compelling reason why a Marid would offer a pact to an Astral Elf.

Maybe it happened in Wildspace? Maybe the Genie is jealous that there is a "Sea" it has no power over? Maybe my PC has always dreamt of the oceans of the Material Plane and is a huge nerd about them, to the point that they do cringy, inaccurate pirate-y things? Did they visit the Material Plane and get tricked? Why?

I don't know. It kinda feels like I am forcing a build into a concept and I could benefit from some folks smarter than I to bounce some ideas around. Please feel free to riff on this. Goofy, serious, nuanced, tropey. All ideas welcome, friendos. :)

[Unoriginal]

We are playing the Light of Xaryxis (Spelljammer) mini-campaign soon and I have decided on a character. We start at level 5, which I have been told is standard for this adventure.

I've decided on an Astral Elf Soulknife 3/Genie Warlock 2 (Marid) to start. Been wanting to try this one for a minute (minus the Astral Elf part, but that just made it even more appealing mechanically) and this seems like a good time to do so.

Well, almost.

I am struggling with an Astral Elf having a Noble Marid Genie as a patron. I've tried marrying the idea of the Astral Sea with the plane of water, but my ideas feel a bit forced. It's not actually a "sea" beyond the imagery the word conveys and I can't seem to think of a compelling reason why a Marid would offer a pact to an Astral Elf.

Maybe it happened in Wildspace? Maybe the Genie is jealous that there is a "Sea" it has no power over? Maybe my PC has always dreamt of the oceans of the Material Plane and is a huge nerd about them, to the point that they do cringy, inaccurate pirate-y things? Did they visit the Material Plane and get tricked? Why?

I don't know. It kinda feels like I am forcing a build into a concept and I could benefit from some folks smarter than I to bounce some ideas around. Please feel free to riff on this. Goofy, serious, nuanced, tropey. All ideas welcome, friendos. :)


Astral Sea Elf had a nasty Wizard uncle who mistreated them. From an early age, PC decided to take revenge by stealing bits and pieces from the uncle's workshop and collection whenever they could (also starting their career/training as a Rogue), then fenced them over at the next astral harbor once they got old enough to realize holding onto the stuff wouldn't work forever.

One day, PC stole a weird bottle from their uncle's collection, opened it to check the content, and out came the Noble Marid bound to it. Upon being told the Marid was enslaved to the owner of the bottle and forced to obey their wishes, PC immediately smashed the bottle into pieces.

Surprised by this mortal not even considering the power opportunity, pleased by their return to freedom, and sensing them and the Astral Sea Elf were very much alike, the Noble Marid declared the PC to be their Glorious Friend and part of their family as sworn sibling.

Before telling the PC the Wizard uncle will probably kill them for that selfless act costing the uncle dearly. So they should abscond ASAP.

A runaway later, PC started to realize that being a Noble Marid's sworn sibling meant they got their share of the family business... as Warlock powers.

[Dr.Samurai]

We are playing the Light of Xaryxis (Spelljammer) mini-campaign soon and I have decided on a character. We start at level 5, which I have been told is standard for this adventure.

I've decided on an Astral Elf Soulknife 3/Genie Warlock 2 (Marid) to start. Been wanting to try this one for a minute (minus the Astral Elf part, but that just made it even more appealing mechanically) and this seems like a good time to do so.

Well, almost.

I am struggling with an Astral Elf having a Noble Marid Genie as a patron. I've tried marrying the idea of the Astral Sea with the plane of water, but my ideas feel a bit forced. It's not actually a "sea" beyond the imagery the word conveys and I can't seem to think of a compelling reason why a Marid would offer a pact to an Astral Elf.

Maybe it happened in Wildspace? Maybe the Genie is jealous that there is a "Sea" it has no power over? Maybe my PC has always dreamt of the oceans of the Material Plane and is a huge nerd about them, to the point that they do cringy, inaccurate pirate-y things? Did they visit the Material Plane and get tricked? Why?

I don't know. It kinda feels like I am forcing a build into a concept and I could benefit from some folks smarter than I to bounce some ideas around. Please feel free to riff on this. Goofy, serious, nuanced, tropey. All ideas welcome, friendos. :)
Generations ago, your family was marooned on a strange water planet that moves through wildspace and the flow. Their spelljammer ship, no longer capable of jamming, was repurposed as a traditional sea-faring vessel, and since then the family has survived on this tiny but endless sea.

The planet is in reality the watery sphere of a Great Dreamer (http://lost.spelljammer.org/ShatteredFractine/critters/monsters/gr8dreamer.html). The living water planet is drawn from the elemental plane of water, so you can imagine it has whatever creatures you might find in water, living in this sphere, meaning your family has survived by fishing, hunting, etc. (but not whaling lol).

One day, an elemental creature emerges from the watery depths, a marid, and offers to transplant your family back to [insert appropriate material plane planet here; Oerth, Toril, Eberron, Krynn, etc.], if you would receive some of its power and carry out a quest. The quest is your hook for the Light of Xaryxis module (I'm not familiar with it).

You can modify how you meet the marid and what its intentions are, etc. The timing could be that the Great Dreamer is due for a stop on your homeworld, and so an offer can be made and your family can sail their ship right off the Living Water Planet into the waters of their homeworld. The Great Dreamer is concerned with preserving life, and the marid could be an agent in its "entourage", or it could just have found its way to the Living Water Planet by way of the elemental plane of water, and found a suitable candidate in you.

[Mastikator]

The astral elf spent time on the material plane and did adventures there as a soulknife, there the adventuring group met a marid and did a quest for the marid, the astral elf's reward was the marid's patronage.

Why did the astral elf go to the material plane for adventure? Fame and fortune.
Who did they travel with? A dwarf barbarian named Grok, an elf wizard named Lucian and a human paladin named Merry.
What was the quest? Retrieve the key to the dimensional shackles that kept the marid on the material plane. The key was held by a cult of Vecna that wanted to enslave the marid for some reason (literally, who cares?).

The marid used plane shift to send the astral elf back to their home plane and then went back to its home plane.

[Segev]

What guides your choice to a Marid, in particular, rather than any other kind lf genie? I ask because my first thought is to have something native to the astral plane — perhaps an Astral Dreadnought — be the Patron, and use the mechanics of a genie warlock. the extra dimensional hidey-hole is a demiplane in a bit of astral rock with a tiny cave that is bigger on the inside, and the like.

But if there is something specific about it being a Marid that is your patron, that would shape why and how you'd adjust the narrative to justify it.

[Speely]

Really great, helpful ideas, all! Thanks so much. Lots of tasty stuff to draw from here. I feel like every idea is run-withable.

What guides your choice to a Marid, in particular, rather than any other kind lf genie? I ask because my first thought is to have something native to the astral plane — perhaps an Astral Dreadnought — be the Patron, and use the mechanics of a genie warlock. the extra dimensional hidey-hole is a demiplane in a bit of astral rock with a tiny cave that is bigger on the inside, and the like.

But if there is something specific about it being a Marid that is your patron, that would shape why and how you'd adjust the narrative to justify it.

It's mostly mechanics. I realize that this is kinda shallow and/or gamey, but I don't often get to play as a PC, and when I do I like to try out builds I find mechanically engaging.

So, Fog Cloud, basically. I am going to have so few spells, and Fog Cloud seems like the most synergistic and fun with my build and it fits right in with a skill monkey with Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions.

Additionally, (and more thematically,) I feel like there is a opportunity for exploring the tendency of Marids to enslave others and for a Noble Marid to target an extremely long-lived outsider as a potential slave.

I will certainly ask the DM about just flavoring a patron like the Astral Dreadnought who has the same mechanics (great idea btw,) but I thought it would be fun to try to marry the concepts as they are in print to maybe discover something more fun without appealing to house rules that I am not even sure they would run with.

[KorvinStarmast]

I have always felt that Warlocks could use some elemental patrons, given the metaphysics of D&D and SFF fiction/tropes in general.

[Segev]

If you want to play with the idea of Marids taking slaves, it could be that the Marid tricked yourself into trading places as prisoner in the jar, and only your astral nature lets you project outside of it. Without house rules, this would be a bit of gameplay/story division, since the rules limit how long youlcan stay in the genie vessel while the fluff would be that you stay out of it as much as possible because it's effort to force the limited astral projection to get out of it, but it's one possible way to wed the element of your race to the ideas of Marids you're interested in.

As a completely separate suggestion, you could have your genie vessel be a ship in a bottle. Even an astral ship of some sort. When you're in it, you and any guests are maybe even visible moving around on it. If you do go with the 'projection' idea above, maybe your real body is always visible in it. Another possibility would be you and guests appearing as figurines on the bottled ship to outside observers. Maybe figurines that seem still to those observers, but are in different places when they look away and back.

[manyslayer]

Most comets (outside the murder variety) are made of ice. The marid was tricked into being frozen in the ice by a rival. The ship you were on landed on the comet and you inadvertently freed him. As a "reward" he took you as the first servant to replace those he had lost in his time of imprisonment wile he seeks who dared to imprison him and seeks revenge.