Jamie's Patron/Pact
I've been secretive about who Jamie's patron is and what their pact mandates because it's a spoiler for my in-progress longfic, but if anyone actually wants to know, details are below the cut 👀
I'm writing a series of one-shots, some of which are in Jamie's POV so will reference their patron, and those will def come out before the reveal™️ so I wanted to post about this before I start publishing those~
(also I needed to just finally write this all out in one place for myself too)
It's Mephistopheles.
AND I HAVE SO MANY PLANS TO TORMENT JAMIE AND ASTARION ABOUT IT.
tl;dr: Blood sorcerer Jamie got their innate magic boosted by Mephistopheles, archdevil and progenitor of vampires. They're now a sorcerer/warlock with extra vitality and powerful spells. Meph also facilitated their gender transition as part of the pact boon. In exchange, Jamie must kill any vampire Mephistopheles tells them to and he may control/manipulate their thoughts, emotions, or body as he sees fit in service of that goal. But he's been abusing his power over Jamie, so they turned to drugs and alcohol to keep him out of their mind. He now wants them to kill the Absolute as a fuck-you to the Dead Three because he himself is trying to become a dark god. Jamie's powers are currently limited as punishment for failing Meph's orders in the recent past.
Aaaand here are all the details in case you have one million hours of free time!
CWs for these mentioned themes: thought/memory fuckery, possession/body horror-y stuff, drugs/alcohol, past captivity/medical experimentation, lots of blood
My adjustments to Mephistopheles
In addition to being an archdevil, he's also a vampire — the first vampire, in fact, the progenitor of vampirism. He became a devil during a failed attempt to ascend to vampiric godhood thousands of years ago. Though he's undead, infernal, and can't walk in the sun, he now enjoys more power than a vampire lord and more power than an archdevil. A win, really.
Most vampire lords have that ambition in common, that desire to be something greater. A spawn aspires to be a lord, and a lord by nature can never be satisfied once they have achieved that. So lords get creative. Those lords then often answer to Mephistopheles, who wants to keep vampires, his children, at a lower status than his own. If that gets too difficult, he wants them destroyed so he can absorb their power and add to his own.
Mephistopheles is still chasing his own dream of ascension. He aims to become the God of Blood.
He wants to surpass the dark gods Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul, who he sees as selling themselves short: why be the lord of murder, tyranny, or bones when one could be the lord of blood? All living things, and many dead ones, have blood. Family, life, death, all are connected by blood. The god of blood is the god of all that is or will be.
That's his endgame re: the Absolute; he wants it vanquished because the Dead Three must be defeated for him to rise. He knows the Absolute plot from the start and sends Jamie to end it.
I shifted my lore a little again after reading Astarion's Book of Hungers, which I know is controversial but I really liked the retcon that Cazador worships Mephistopheles. Meph always has two Chosens: a vampire and a mortal. Cazador Szarr and Jamie Cross are his current Chosens, helping him to achieve godhood, but they don't know about the other. That's gonna be fun to discover in the dungeon 🙃
Pact details
Mephistopheles smelled Jamie's magic blood all the way from Cania the first time they ever bled. He kept an eye on them as they grew up and started casting with their innate magic. Blood sorcerers were fairly rare and exciting to him, but still, not all of them were of value. But when Jamie was dying in the cult of Talona during an escape attempt gone terribly wrong, he saw just how potent their magic was and realized what a waste it would be for them to die before he got his hands on it. He made a rare trip to the Material Plane and enhanced Jamie's existing blood magic on the spot.
That extra energy saved their life, gave them the power to kill their captors, and let them escape the cult. In fact, they got to leave Melvaunt entirely! For the first time, they learned that food literally grows on trees, that the sun feels nice when it can touch your skin without fighting through a sea of smog, that fresh water feels better in your body than polluted sludge...
Mephistopheles can't function on the the Material Plane for long (it's too gods-damned bright and warm), so having a mortal warlock and a Material-dwelling vampire to do his dirty work is necessary. He revealed himself and pitched a warlock pact while Jamie was reveling in the new, free world. Jamie refused until Mephistopheles pressed into their mind and learned what they really wanted: he offered to rebuild their body to be more masculine/androgynous, too. That changed their mind. Now they've transitioned and gained incredible blood abilities.
But of course, there's a cost.
The rules:
Jamie is not supposed to feed, befriend, or sleep with a vampire, much less fall in love with one. (This is not the primary part of their pact but I put it first because. I mean. oops lol)
Jamie's main powers: ability to manipulate their own blood into objects/weapons that do additional magic damage, ability to cast blood spells and turn their blood into other substances or damage types while casting, 13x the life essence of a normal half-elf's blood (granting them insane vitality and constitution but also making them extra delicious and nourishing to vampires), cannot be Turned by a vampire besides Meph, superior darkvision
In exchange, Mephistopheles can send Jamie out on missions anytime he wants. Those missions are almost exclusively vampire hunting: Jamie has to find and kill any vampire lord who crosses Mephistopheles, who aspires to usurp or betray him, or who just gets too big for their britches in any kind of power grab (vampires are territorial and Meph is no exception lol).
If Jamie tries to ignore or delay an order, Mephistopheles can possess them and force them to do it. Jamie's thoughts, feelings, and personality disappear entirely and they'll have a choppy recollection of the events at best once Meph relinquishes them. Or, he could just make them bleed Tarantino-style from any/every orifice, stop their heart, kill them, Turn them... he's got options.
Mephistopheles can also: read Jamie's thoughts and memories in real time, implant thoughts and emotions into Jamie's head (so Jamie can't tell if it's their own or not), remove other emotions/memories, shapeshift Jamie's body at will, other vampiric things
He plans to Turn Jamie once Jamie turns 33. Jamie doesn't know this.
Although this sounds adversarial, they actually have a decent but complicated relationship. Mephistopheles sees the value in Jamie and Jamie sees the value in the pact; they usually do what he asks and he usually doesn't do his worst to them. Sometimes, he'll even delete a bad memory Jamie asks him to, or he'll remind them of important things by implanting useful thoughts.
At first, Jamie finds him annoying but not abusive or threatening. Mephistopheles kind of considers Jamie his favorite child or an extension of himself. The thought implantation and spying gets to them, though, over time—and Mephistopheles quickly begins making Jamie do things they feel less comfortable with than taking out power-hungry vampire lords, rooting through their head at all hours, implanting thoughts or disabling emotions to cause chaos and violence, and interfering with what they do/how they spend their time. That was not part of the agreement — Jamie was meant to live their life how they wanted except for when Mephistopheles called upon them. He used more and more of his power over them, but they learn that when they're high enough, he can't get into their mind. Now they spend as much time as possible intoxicated. The tadpole also blocks Mephistopheles from entering their thoughts.
How it affects the party
For most of the adventure, Jamie can't share who their patron is or reveal the details of their pact (much like Wyll!). That's not actually part of their pact but a temporary limitation Mephistopheles has imposed at this point because he's angry with them. Recently, Jamie got so high that they failed a job killing a vampire lord in Cormyr. Meph had to appear and save Jamie from death. He then possessed Jamie's body for thirteen months—more than a year of their life gone. Some of the memories and experiences are coming back to them throughout the adventure, slowly and in broken pieces. Many of them are horrifying.
As punishment, Jamie can't say his name or use much of the power he gave them until someone else says Mephistopheles' name in their presence. They're nerfed in combat, but not useless at all. Nobody is going to guess correctly (and Jamie can't give hints) because a warlock pact with Mephistopheles is super rare, super risky, and not generally something a good-aligned half-elf would do.
Party members are frustrated and/or just super curious about Jamie's patron. It's also wild to them that Jamie keeps grumbling about not having their full powers right now when they're already so strong. What are they when they do have full powers??
Astarion is aware that Jamie's blood is special, but because he hasn't drunk the blood of thinking creatures before he isn't actually clear on how much different it is to normal people's. The smell is intense and incredible, and he's definitely smelled other people's blood so he knows Jamie's smells tastier, but he doesn't understand why. When he actually drinks it, he's overwhelmed by how much stronger he feels, but he chalks that up to having been starving. He doesn't realize how powerful Jamie's blood is and they can't tell him for some time.
Jamie has common experiences with Astarion (vampiric master although Meph is way less abusive), Shadowheart (complicated memory fuckery), Wyll (warlock and sort-of monster hunter), and Karlach (fighting battles they don't want to fight). You might also argue their time in Talona's cult is similar to Shadowheart/Shar and Lae'zel/Vlaakith and Minthara/Absolute but Jamie wasn't actually a believer at any point. But because of their current punishment, they can't really talk about those similarities. They also have... interesting... dynamics with Raphael and Cazador we'll explore later.
OKAY THERE IT IS YAY
if you read this thank u I love u <3
