D&D 5E Warlock as divine offspring?

[Quartz]

My thinking exactly. A divine scion wouldn't get their magic by making a pact; they'd be born with it.

I initially thought of Sorcerer but I think Warlock is actually the more flexible fit thanks to the invocations. For example, Devil's Sight and Whispers of the Grave would be good fits for a scion of Hades or Persephone, Beast Speech a good fit for a scion of Pan, Master of Myriad Forms for a scion of Zeus, and Thirsting Blade for a scion of Ares or Athene.

 

[steeldragons]

My problem with this is that Warlocks, practically by definition, are dealing in pacts with non-divine beings. A "Celestial Pact" Warlock (though straining plausibility, for me/my game world) fits. A "Divine Pact" Warlock is just that one step, flavor wise, too far...or maybe "too close" to Cleric for my liking.

As for the Sorcerer option...this just falls under the "family ancestry" we have been given in the Draconic Sorcerer. We don't acutally need Elemental Ancestry, Genie Ancestry, Divine Ancestry all as separate sub-classes...Just take the dragon sorcerer and swap out other powers of similar potency at the appropriate levels that, flavorwise, fit whatever your ancestry of choice is. We have the "Innate Magic/Powers from Ancestry" sorcerer already.

Then we have the "Innate Magic/Powers from the Random/Raw/Chaos of Magic"...still a fluke of birth, but with a different angle than "Grandpa got down with <insert magical being here>." If we see a new sorcerer, I suspect/would like it to be the Psychic/Psion: "Innate Magic/Powers from the Mind"...again, innate, again, a fluke of birth, but again, the basis of the power is not just "Great Grandmama was a Djinn/Storm Giant/Elf Uber-Wizard/Sylph/Gold Dragon."...unless, of course, that's what the player wants as flavor part of their back story but it isn't really the base of their power.

...I seem to have gotten myself on a tangent here...but, yeah, the Divine Warlock isn't really an archetype I could see myself (or many plaers) accepting except/unless it is within a given setting consistency. Not a universal one, though.

 

[Charles Wright]

I think that the fluff of them being scions of gods isn't needed. I would personally go with a pact that was forced upon the character. Perhaps it's not uncommon for parents to make this type of pact with a god, promising their first-born (or next-born) child in service to a divine being.

 

[Riley37]

You could reskin the Fey Pact as being descended from a deity of love, romance, hate etc.

A traveller encounters a lord of the Seelie Court. The traveller enters a romantic union, marries the lord, and says "I do", swearing to cherish, honor and obey. The marriage oath, in this case, is also a warlock pact, because the fey lord's magical power rubs off (so to speak) on the mortal. (See also: Polgara and Durnik in the Belgariad.) Having stumbled into this pact, the mortal joins the Seelie Court ("thy people shall be my people", as Ruth said), follows its rules and becomes one of its defenders, possibly risking their life to fend off Unseelie attacks... while also insatiably seeking to know the husband/patron/lord and his ways ever better.

(This was written as background for a LG Warlock, not as a 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey.)

The traveller then conceives a child, who grows up in the Seelie Court, inheriting the pact.

If the fey lord in question is Corellon Larethian, then that child grows up as a half-divine-elf warlock.

(Though did Corellon or the traveller bear the child? Do elven pregnancies take 9 months? But that's a different question.)

 

[Engilbrand]

As with many others, I love the idea of new things for any of the classes. I could see either the Sorcerer or the Warlock.
My thoughts on divine descended: Aasimar. I'm running an Eberron game right now. Radiant Idols (Fallen Angels) pretend godhood. I'm thinking about an Aasimar Cleric or Paladin who follows his "godly" parent's orders. I would love to play such a character, too. I could see an Idol of Life or War siring a Paladin. An Idol of Trickery or Death, though, might very well create sire an Aasimar, then make a Pact for power.

 

[MarkB]

50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey.

Well, that image isn't going away anytime soon.

 

[BryonD]

Chain pact warlock with celestial sprite that looks like a miniature angel.

So you're saying Peter Pan is Jesus?
I'm confused.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I like the OP's idea as both a warlock or sorceror. Nice work.

 

[Ahrimon]

I haven't played on in any addition, but I would not be against new sorcerer bloodlines in any way. I do think the warlock would be a better class model for a divine heritage, especially one as diverse as the Greek pantheon. The warlock pact is just fluff anyway, same as the sorcerer bloodline. It's the warlock class mechanics that fit better in my opinion.

 

[Paraxis]

An Empyrean(Titan) would be good celestial warlock patron. They run the gambit of alignments, are themselves not deities who would fluff wise have clerics, and are more powerful than most other things in the world including Solars and Pit Fiends.

Spawn of titans is common in a lot of stories, adding that to D&D via warlock pacts seems like a good fit, sorcerer too.