@yfere don’t mind if i do!!
i started out wanting to make a party for a bunch of college kids, aka: a game someone could feasibly miss out on occasionally or do homework during
so i came up with the warlock competition!!everyone starts with four levels of another class and one level of warlock, with their patron undecided. they arrive at a big mountain city built entirely around this yearly competition called bitter’s nest, where the hotels and shops are all subsisting on the tourism and give discounts to contestants
during the three days before the first round, everyone is basically racing to court the patron they’re most interested in and to find a partner for the first round. if you succesfully court a patron, they’ll sponsor you for the round and you get their subclass/some potential additional benefits like items. there’s a patron for each warlock subclass:
- insfvel: the archfey and encumbent. they’re tall and spidery and strangely colorless for an archfey, and their skin seems to shift between blue-white and pale pink. their champion won last year, but something went wrong and they seem especially distant and cold towards contestants this year. they have a big snake with iridescent scales they keep coiled around their neck. (they/he)
-adsteris: the fiend. they look most like a red tiefling, and have huge curly ram-style horns with a bunch of gold bands they tend to give as gifts to champions. they have big wings and a tail they lash around when they’re anxious, and as written in my notes, “big cat vibes. has been known to chatter at birds.” (they/he)
-ælthow: the celestial and current host. they’re bald, dark skinned with little white flecks that look like stars and blank white eyes. when they make public appearances, they’re always wearing the same tuxedo. incredibly nervous to be hosting the game this year and feels really separated from the other patrons, determined to do a good job but so anxious they almost ruin it anyway. (they/them)
-diane: the hexblade. appears as a beautiful woman with long wavy brown hair, always holding a wine glass and inexplicably wearing heels no matter the outfit. has been alive and a wine aunt for so long it’s essentially impossible for her to get drunk, often hosts all the patrons at her home (and loves the attention of having contestants try to win her favor). when a champion of hers wins, she changes her symbol to their favored weapon, and will always tell the story of her favorite champion, who won with a sling, if you let her. (she/her)
-iblis: the undying. the newest patron, recently completed the process of becoming a lich. appears as a young girl with gray skin and long messy hair braided with dried flowers. the most taciturn, she’s native to the city and lives in her family’s manor in the graveyard, tending to their catacombs underneath the house. does not take kindly to trespassers. (she/her)
-lillyg: the lurker in the deep. a robed figure with a hood obscuring their face except for a single glowing yellow eye and what look like catfish whiskers. one of the oldest patrons, lives in a house built like a simple white cube with a rooftop aquatic garden, where water spills over the sides into a moat around the property full of very creepy-looking fish. best friends with the great old one, mother. (they/he)
-mother: the great old one and oldest patron. appears as an elderly woman with dark, red-tinted skin and frizzy white hair, wearing loose, draping clothing and carrying a staff. very maternal towards some of the other patrons, but mostly spends time with lillyg. (she/her)
-??????? ?????: stories tell of another patron— the true patron of the city itself, but it’s a secret only the city’s warforged and constructs seem to know, and to guard carefully. records of mysterious interference in competition events date back decades. there’s a small, often empty temple on the city’s lowest level, containing a strange statue facing the far wall.
for the first round of competition the contestants are paired off for two fights, against both of the monsters given to their patrons as a gift by another patron. depending on their success, they win a certain amount of money and can choose to level up in either their major class or to stay with their current patron and take another level in warlock.
each monster can serve as a clue for the relationship between patrons, and very serendipitously, one group was both the celestial and the fiend, and the celestial’s monster was a gift for the fiend. i read a letter from each patron to the next after the fight.
the benefits of staying with a certain patron stack with each round, but having a certain patron will have specific advantages and disadvantages in different events. contestants can also change partners in between rounds.
it’s working out really well so far, and i think everyone’s been enjoying it!! each fight is only two people and me, so there’s a lot of downtime to do homework and just watch someone else get their ass kicked by a giant magic flying snake or a goliath called the executioner or a magnetic marsh that erodes your armor and weapons and makes its own weapons out of the particles.
