Is an insect swarm themed warlock doable?

[Boci]

So yeah, what the title says. Swarms often manifests as necrotic energy what with the dark energy aspect they often have, which warlocks can do, so that is covered, and swarm is a pretty easy aesthetic to refluff spells into. Like misty step, hex, vampire touch, and at a pinch even eldrtich blast could be a force beetle dive bombing the target. Pact boon some potential. A chitinous sword most obviously, maybe you could refluff one of the chain familiars to be insectoid. What about Patron? Can any of them conceivably have an insect aspect to them?

[gloryblaze]

If you go with the Fiend, you could choose Baalzebul (the Lord of the Seventh, an archdevil who was cursed by Asmodeus to take the form of a monstrous slug, controls insects, and who is known as the Lord of the Flies) or Obox-ob (one of the mightiest demon lords, ruler of poisons and verminous creatures, who was Prince of Demons before Demogorgon, and whose form resembles a cross between a scorpion and millipede).

[RogueJK]

Don't forget the obviously thematically appropriate Invocation: Cloak of Flies.

Unfortunately, no Warlock patron gets insect-specific spells like Insect Swarm or Giant Insect.

Certain Fiends could certainly work with the insect theme. Or the Archfey or Undead Patrons could also be appropriate for an insect-themed Warlock. Archfey if you want to go with the more "friend of insects/nature-ish" path. Undead if you want to go the "swarm of cadaver beetles and flies" route.

[Sorinth]

If you can plan for magic items then a Staff of Swarming Insects would give you access to some of the important insect spells you would otherwise be missing. Going Tome grabbing Shillelagh as one of the cantrips and refluffling Green Flame Blade to be something like fireflies could be ok though you would mostly be a support/utility role.

You could also see if your DM is willing to homebrew the Infestation cantrip to be decent and work with the EB invocations.

[J-H]

Yes. I have one homebrewed, but feel that it needs testing as well. It's pretty heavily influenced by Skitter, from the web serial Worm.


The Swarm patron helps fill in a missing concept from 5e, that of a spellcaster who uses swarms of tiny creatures for area control and attack, rather than strong, obvious minions. Here are some suggested patrons, and what they might want.

Swarm Patron Examples
Type What does it want?
1 Nature/Vermin Deity Respect, fear, worship, shrines in its name. Destruction to its enemies.
2 Vengeful spirit A Worm-that-Walks, vestige, or mostly-forgotten land spirit who wants revenge on those it feels have wronged it.
3 Mad Experimenter What alterations must be made to the mind to enable controlling thousands of creatures?
4 Alien Space Whale To create more conflict and opportunity for chaos.

Swarm Signs
1 You hide useful insects and spiders in your hair, up your sleeves, and in your backpack.
2 Your clothes are woven from spider silk.
3 When you are upset, insects and spiders in the area buzz, hum, circle, and become visibly agitated.
4 You stand oddly still when using your swarm to sense an area. It's easy to tell you're doing something unusual.
5 When you're asleep, your subconscious causes spiders to weave trip-wires nearby to protect you.
6 You refer to yourself as "we" or "us" without thinking about it.

Summon Swarm
1st level Swarm feature
At 1st level, you can magically summon a swarm of flying insects to harass your foes as a bonus action. The swarm can be summoned into an empty area, or into the space of another creature. The swarm lasts for 1 minute, or until you summon another swarm. When summoned into creature’s space, it immediately attacks.

When it attacks, the swarm deals 1d8 piercing damage, halved by a successful Constitution save against your spell save DC.

As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the swarm up to 40 feet and have it attack again. The swarm moves through spaces between its origin and destination point, and grants you blindsense to the 5’x5’ square it occupies while stationary or in transit.

You can summon the swarm a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, with expended uses regained when you complete a Long Rest.

Bonus Cantrip
1st level Swarm feature
Also at 1st level, you learn the Infestation cantrip, but its range is increased from 30’ to 60’.

Expanded Spell List
1st level Swarm feature
You may choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.
Swarm Expanded Spells
Spell Level Spells
1st Detect Poison & Disease, Ray of Sickness
2nd Blur, Locate Object
3rd Clairvoyance, Slow
4th Giant Insect, Locate Creature
5th Contagion, Insect Plague

Swarm Clones
6th level Swarm feature
As an action, you may summon additional three swarms of insects, forming them into three shapes that duplicate your own for up to 10 minutes. You move them with you and have them mimic your action, so it’s impossible to determine which is actually you.
Each time a creature targets you with an attack, roll 1d20 to determine if the attack hits you or a Swarm Clone. If you have three duplicates, you must roll a 6 or higher to change the attack’s target to a duplicate. With two duplicates, you must roll an 8 or higher. With one duplicate, you must roll an 11 or higher. When you create Swarm Clones, you may also use the Cloak of Flies invocation for free, and while Swarm Clones are active, Cloak of Flies deals extra damage equal to your Proficiency Bonus.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest, or unless you expend a warlock spell slot to activate it again.

Lord of Swarms
6th level Swarm feature
At 6st level, you can attempt to take control of a swarm of insects or arachnids that you can sense within 60’. The targeted swarm must make a Wisdom save against your spell save DC. Once dominated, you can use your action to command the swarm. In the absence of a direct command, the swarm will continue following your most recent command to the best of its ability, albeit without intelligence or creativity. You may dominate a number of swarms equal to your proficiency bonus. The duration of the domination effect is 24 hours.

Go for the Eyes
10th level Swarm feature
When you deal damage with an insect swarm (dominated or summoned), Cloak of Flies, Infestation, or Insect Plague, you deal extra piercing or poison damage (your choice) equal to your proficiency bonus. Once per round, you may give up the bonus damage to one target and instead force it to make a Constitution save against your spell save DC or be blinded until the end of your next turn.

Flying Fog
14th level Swarm feature
As an action, you control all insects in the area, bulking out their numbers with magically created duplicates. For the next 10 minutes, a massive swarm of flying and crawling insects spread out in a 60’ radius from your location, moving with you. The area is heavily obscured for creatures other than you, and verbal communication is impossible beyond a 30’ range due to the noise of the swarm. You have blindsight and tremorsense within the swarm. You can open or close gaps or lanes in the swarm on your turn, and can use formations of insects to form arrows or other simple symbols within the swarm to communicate with allies. The flying fog does not interfere with the movement or attacks of your swarm.
You can also cause the insects making up the entire swarm or sections of it to chirp, vibrate, and buzz to replicate your voice. You have advantage on Intimidation checks when using the swarm to speak.
High winds and area of effect damage clear areas of Flying Fog, but cleared areas fill in again at the end of your turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

[RogueJK]

As an alternative to a Warlock, consider a Swarmkeeper Ranger/Druid multiclass.

I have an example build here, using Stars Druid. (But you could do similar with something like an Underdark Land Druid, if you want access to additional thematic spells like Web in place of the second Bonus Action radiant ranged attack.)

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25466930&postcount=1437

Grab WIS-based Chill Touch with your race or background to have a go-to Necrotic cantrip ranged attack to trigger Gathered Swarm. You can either use a MotM Kobold like in that example build, or any other race with a background like the Planescape Evil Gate Warden background or Strixhaven Witherbloom Student background.

A Dhampir Witherbloom Student would be ideal, with permanent Spider Climb, plus access to thematic spells like Chill Touch, Inflict Wounds, Wither and Bloom, and Vampiric Touch, which aren't normally available to Druids. Plus the Witherbloom background also lets you learn a 1st level Wizard spell, so you could grab Find Familiar and have a full time Spider Familiar, without having to burn Wild Shape uses for just a temporary familiar via Wild Companion.


It plays similarly to a Repelling Eldritch Blast Warlock with its ranged attack plus shove effect, especially with Stars Druid for 2x ranged attacks per turn. Your Swarmkeeper swarm could be insects, plus you have access to the usual Druid insect spells like Insect Plague, Conjure Animals, and Giant Insect. Then take additional "dark" Druid spells like Blight, Contagion, etc. And reflavor other spells, like your Mage Hand being your swarm of insects, Fog Cloud being a cloud of tiny flying gnats, Summon Beast being a large misshapen bug, Spike Growth being a writhing mass of biting/stinging arachnids, etc..


The downsides over Warlock are that it takes until a minimum of Level 5 to come fully online (Ranger 3/Druid 2), and you'll be 3 class levels behind in Druid spells known, and 2 levels behind in spell slots. But having played a Swarmkeeper/Stars Druid, I can attest that it's a fun build, especially in Tiers 2 and 3.

[Psyren]

Well, as a reminder, Tashas allows you to retheme any of your spells with nearly any aesthetic you want (TCoE 116, "Personalizing Spells") as long as it doesn't change the spell's mechanical function - the example they gave was a Sorcerer farmer who changed their magic missile to look like chickens. So we have pretty broad license to make pretty much any spell insect-themed even if the spell itself had nothing to do with insects to start with. So a Warlock could make their Eldritch Blast look like giant stingers, their Fly spell cause the party to sprout spectral insect wings, their Arms of Hadar be a writhing nest of worms etc.

[Boci]

Some good ideas here. I had considered fiend, but the spell list felt like it clashed with the idea of a swarm. I dunno, for some reason fluffing burning hands as fire beetles still feels more fire than insect theme-wise, unlike refluffing eldritch blast as homing force beetles, to me at least.

Archfey could work, but not the kind of insect feel I'm going for. Undead is a good choice, I hadn't thought of that. Bane and False Life both lend themselves to an insect-y refluff. And cloak of flies will be a must.

The druid ranger rework is a cool angle, but the pact is important for this character. I could that could be fluffed, you can have a fighter whose martial skills come from a pact after all.

I like the swarm patron. Spell list is good, but might be a bit weak at lower levels. Detect is situational, and Ray of Sickness seems like a weaker 1st level spell, require a hit and failed save for full effect, most spells only require one, and 2d8+poisonosed for 1 round doesn't seem like a payoff worthy of that. I also think Lord of Swarms might be a little too swingy. It seems like a ribbon ability, since its not the only 6th level ability, but unlike most ribbon abilities, it seems incredibly useful when actually relevant, as oppose to just nice. Maybe swarms should only fear you instead?

On a broader note about the warlock, I have thought before about how the fiend patron is too...well, really the fiend theme is too broad to be represented like that. Fathomless, undead and genie are all more coherent, and even then genie is sub-devided into 4. Archfey you can maybe make the same argument, but its hard to imagine a single fey where neither sleep nor fairie fire are on theme. Same with GOO. Sure they can be different in aspect, but mindf***ery likely fits all on the spell front.

Not so with Fiend. Burning Hands and Command seems to be a devil thing, and some devils more than others. I wonder if subdeviding them like Genie could work, but I'm not sure how many you'd want. One for each Devil and Demon Lord is likely too much...