#class: warlock

[ridaine]

Of Power and Poison

[OC]

[ember-firebender]

[sunderwight]

Random thought but:

Those wide-brimmed pointy hats that witches and wizards are often depicted wearing are for traveling, right? That's what the brim is for, to protect from the sun and other elements. But the pointy part is probably ceremonial -- historically speaking most conical hats are often worn by priests or nobility to signify rank or role.

But sometimes in fantasy settings, wizard hats don't have the brim. But witches almost never lose the brim.

This indicates to me a shared origin between wizards and witches as traveling practitioners of magic. Which makes sense! If you only get a few magical people in a community, either because magical talent is rare or because it takes a lot of study to pick it up or both, then most magically inclined people would probably be in high demand. Which would mean that there was a lot of call for them to travel around and provide their services to place too poor or remote or unlucky to have their own resident magical practitioner.

But gradually, a divide begins to occur. Formally educated magical users are of course most commonly found in cosmopolitan regions (big cities) and can afford to stay in one place for a lot longer. Perhaps even exclusively, if the community is large enough to support them! So as more great cities establish themselves and also establish things like larger and better-funded academic institutions, a class of non-wandering magic user begins to grow. This group, i.e. wizards, signal their greater access to formal education and to wealthy patrons by dropping the brim from their hats. They keep the conical shape and height, to denote status and rank, but they get all bougie about the brim. Other attempts to flaunt success among wizards emphasize the lack of need to travel for work, such as building magnificent magical towers, positioning themselves in the courts of nobility, or building entire academic institutions dedicated to the study of the arcane arts.

Meanwhile rural communities still require the services of magically inclined people, but can no longer afford to entice wizards away from their status-defining sedentary lifestyle. Thus another class of magic user (witches) begins to define itself by their continued existence and work outside of major population centers. Since witches still travel and live in the countryside, their hats keep the brim, because they still need it to protect them from the elements.

This also explains the gender differential. While magical talent probably doesn't operate on the basis of gender, classism sure does. Girls born into wealthier families are often slated for marriage alliances and encouraged to treat formal education as an opportunity for husband-hunting, rather than actually becoming adept in or engaging with the professional use of magic itself. Which doesn't mean that none of them do it anyway, but there's probably a more marked difference between women who become wizards and men who do. Especially as wizards become more preoccupied with social status, and thus more likely to gate off access to certain levels of education, so that only either the extremely wealthy or the extremely talented can get at them. If a girl's family doesn't want to go to all the trouble of paying for a full education or compelling a skilled teacher to take her on, her options for pursuing it on her own are probably quite limited.

Meanwhile out in the sticks, magic users are such rarities that gatekeeping on the basis of gender is frankly too impractical, especially considering the degree of utility magic has for saving lives and livelihoods. It's just not that feasible to give a shit about the gender of the spellcaster who is saving your entire sheep flock from a bad case of bluetongue, or holding up a barrier that's keeping a recent landslide from burying your house, or getting the ghosts out of a local well that you'd really love to be able to actually use.

So over time witches become associated with women, even though it's more that they've got a 50/50 split whereas wizards heavily favor men. In the way of things, this actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy over time, because men who develop magical aptitude see witchery as "women's work" and are more likely to try and save up and move to the city to learn "real" magic, or else try and differentiate themselves from female witches by creating their own distinctions between what they do and what women spellcasters do, carving out particular areas of focus to be the masculine fields of magic.

This would probably create even more distinct classes of magical users -- the male witches who still do the usual magic work in rural regions but don't like to be called witches, and so do something else to distinguish themselves in an equivalent of stamping a No Girls Allowed sign on their door (warlocks?), who probably still keep the wide brim on their hats but perhaps ditch the pointy part in a middle finger to the elitism of wizards (and also to ensure they're less likely to be mistaken for witches), and the magically talented people who make their way from the country to the nearest cities to try and join the wizard class. Though this group is more likely to struggle due to a lack of social or financial clout, and probably has to depend way more on having enough sheer natural talent to draw the eye of a benefactor (sorcerers?). Most of them would be men too, because of increasing social attitudes that men were just better at this "type" of magic would mean that women would have a harder time getting backing, but there would probably be some who were ambitious enough to nevertheless go for it and then end up in a related-but-still-gendered category of their own (sorceresses?).

Because classism, it seems likely that these underdog country-to-city spellcasters (probably also joining in with impoverished but talented locals to the metropolitan areas too) don't get the pointy hats unless they manage to actually succeed in being absorbed by wizard establishments, but also don't keep the brimmed hats because those are associated with being a bumpkin. They're hat-less, or else wear a completely different style. They probably also get a bit of a shady reputation because there are a lot of predatory institutions that scoop up magically talented individuals who don't know how to navigate the relevant social institutions, and then basically embroil them in debt or whatnot in order to exploit whatever magical talent they have for whatever profits are to be gained.

Of course you probably also have the opposite class of people, i.e. formally trained magic users who decide that trying to rub elbows with kings and rich people is stupid, and take their training to go off and save villages from mudslides and such instead. They're basically witches again but with a fancier pedigree, but of course coming from the outside of it they lack the community knowledge to navigate regions as well and also now there's this split from the Boy Witches Who Won't Be Called Witches, and probably what counts as Girl Magic gets very regional, so what jobs you do or how you go about casting spells has an irregular impact on what the locals will call you if you aren't a woman. If you're a woman you can probably take the witch label without as much issue. But since the fellas started as wizards, then, they more likely still call themselves wizards in the face of all this, but the big city wizards do NOT want to be associated with them (unless they do something really impressive that they can share credit for), so there has to be a new category for them (hedge wizards?) to differentiate from proper wizards. Anyway they wear the big brimmed hats again, because that's just practical. Whether they wear tall ones or not probably varies between individual and regional implications about it.

So. Yeah. Magic user hat politics, with bonus gender nonsense.

[kaiserouo]

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don't know what these white balls do but they sure look cool

[incorrect-dnd-classes]

Bard: How did you get Rogue to co-operate with you? Warlock: I threatened to reveal their dark secret. Bard: Which is what? Warlock: I have no idea, I was bluffing, but it must be something horrible.

[dndclassesquotes]

[thefirstknife]

So Saint has new voice lines in Trials at the start of the match, based on your class. The audio is currently bugged so you can't hear them, but if you have subtitles on, you will see the text. And some of them are absolutely amazing. He's super serious for Titans, but for Hunters and Warlocks...

I'm crying laughing. I need the audio to get fixed so I can actually hear him say this. He's so confused about Hunters, paired will with one of the idle lines he has in the Hangar if you're a Hunter where he says "Good luck stealing, or whatever it is you Hunters do."

I love this one. I love when Saint is being obviously gay while he's calling a pvp match.

This is absolutely incredible. I love Saint. Please fix the audio, Bungie.

[whatisamildopinion]

thinking about Aasimar au warlock Kristen again (wow what a series of words lmao) so have some more silly thoughts about it:

- when Kristen first multiclasses Fig says "don't worry, I got you, I know a lady" and drags them both to see Zara. Zara looks at these two (Kristen, literally about to vibrate out of existence with excitement and happiness, Riz, looking like he's five seconds away from hyperventilating to death) and is like "oh this one's gonna be interesting"

- Zara Sool takes one look at this poor rogue-paladin-patron who looks like he's gonna have a mental breakdown, but deep in his heart trusts Kristen enough to dedicate his love and his time and his magic and his oath and his goddamn soul to this girl (warlock relationships are about exchange, after all, even if he doesn't know that yet. Kristen isn't the only one who's handed away her soul to safer hands with this) and says ">:) I'm gonna trick this boy into talking about his feelings." the following conversation goes pretty much like this:

Zara: look it's really safer for Kristen herself if you tell her what's going on with yourself emotionally, otherwise you might make a faulty contract, which will put her soul in danger.

passive investigation of 21 Riz: >:((( you're trying to guilt trip me

Zara: yeah, is it working????

Riz: ..............maybe

- following Zara's intervention, Riz and Kristen sit down and have a real conversation about their fears and their struggles and the things they want from their lives. Riz admits that he's scared that none of them will stay together after high school and that's why he's pushing so hard to keep them together. Kristen tells him that, yeah, she can't guarantee what will happen after high school, but that they're all prepared to work to keep their friendships, and that she in particular is gonna make sure she's always always friends with him. Kristen talks about the specific things she's been struggling with between school and her religion and they make a plan to help her and also actually talk to Jawbone and Sandra Lynn because Jesus this girl needs help. so after this conversation they make the most detailed fucking contract that has ever been (Riz's anxiety goes crazy) and they show up back to warlock class like "is this good?" and present Zara with an absolute mess of a document that is overflowing with footnotes and sticky notes and annotations and is written in this unholy mess of common-goblin-celestial-rogue cipher, but she kinda quizzes them on it, and lo and behold, they have it fucking memorized

- Riz is still pretty worried so Zara fully enlists her paramour to come down and talk him into being a little bit calmer. Zara and her paramour think this is the cutest thing ever.

- Zara tells Riz he can audit warlock class if he's still nervous about it but he's like "fuck no, if I'm taking a class I am damn well gonna get credit for it" and gets his mcat signed to do three classes. Fig-Kristen-Riz are the terrors of the warlock class but also the best students Zara has ever had. everyone both loves and hates them in there (but mostly loves. they're just too cool)

-after The Conversation, Kristen drags Riz to have another Conversation with the rest of the bad kids, and they echo all her sentiments about staying friends even if they go their separate ways after high school (except Adaine and Riz, who nail down that at least they are gonna go to college together). so even though it feels super unnatural, Riz kind of takes a breath like a whole half a year early. he stops pushing them so hard to perform academically, but the rest of them finally understand why he was doing that, and also understand the consequences of the party failing a little more. so they're all just trying their best, but more organically

- Kristen is technically borrowing from Riz's well of power, and he's not like, a full angel or anything (yet) but magic is a muscle. the more you use it, the stronger it gets. and again, warlock relationships are about exchange. so what happens is that as soon as Kristen starts using her warlock magic routinely, Riz finds that his smites are getting more powerful??? his radiant soul damage is increasing???? he suddenly has access to spell slots he shouldn't??? turns out, power borrowed is power returned, and while his power base is incredible, Kristen is a much more accomplished spellcaster than he is, so she exercises his magic more effectively than he does, and he starts getting more powerful as she gets more comfortable in her powers

-Riz can feel whenever Kristen is using her warlock powers. sometimes she'll start eldritch blasting shit for fun along with fig and five minutes later her crystal will start blowing up like "kristen what are your doing that requires eldritch blast every ten seconds" and then she has to admit that she and fig were seeing who could eldritch blast tin cans off the roof of mordred better

-Riz's wings kind of start to, for lack of a better word, calcify? like, they're still intangible, but they start sticking around even when he's not in radiant soul form. just two ghostly, intangible wings always hanging out, and they only start to really glow when he actually turns on Radiant Soul. he has a flying speed now. he's also frantically researching whether or not its possible for aasimar to start organically rising to angelhood because THIS ISN'T NORMAL, KRISTEN STOP TRYING TO GRAB THEM! (everyone else is so enamoured with his wings. he starts using them like his tail to wrap around people and even though they're intangible everyone swears up and down that they feel cooler and calmer and safer when wrapped up in a Riz wing)

-Kristen and Riz start to more or less have the same magical signature because they're sharing so much power. a side effect of this is that if Kristen is in the room, and Riz is stealthing, even casting something like Detect Evil and Good won't give him away, because his aura is so much like Kristen's and vice versa. they abuse this relentlessly to get Clues. kristen is team distraction and riz is team extraction

-at some point Adaine approaches the two of them like "hey all this stuff that's happening is totally fascinating, can I write a research paper about it?"

"sure," says Riz, "but only if you list us as co-contributors for college credit and stuff"

"well, duh," responds Adaine, and the three of them proceed to make the most detailed paper the world has ever seen about the magical and physical effects of a patron-warlock relationship between two mortals. it comes out sometime in their senior year and the magical research community loses their shit

-Kristen gets up to second level warlock in junior year, and her eldritch invocations are Eldritch Mind and Eyes of the Rune Keeper. the first time she realizes she can just read every single language her friends speak she cries. also she's sooooo scary now. she can hold two concentrations at once AND has advantage on concentration checks. terrifying.

-soooo many prospective warlock students start approaching riz and fig for warlock powers. they didn't know you could just ask normal students!!! (riz and fig are not normal students but that is beside the point.) fig thinks it is amusing. riz thinks it is stressful. kristen thinks it is fucking stupid, like, it's not like he's gonna share, no, I'm not jealous, what are you talking about? at one point it gets so frustrating for riz that he gets up on a table in the middle of the lunch period and shouts "blanket statement for everyone who is not in my party, NO I WILL NOT BE YOUR PATRON, STOP ASKING!!!" the bad kids think it's the funniest thing, but they're also being hella protective of riz and fig. everyone stop BOTHERING them, no they're NOT interested in being your patron!! the number of physical fights that they've all gotten in because of this, in order of least to most, is riz (2, on behalf of fig), kristen (3, on behalf of riz), fig (5, on behalf of riz), fabian (7, on behalf of both), gorgug (8, on behalf of both), and adaine (14, on behalf of both). after about a month everyone has mostly taken the hint

-kristen develops a terrible habit of just. hexing anyone who even remotely annoys her. you were breathing too obnoxiously in class today? blocked hexed. you said something mildly shitty about one of her friends? hexed. aelwyn took the last bagel at breakfast and she really wanted it? hexed. she's experiencing the newfound freedom of being a hater. riz is texting her like "kristen why are you hexing someone at nine in the morning" and she's like "I am experiencing little sister rage for the first time in my life, leave me alone"

-Buddy Dawn does not know what the fuck to make of Kristen's warlock multiclass. she makes him fully bluescreen. Bobby Dawn and Kipperlilly, on the other hand, are absolutely incandescent with rage. they're gonna die mad about it.

-on the other end of the spectrum, Kristen and Riz break Bucky's brain open. he speedruns the emotional crisis that Kristen had freshman year when he Divine Senses their magical connection and nearly cries because he can feel this absolutely overwhelming love. he never knew anyone else could love kristen than fiercely. nothing that full of love could ever be bad

-ooouuuuuugggghhhhh there comes a terrible scene between riz and cassandra where she is like "she believes in you more than me" and riz has to be like "maybe. but that doesn't mean she doesn't believe in you. kristen has enough faith to go around. and so do I. I'm still counting on you too." it's about sharing the most important person in your life. self-recognition through the other (bittersweet). "I see why she loves you so much" says cassandra, and for the first time riz doesn't sort of still feel the nightmare king beneath her, and for the first time she feels him as someone to exist alongside without competing with. and riz, who is kind of sort of maybe ascending to angelhood, is not really becoming an angel of cassandra's pantheon, but he's also not not becoming that

-just. augh. kristen and riz are literally so sickeningly happy as patron and warlock. absolutely attached at the hip. best friends of all time. saint kristen applebees and her own personal guardian angel. they make me ill

anyway that is all, thank you for coming to my TED talk

[galacticsabc]

Self care is realizing you can do whatever the fuck with you art skills, even make the tropiest, most self indulgent character design ever.

Is he just another swashbucklin' rogue with gumption? yeah. Is he cool? fuck yeah.

[tyiart]

dnd class stickers are now available for grab ⚔️💜

[ouidasart]

oc art doesnt get any traction on here but yall look at my dnd character again. hes small and last session tried in vain to stop our grave cleric from digging up a body

[ncat]

The Conduit

So heres the conduit! I'm very happy with how this turned out.

The conduit as a class is best described as a "Con Based Martial with spellcaster aesthetics", since, mechanically, it fills a martial role, being a class that doesnt use resources, with a primary party focus on dealing damage, while flavor wise, it goes around slinging blasts of energy at people.

This class mechanically is very much based on the warlock of 3rd edition, with flavour and some mechanical inspiration from the Kineticist of Pathfinder 2e.

The two core design elements that I tried to stick to with making this were 1. Being resourceless and 2. Customizability.

For the first point, none of the class features are limited in uses per day. No feature adds an additional resource for the player to track, nor uses spell slots nor etc. The closest it comes to a resource is its Exertion mechanic, where certain things tire out your conduit character. Though, this serves less as a resource, and more as a temporary debuff, reducing your damage output whilst its in effect, before being easily removed.

The second point is customizability. The first element of this is subclasses. Of course, theres the variety of subclasses to pick from, but notably, is that unlike other classes, you aren't bound to picking just one subclass. From 7th level onwards, whenever you reach your subclass feature level, you can choose to continue advancing in your subclass, or you can take the initial features of a different subclass. This means while you can do a more traditional route of going "I'm the lightning guy, I'm taking lightning every level", you can also do an avatar style "Master of 4 elements" and have 4 different subclasses by level 20. Mix and match them as you like, be the "Fire and Lightning" person, be the "I control water mostly, but also a little bit of ice", combine your elements and so forth.

The next part of customizability is in talents. Talents are very much your classic invocation style feature, of which there are... like. 60 of them at this point. But! Theres a lot of variety in what they do. While you have your choices of ones that give additional powers, like flight or teleportation or whatnot, a large bulk of them are dedicated to one thing: Reshaping your elemental blast. Go out there as a fire guy and blast people with fire, then turn around and literally explode everything around you in flames, then focus your blast into a roaring line of fire that pushes everything within it towards you, and then rush the last man standing with a spear made of literal fire.

The talents are designed around not just being able to reshape and modify your blast in a bunch of different ways, but you can combine them together and do cool stuff.

Because at its core, I wanted to design this class to fill a very specific style of fantasy, and thats of the type of magic you see in some settings where its just "I control this one element", and then from that the mage turns that into a billion different things.

A fire wizard will say "I can cast fire bolt, fire ball, and scorching ray". A fire conduit instead just has an elemental blast, but they can turn that elemental blast into a bolt that is hurled at one person, or have it explode into a ball of flame, or split it into multiple beams.

Its very much a creativity first subclass, and thats whats behind its capstone! The capstone is all of this at its epitomy, the ability to freely reshape your elemental power (By freely, temporarily learning talents) into whatever form you imagine.

Hell, customizability is built even into the very core of its flavour

Yeah <3

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this class as much as I enjoyed writing it and as much as I enjoy talking about it <3

[curse-d-owl]

Dominic:

- Has a heroes relic that deals magic damage based on their magic stat

- Has a crest that give them a chance to conserve magic uses

- You can wield weapons barring gauntlets in a mage class

- Isn't in a magic class that takes advantage of his crest

- Isn't in a magical class that trains his magic stat

- Has the lowest magic stat out of all the 10 elites, including Goneril, a pure physical unit

Is he stupid?

[cosmos-fudge]

mmmmmm. Jon, Martin, Nastya, Jayce, and Viktor all end up in the same somewhere else.

that somewhere else?

being teachers/assistants at Aguefort Adventuring Academy

[kaiserouo]

moderately sized ghost

[incorrect-dnd-classes]

Warlock: I have witnessed unspeakable horrors. The horrors weren't undescribable or anything, I just had to sign an NDA.