Otherworldly Patrons The Ones Who Hunger Wading into the fray, an eery glow settles in the half-orc's eyes, and with every blow he receives, his tusky smile broadens into a leer as he utters a retaliatory incantation. One morning, the general awoke recalling a strange yet friendly elven woman who appeared to him in a his dreams, listening attentively to his plans for the battle against her people. He never knew that she had in fact been in his room that night. Warlocks sometimes form pacts with rather desperate or "hungry" creatures. In the oft-forgotten corners of the planes dwell those beings whose sustenance comes from the hearts of mortals, especially by feeding on the energy of their emotions. Devourers of Pain, as their name implies, feed solely on suffering, which is found in abundance in the mortal realm. Others, known as Dream Eaters, have found that mortals are most vulnerable when in the throes of sleep, and so enter directly into the minds of their prey. Regardless of their sustenance, the service of a mortal intermediary has proved invaluable to the survival of such beings, who are have been known to offer power in exchange to help ensure their continued existence. Service to the ones who hunger may well be a dark affair, but for those who pursue the pact, the power gained is more than sufficient justification. The Devourer of Pain From the depths of the Shadowfell, your patron is an entity who survives by feeding on the pain of mortals. Perhaps it is a long-forgotten demigod who has turned to such in lieu of his lost worshippers, or perhaps the disembodied soul of an ancient necromancer. Whatever the case, this being desires that pain be offered to it, and its pacts are typically formed with individuals whose lives are troubled and violent, such as mercenaries, underworld thugs, or soldiers. Having accepted such a patron, you gain an other-worldly ability to receive and deal massive amounts of pain, which you may offer to the Devourer. Over time, you may find yourself relishing in both delivering and receiving pain. Devourer of Pain Features Warlock Level Feature lst Expanded Spell List, Arcane Warrior, Send the Pain Below 6th Shared Pain 10th Deeper Hunger 14th Consume Expanded Spell List The Devourer of Pain lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you. Devourer of Pain Expanded Spell List Spell Level Spells 1 Absorb Elements, False Life 2 Aid, Warding Bond 3 Blinding Smite, Life Transference 4 Death Ward, Fire Shield 5 Banishing Smite, Destructive Wave Arcane Warrior Your body can handle more pain than usual. At 1st level, your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level in this class. Additionally, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. Send the Pain Below Beginning at 1st level, your patron bestows on you the ability to share your pain directly with it in exchange for sustaining more damage than your frame would ordinarily allow. On your turn, you may use a bonus action to focus on channeling the damage you recieve directly to your patron. For the duration, you gain resistance against slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing damage for 1 minute or until your concentration is broken (as if you are concentrating on a spell). It ends early if your turn ends and since your last turn you haven’t either taken damage or dealt damage to a hostile creature. You can also end this effect on your turn as a bonus action. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. Shared Pain Starting at 6th level, you may channel the damage that you take to retaliate against your opponent. When an enemy damages you, you may use your reaction to deal an equal amount of damage to the foe who dealt it to you. If multiple sources of damage are dealt simultaneously, only one of them may be applied to that foe. After you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest. Deeper Hunger At 10th level, when you choose to use Send the Pain Below, you no longer lose the effect when you fail to deal or receive damage during the round, you have advantage on your saving throws to maintain the effect, and you may choose an additional type of damage to which you gain resistance. Consume At 14th level, you have earned a share of your patron's ability to feed on the pain of your enemies. As a bonus action, you may bind an creature to yourself. For 1 minute after casting, once per round, you may regain 2d4 hit points when you inflict damage upon that foe. This counts as a curse for the purposes of invocations like Maddening Hex. After you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

The Dream Eater Your patron is a being from the Feywild who visits mortals in their dreams, feeding on the emotions generated during that vulnerable time. Some thrive on terror, assuming the form of their victims' worst fears; others savor romantic desire; some thrive on the unmitigated chaos of the dream state; others seek to extract secrets from their victims' minds which they may leverage for their own benefit. Those who feed on fear or chaos view mortals as food sources only, but those who feed on romantic desire may in fact care for their wards. You were probably approached in a dream yourself, but instead of being manipulated, an offer was made. As you grow, you will journey through the hypnagogic boundary between mind and reality, for purposes of refreshment or espionage, manipulation or assassination. Dream Eater Features Warlock Level Feature lst Expanded Spell List, Dreamwalking, Subtle Strike 6th Restfulness 10th Forceful Psyche 14th Horrific Nightmare Expanded Spell List The Dream Stalker lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you. Dream Eater Expanded Spell List Spell Level Spells 1 Alarm, Sleep 2 Moonbeam, Phantasmal Force 3 Catnap, Phantom Steed 4 Confusion, Phantasmal Killer 5 Modify Memory, Seeming Dreamwalking Starting at first level, your patron bestows upon you the ability to enter into another's dreams. As an action, you touch a sleeping creature and enter their dreams, remaining there for up to 10 minutes or until the creature is awakened. For the duration, your body remains motionless and you are unaware of your surroundings. You may voluntarily leave the dream at any time. As long as you remain in another's dream, you may interact with their subconscious. The DM will describe to you what you witness and you may interact as you desire. The victim is at disadvantage against the following checks: Wisdom (Insight) to uncover their motives or fears, Charisma (Deception) to suggest a falsehood, Charisma (Intimidation) to implant fear, or Charisma (Persuasion) to make a suggestion. You are not able to cast spells while in the dream. Attacks made during the dream do not deal any actual damage; however, the DM may have the dreamer make checks during particularly turbulent moments to see if the dreamer remains asleep. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. Subtle Strike Starting at 1st level, against a single creature who is under an effect which will end when they take damage (as from a spell like sleep or the turned condition from a cleric's channel divinity) or against which they may save when damaged (as from the spell crown of madness), you may choose to apply damage to that creature without ending the effect. If a creature is under multiple such effects, you may choose only one of them which will be affected by this ability. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. Restfulness Starting at 6th level, you gain the ability to bestow greater recovery upon those who rest. If you or any friendly creatures within 30 feet of you regain hit points at the end of a short rest, each of those creatures may also regain a number of hitpoints equal to your warlock level.

Forceful Psyche Starting at 10th level, you are so familiar with the stranger regions of the psyche that your mental abilities are greater even in waking life. You gain resistance to psychic damage, have advantage against spells of the Illusion school, and you may add an additional 1d6 psychic damage when determining the extra damage for a critical hit. Horrific Nightmare Starting at 14th level, you may plunge a creature into a nightmare so vivid that it actually harms them. As an action, choose a creature that you can see within 60 feet of you. It must make a Wisdom saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. The creature automatically fails this save if they were already asleep. On a failed save, it falls asleep as if by the sleep spell, and remains asleep for 1 minute or until your concentration is broken (as if you are concentrating on a spell). While asleep, the creature takes 1d10 psychic damage at the conclusion of each of your turns. The creature is awakened only if you lose your concentration, a remove curse spell is cast upon them, or if they take any damage other than the psychic damage from the nightmare. You must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again. Eldritch Invocations Drawn to Blood Prerequisite: Devourer of Pain patron When a creature within 60 feet of you takes damage, you may use your reaction to move 15 feet towards them without triggering an attack of opportunity. Eldritch Dreamshaping Prerequisite: Dream Eater patron When you use your Dreamwalking feature to enter a dream, you may cast spells to influence the dream or the dreamer. Spells cast may not deal any damage and must be of the schools either of Enchantment or Illusion. The victim has disadvantage on all saving throws against the effects of these spells. Lithe Flesh You gain proficiency in the Sleight of Hand and Stealth skills. Shared Dream Entry Prerequisite: Dream Eater patron; Pact of the Chain feature When you use your Dreamwalking feature to enter a dream, you may take your familiar with you into the dream. The victim has disadvantage against the influence of the familiar as well, for the same checks. Notes for Players and DMs For the Devourer of Pain Character Creation This class is uniquely designed to be played as a full-caster tank, with the possibility of great battlefied control or damage absorption. Spells like Armor of Agathys and Hellish Rebuke may become quite important to you, especially because they establish you as the kind who actually desires to be hit, while spells like Enthrall or Aid allow you to help the rest of the party. As a result, you will probably be somewhat multi-attribute dependant. Because Con is fairly important to this character, you will probably have to choose between Str for melee damage, Dex for AC, or Cha for offensive spell efficacy. This is not unintentional: it would be overpowered if all these roles where equally available to the same character, so choices must be made. The Pacts You may desire to choose some unique traits to embody their patron. Here are a few ideas that might set you apart from other warlocks: Pact Eccentricities d6 Eccentricity 1 You blood turns into smoke and disappears when you bleed. 2 You periodically inflict pain upon yourself as an offering to the patron. 3 At random times, you feel inexplicably hungry. Food does not satiate the hunger. 4 You smile and laugh during combat, especially when receiving injuries. 5 You believe that pain is a good thing and sometimes try to convince others of this. 6 You rarely allow yourself to be completely healed. As a tank, melee is probably going to be central to your role. A sacrificial Pact of the Blade makes a lot of sense for this character. For a more strategic tank style, the cantrips granted by the Pact of the Tome may be extremely usefull to you. Obviously, Eldritch Blast with its invocations can be remarkably effective, however, especially for the cantrips like Ray of Frost and Thorn Whip affect movement, Shocking Grasp can change the action economy of a foe, and there are many other equally useful cantrips

The use of a familiar is probably a bit less useful for you, but if you desire one, an appropriate form will depend upon your patron. Talk with your DM about this. Reskinning the existing ones to have a darker or more skeletal feel may be suitable; alternatively creating something new like a shadow hound or some such may also fit. Creating the Patron The Devourer of Pain may seem a bit abstract. A fallen ancient demigod or disembodied lich-soul make sense as patrons, although there are others. If you and your DM decide that the patron is a weakened ancient demigod struggling for survival, an easy way to create this patron is to search for gods from other editions of DnD or Pathfinder which do not currently exist in the campaign's pantheon (hint: there are tons of them) and craft a story about the downfall of the god through loss of worshippers, expulsion from the pantheon, etc. An interesting twist is if the god was originally good-aligned but, out of desperation, has fallen to such depths as consuming pain and forming pacts with mortals to survive. Regardless of type, the motives of such a patron may range from simple hunger and desire to survive to a complex bid for greater power. The patron may desire to feed on the pain caused by a war or may be attempting to begin a war in an attempt to make or appease allies. It may desire to feed on the pain of ever greater creatures like demons or fey, or even to consume a certain powerful entity down the line to gain its powers. For the Dream Eater The Pacts For a night-bound assassin, the Pact of the Blade pairs powerfully with Subtle Strike. The fey familiars are most appropriate to you if you take the Pact of the Chain. The Sprite's ability to read emotions pairs well with your psyche-oriented flavor. There is nothing especially unique for you if you take the Pact of the Book, although the Speak with Animals ritual might make the dreams of beasts a bit more accessible to you, and the Minor Illusion cantrip could be useful when Dreamwalking. Dreamwalking The usefulness of an ability like Dreamwalking is contingent upon your creativity and the opportunities that the DM presents. Due to their personal or unpredictable nature, dreams present unique opportunities for psychological elements or strange impromptu storytelling. Some DMs may be comfortable with this, others may not. It is probably best to discuss your expectations for a Dream Eater with your DM to make sure you're on the same page. That said, it is also quite possible to play the Dream Eater without ever actually using the Dreamwalking feature, as it's a ribbon, not a rock. Obviously, there are interesting opportunities for trying to manipulate others, for example, through the implantation of ideas (someone should totally make a movie about that). Other ways of using the dream state are to stalk creatures (perhaps foes of your patron) through dream-worlds, as a means of oracle or foreshadowing, and, of course, for the sake of humor. Dream Creation Help For the DM: in case you need some help creating dreams either on the fly or in advance, you may use the following table as a basis for a few different dream types. Roll a d12 (or a d10 if you prefer not to introduce erotic elements) to find common dream types/emotions elicited. Considering each of these in turn also a good exercise to better understand the characters you create. Dream Table D12 Emotion Dream Type 1 Bizarre Roll on this table 4 times, combining elements from each result 2 Fear Fleeing 3 Fear Falling 4 Fear/Sorrow Childhood trauma 5 Sorrow Loss of loved one or possessions 6 Anger Unable to accomplish task 7 Embarrassment Naked in public 8 Mundane Events of the previous day 9 Happiness Flying 10 Happiness Deepest desire fulfilled 11 Erotic Unattractive/bizarre/embarrassing circumstances 12 Erotic Genuine attraction