What are some notable Warlocks (not wizards) in Fiction be it videogames, books, television shows or whatever

What are some notable Warlocks (not wizards) in Fiction be it videogames, books, television shows or whatever

Amon Jerro was pretty cool, but I think he was also a wizard initially and his build was mediocre? IDK.

Can you define what you mean by warlock? Because it seems some settings just use it as another word for wizard, or wizard (male).

Lets go with the D&D definition where the magic user gets his power from making pacts with dark or eldritch powers

King Solomon

OG Bible Warlock. He had djinn, angels, and demons at his command. His legend was the basis for D&D Pact Magic which more or less got rolled into Warlocks.

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Gul'Dan from Warcraft, Lelouch from Code Geass?

Pacts with eldritch powers, you say?

How about the original Dealmaker, Faust himself?

Shaman King's Faust was good too though.

Holy shit

All the magical girls from madoka magica are liches with warlock levels instead of wizard levels.

I think he was a warlock all the way through. Been like, 10 years since I've played NWN2 though

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Are you implying that there are magical girls that aren't warlocks?

King Arthur Pendragon.

Hexblade from Unearthed Arcana, Excalibur is the pact weapon. He obtained it by entering into a pact with Vivian, the Lady of the Lake, by promising her to unite all of Albion.

While we're at it, Lancelot du Lac as well. Abducted by faeries when he was small and raised in their alien world and alien morality, it wouldn't surprise me he'd follow in his nemesis Arthur's stead as an entrant in a Fey Pact.

How about real life?
My mother as she mediate this world and the spirit world with whatever she does in her stuff. She is in general America term a shaman/druid. But it more of Sorcerer stuff as she inherent her ability and anyone of my siblings must inherit it if she were to die. Goodnight and good luck guessing my tradition if you want to. She also made a pact to help the world turn into better place. She got asked by dragon in human form to help too. If you reject the power, just endure the curse until you die or accept it. If it true, the more sibling I have the greater the chance of it not being me.

what the fuck

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Jonathan Strange is basically a sorcerer-turned-warlock.

Elric of Melnibonè, got you there bro

Wouldn't most Shin Megami Tensei protagonists qualify as warlocks?

Undertale is basically a Veeky Forums. There are a lot of talking parts and it's not really murderhoboing, so the FALSE ending applies here. Frisk is like a witchalock (penny arcade HEYO!) that gains power from the suffering of her enemies >:)

this show is dope

Schizophrenia is familial. Looks like you both got it.

>Best theme plays internally.

>Not warlock

He made a pact with satan and other demons for immortality and warp powers and you literally spend the entire quest fulfilling his contract so his soul can be collected. How is he not a warlock?

warlock is just the male word for witch which in turns come from witchcraft, now, originally witchcraft was catchall term to describe any kind of sorcery but most post-christian interpretations especifically allude specifically to sorcerers who get their powers through pacts with paranormal entities

So basically any evil cleric? Cus I got fuckloads of those.

the "monsters" from undertale were pretty much fey dont they?, I see a lot of parallelisms

No, a cleric is someone who worsips a deity and gets powers through faith, hes on wildly different terms with the deity than a warlock is with his patron

think of it this way:

gods: rock stars
clerics: fans

patrons: garage band
warlocks: groupies

There will be a grey area bnetween them however. If the nature of the relationship is the only difference between them it will be difficult.

In a ritual a man swears loyalty to a supernatural being of godlike powers, in return he gains tremendous powers.

Is the difference only in that a warlock has written up a contract? Or is it that a warlock has sold something to the entity?

Id say that yes, the difference is mostly in the relationship

a cleric has a distant but deeply spiritual meaningful connection with a deity, a warlock has a personal but dubious one with the patron

if a cleric attained such a direct connection to a deity hed gain too much power to be called a cleric anymore, hed become a saint, similarily if a warlock was bound to an entity as powerful to rival the gods he would be too powerful to be called just a warlock anymore

the one example I often see that blurs the line are warlocks who are bound to powerful but distant alien entities, their relationship is more close to that of a cleric and a god, but since those entities are technically not gods and the powers that gets to them is not dependent on faith they are not regarded as clerics, they are more likely to be called cultists

I think you hit it for the most part. I'd also say that a warlock isn't really bound by the morals of his patron usually, though I suppose if they had a good patron they might be. Though warlock patrons are almost always evil or neutral.

to expand, you could also theoretically become a cleric that worships a minor supernatural entity, but since its not a god is pointless, its highly unlikely that one would be unable to harness its power with such a weak bond

yes, usually through fiction the binding to a demon, fey, etc. has more to do with converging interests than an profundly ideal or moral reason

theoretically there should be also warlocks with good patrons such as angels but its rare for a writer to depict angels as willing to share their power with meddling mortals rather than focusing in serving the good deities, same thign goes for lawful entities

Good call, I didn't think of these two at all. The warlock whose patron is in it for shits and giggles.

Plenty of wizards and witches from any old generic fantasy fall under that definition.

In fact I think it's safe to say that MOST big bad magic guys in fantasy media are drawing power from some big evil force.

You'd better kill them all to make sure you get it.

But no, seriously, if you're serious and reading this, please call a psychiatrist right now.

Warlock comes from the old english waerloga, which means oathbreaker. It has no etymylogical relation to witch.

If it's just a question of scale then they're essentially the same kind of caster. Yet a cleric gains divine power that can be lost, while a warlock gains arcane power that stays permanently.
How do you explain this disparity?

The warlock makes a deal which is often immediately fulfilled; e.g. if they trade their soul away for power, the deal is done. They're not going to lose their power, they've already paid their side of the bargain.

Clerics are empowered to enforce the deity's will/ideals and spread worship, if they stop doing this the deity will revoke their power.

What's the difference in bestowal that allows a god to revoke power but not a patron? Why wouldn't patrons offer godlike bestowals to make sure their interests are met and they don't end up cheated, or is every patron only after souls?

Presumably the contract is binding in some way otherwise being a warlock would be a terrible idea. The patron is also presumably satisfied with the deal as stated.

Also, patrons are pretty much always less powerful than deities, so they have to offer more favorable terms or few would be interested in making such bargains. Warlocks don't have the sort of built-in loyalty/admiration for their patron as clerics do with their deity. Sure the patron may be scheming to fuck you over in a subtle way but if it were just an obviously terrible bargain the warlock wouldn't agree to it.

So the warlock/patron relationship is always adversarial?

Not adversarial necessarily, but usually not benevolent. Depends on how adversarial you think a business deal is, or a purchase. Both sides are solely looking out for themselves, but that doesn't mean the deal can't be mutually beneficial. When I buy groceries I am evaluating the price and deciding if it's worth it, and the store is setting the price at a point they believe is worth it.

Evil patrons are common and are certainly more likely to try and fuck over the warlock, but there's no reason a deal with a lawful evil entity couldn't be cordial. Terms are set, deal is made, everyone is satisfied and the devil has no particular reason to antagonize you after the fact.

As adversarial as any business venture. Personal feeling towards one another don't affect the bottom line, most of the time. Thing is, a deal's a deal, and a magical one is more so.

Sure you may like the other guy, but this is about you and your livelihood first and foremost. If they have to take the fall for you to keep rising then well that's the way she goes.

Spending to rent vs buying to own.

The proper word for male witch is "witch"

Gul'Dan. He's everything you would expect out of a warlock: power hungry, selfish. Not needlessly evil and willing to play nice if it is to his benefit, not out of any moral sense, but because he doesn't like wasting reagents when they could be used for more productive ventures. Cheats when he can get away with it, fitting the original definition of the term, and is just as willing to brute force things if it means minimizing the amount of time he has to bargain with the setting's equivalent of hell.

Dies to a balrog because he ran out of reagents and got himself lost in the tomb of a corrupted world shaper who was acting as his patron, seeking out additional power or something so he wasn't the beta of the pairing. His skull is removed and carried around the world like Flat Stanley until it comes across an elven demon hunter who consumes its power and further carries it around until he's beaten down by a warden and her mercs, who proceed to use it for a bit before selling it to a random food vender after extracting all use from it.

Apparently an alternate universe version of him has been dumped into the modern Warcraft setting that is from the past before he died to said balrog and now he has another shot at gaining power with some insight on what not to do, deciding to give the demons a solid rather than try and doublecross them like alternate him and gives them another shot at invading the world. Gets killed by murderhobos for his troubles, but at least this time he gets to keep his skull!

The funny thing about saints is that even commoners with crappy stats can become one without warning so long as they're sufficiently pious. Clearly the gods have weird priorities that they would rather promote non-holies over their veteran paladins, clerics, and crusaders, but I guess it also increases the net amount of holies they've got access to: after all, a cleric is already holy, but a clerk promoted to a saint is in essence taking a patron that is mechanically useless and making them somewhat useful?

I'm also a fan of Gul'dan though I wish his motivations had been fleshed out more. He doesn't seem to particularly care about ruling the world or anything, or care at all about how the world ends up, just acquiring power to its own end. What's his end goal? High level Legion "demon prince"? It never felt like he actually cared about the Legion's goals, just saw them as a way of elevating himself.

Gul'dan is also interesting because he's more of a typical D&D warlock, where most warlocks in Azeroth steal power and enslave weaker demons instead of making bargains. I've always liked the Warcraft take on warlocks personally, makes them capable of being heroes or villains and makes it actually a logical (if risky) choice for someone seeking more power, rather than a short-sighted deal that is bound to fuck you over eventually.

If it's a clean one time transaction how will it fuck you over

Dishonored is shit

Warlocks are clearly inspired by Faust, and their personal stories usually end in them regretting what they've traded off, particularly if it's something like their soul. Or alternatively, they are swindled somehow in the wording of their contract. Of course there are exceptions but warlocks are usually about short-term gain and long-term loss.

Huh, nice to see someone else has watched this. It's pretty great.

Do devils have any interest in material currency? I'm trying to make a warlock who didn't just trade his soul away like usual, but also isn't bound to the goals of his evil patron (want to play a LN). Could he simply have agreed to some absurd amount of money, with interest, that he'd have to work off?

Flavor-wise, he was initially a court wizard in Neverwinter. His warlockery was a result of desperate pacts he made while seeking to oppose the King of Shadows, I think.

For sufficiently extravagant value of "absurd", probably. Anything powerful enough to make someone into a warlock is almost certainly powerful enough that mere gold holds little interest to them. But little interest is not the same as no interest, since if nothing else, they can always channel the money into other schemes taking place in the mortal world. And if nothing else, there's always Mammon and his servants...

And hey, if it looks like "working it off" isn't going to work out, the devil can always offer another deal to shave something off of the debt...

Aren't Warlocks just glorified Clerics?

Do the Ghost Riders count?

Nah. Clerics get their power as reward for their good behavior, warlocks have bought it as a business transaction (like selling their soul f.ex.)

Warlocks are guaranteed their powers by a binding contract, as long as they keep their side of the deal. Clerics are subject to the whims of their gods.

The opposite if anything. They're dimestore clerics with less power and less responsibility. They don't even have to like their patrons.

>Gets killed by murderhobos for his troubles, but at least this time he gets to keep his skull!
Illidan crushed it to dust to help make his dramatic speech. I thought for sure he was gonna use it to gain a second power up but he didn't.

Gul'dan is the shit though. Shame he got shoved into the corpse of modern WoW just to sell another expansion but he was still based.

>He made a pact with satan and other demons for immortality and warp powers
I thought he just made the pact to get what he want, but taught himself magic and such to get to that point.

Cyber Warlocks are best warlocks.

Explain this to me please

What os a cyberwarlock? How does it works/gain power? Etc

>i can out-smart a being that has been alive for a time i cannot even comprehend with powers tantamount to divinity

Are you interested in real estate at all, because I've got a bridge to sell.

Basically, Saren got his powers from/was being manipulated by sci-fi robo Cthulu.
It's fluffed as psychic powers, but it's pretty much space magic.

Most are either Paladins or Bards if musical.

Madoka is explicitely Contract-based.

>True patricians ITT

Nah its more like:

Gods: Music Producers
Avatars of the Gods: Rock Stars

Clerics: Music Promoters/Club Owners
Paladins:Security/Club Bouncers

Warlocks:Manufactured Boybands

Nah they are physically possesed racers/stuntmen, containing a hellish spirit that they can transform into and use the powers of.

Saren was cybernetically enhanced by Sovereign, sure, but also partially brainwashed.
He wasn't biotic, so he didn't have any powers.

Really? Oh.
It's been a while since played that game.

>Sauron
>Morgoth

Look at the book series The Immortal Nicolas Flammel
Everybody there is technically a warlock, with most of their power coming from eldar "gods"

Demi-bro would be the best SMT example, I think.

>get his powers from the dark dimension
does he count?

Did he make a contract with said dark dimension, and has access to its power only because said dark dimension allows him to? Then yes.
Does he study said dark dimension and use his intellect to control said dark dimension as a non-sentient neutral force? Then no, he's a wizard.

The analogy I use is that a patron/deity is like a sports team.

Warlocks are the players, bound by a contract to render services in exchange for payment

Clerics are like the hardcore fans, they support the team through thick and thin, they encourage others to support their chosen team and in exchange they get various bonuses and goodies through their membership

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Feels good to know there are other people that appreciate a good storie.

Star pacts can be made with nonsapient entities (at least to our recognition), and they're not wizards.

It's not just in the relationship but also in the powers themselves.

A cleric worships a deity, which along with all their others followers gives the deity power and influence, and in return for carrying out the god's will the cleric is granted a small portion of power by their God as long as they remain within their good graces.

Pact magic is different. It's a much more intimate bond than anything a cleric has with their deity, and isn't something that can be taken away like a god's favor. Your patron grants you power and knowledge in return for whatever bargain that''s been struck and that's that, it's not like a Warlock can "fall" like a paladin or cleric. The danger isn't losing your connection to some distant god, the danger is pissing off your patron or breaking the terms of the bargain such that they cease to become distant and come visit you in person to take what is owed them.

This cuts both ways, however. As long as the contract is followed in good faith, the petitioner has essentially free reign. A patron can't just change his mind and renege or decide that he doesn't like what you're doing with the power granted the way a divine source can. This also depends on the specific patron a good deal, but there's a few general varieties.

A demon or devil is likely to be hands off with the belief that the power and secrets they share alone are enough to corrupt the warlock, with maybe the occasional nudge towards darkness. If the warlock wants a favor he can expect it will come at a cost of unsavory deeds.

Fae are fickle and work on inhuman timescales, so securing a pact alone is probably going to be more effort than a devil. Fae will demand that you be entertaining if nothing else, so while you may not be pushed towards evil that doesn't mean they won't expect you to make trouble. Amoral versus immoral, but that can still lead to doing stuff you'd rather not. Any additional favors you want are going to require dealing with faerie courts.

This thread disappoints me.