A Group of Warlocks is Called a Cult

Salutations nerds! We’re going to be talking about warlocks in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons today, so take a moment to get yourself into the head space of quiet meetings in out of the way places, dark cloaks and the smell of burning wax and dust amid ancient books and forbidden knowledge. Some 5E D&D warlocks are big deal spellcasters working at the right hands of their patron and some are cultists working for scraps of power. Some are genuinely friends with the entity bestowing their magic.

Demonic cultists as seen in the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

What makes warlocks so mysterious in 5E D&D?

Let’s look at the word warlock and where it comes from for a moment. From the Gaelic root words waer, meaning oath or promise, and lac meaning bound. Okay, in the interest of disclosure it could also come from the word loga meaning liar or breaker. So warlock — oathbound or oathbreaker?

It sounds to me like one of those things is a bit of a smear campaign.

Your warlock is a man with an agenda. The thing is, the agenda isn’t all his. Maybe something happened to him to make him seek out a higher power to help him get his revenge, or maybe he’s just ambitious and doesn’t have a particular problem with doing the bidding of another entity. Maybe he’s a true believer and plans to open the eyes of the world.

I know what some of you might be thinking. Warlocks. They get their power from another source. They’re just borrowing magic. Whose power fantasy is borrowing a resource and doing things for someone else? Can’t I get that applying at the local Speedymart?

But warlocks have something other classes don’t, and that’s a direct connection with something larger than themselves. Probably planar. Definitely a being of extreme power if it has enough to spare as much as they have for warlocks. And how cool is that? Hell yeah I want to be able to say I’ve got the ear of the Queen of Air and Darkness, wouldn’t you?

There’s something kind of heroic about the idea of giving your oath. In fact, all the paladin subclasses are Sacred Oaths! In no other situation is this kind of dedication frowned upon, so why should it be for a warlock?

Personally, I’d want to be my boss’s favorite. There can be some real appeal to being a teacher’s pet, after all, especially when teacher is in charge of a chunk of one of the Hells. And has a personal stake in whether or not I come out of this fiasco we’ve inevitably gotten ourselves into okay.

The allure of the secret cult

The caveat here is all the warlocks in the group have the same Otherworldly Patron or group of patrons, right? This is a recipe for some awesome intrigue nonsense.

The Cult of Rakdos from the Ravnica setting is actually a really good example of both a warlock cult and a bard troupe. I feel like most cults probably aren’t that boisterous or open about their operations, but you’ve got a large group of people drawing power from the big demon boss, and trying to impress senpai. Think of all the backstabbery that can happen in a situation like that! And where there is backstabbery, people are going to want informants and people are going to want saboteurs.

I think there’s probably a reason the Dark Brotherhood of Skyrim was made with a deity at their center. Doing the bidding of a being of extreme power gives your cult of murderers an air of legitimacy that simply killing for money does not.

What the cult can do for your players

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess if you’re a Dungeon Master and you’re reading this, you have probably used cultists as villains at some point. If not, you’re in for a real treat. If so, I’m going to try to inspire you to feel like doing so again is worth another pass.

Most groups won’t fight you down to the last man, but cultists have the capacity to be incredibly zealous about their cause to the point of willingly sacrificing life and limb for it. They’re nothing if not dedicated.

It’s possible not all of the cultists are warlocks. In fact, I’d bet probably most of them are not. The title of warlock is likely a prestigious one. Oathbound, remember? Your cult’s warlocks are the ones you’re going to want to flesh out. Why did their being of extreme power pick them to share power with? What makes them trusted? Cared for? Loved? Worthy?

I suppose these answers depend on the being in question. You’re going to want to figure out what this thing is and why what it wants, and what your party wants, clash badly enough to get them fussing with one another.

A fiend would look for someone savvy who can get around the way demons and devils tend to work and probably isn’t afraid to get their hands bloody. The Archfey is probably the most likely to actually have a fondness for their warlocks; there are hundreds of stories in folklore about the fey carrying off humans to their hollow hills out of some kind of fondness for them, after all.

Consider what your patron wants, and then you’ll know what they would look for in their warlocks. Consider how many warlocks they would keep; sharing power is likely to diminish them somewhat, but if they have plenty, they could have dozens without taxing themselves. If this is a slightly lesser patron, they might keep two or three very close warlocks, and in that case each one will have a lot of pull with the boss. The Frost King is one such entity, who bestows power to only seven warlocks at a time.

Do you have any interesting warlock stories? Gotten into some fuss with your unfriendly neighborhood cultists? Tell me about it in the comments below. And of course, stay nerdy!