You know the drill by now, I'm examining my Heroes By Hearthlight playbooks by looking at my personal history with them and then re-examining their moves.
Man I fucking HATE warlocks.
They got introduced back in 4E when I was starting and so when I look back on how I felt about them I have to realize that it was the reaction of the other, experienced players at my table.
When 4E was introduced it shoved two classics from the line-up: Half-Orcs and Sorcerers. In their place we got Warlocks and Tieflings. And... I have never been a fan of tieflings. They were always a little too cool and pretty, the mainstream edgy option, as though an entire species had been created by Hot Topic. Also as a disabled, queer, neurodivergent freak of nature I always related easier to half-orcs as the monstrous race that serves a metaphor. I'm a big dude and people tend to look at me and see a capacity for violence no matter how I try and present myself. And tieflings and warlocks are so intertwined as the iconic example of the class I wonder how much my distaste for one went to the other...
The other thing is the name. I fucking HATE the name. In D&D a warlock is someone who made a pact with an eldritch being in exchange for power, its the villainous version of a cleric. You have made a covenant with a thing but the thing you are tied to is dark and twisted. But they are a class that is literally defined by their oath to another power. And the word Warlock literally means "oath-breaker". It is the exact OPPOSITE of the theming, it makes me so mad because warlock would have been such a better term for a fallen paladin than blackguard or antipaladin.
But then there's also the fact that 4E, for the fact that its practically a video game system, did not have any rules about oaths/pacts and breaking them. You had a patron but they didn't really need to come up at all. In my head a cleric's god is on high giving powers to all that ask for it and serve them- they are vastly powerful but at a remove, the work the cleric does in their name empowers them and in turn they empower the cleric. But with how nebulous a warlock's patron can be the question comes... what is the patron getting from them? They arent given a code of conduct like a paladin. Is it their soul? Like that could work but then there's no way a warlock could be resurrected without their patron allowing it and why would they once they've claimed their prize. Instead, there's no mechanical levers here, the expectation is put fully at the table. But this also means that unlike a paladin there's no "hey here's what happens if you break your bond", it is assumed a warlock can't.
So when I was first working on Heroes by Hearthlight I was just gonna fucking skip the Warlock. It's my game, I am making it, I can do as I like. But for mathematical reasons 12 playbooks worked cleaner. The game also originally started as an april fool's joke. I don't think I've mentioned that yet. I was originally joking with friends about the impulse of D&D players to try and turn every new system they come into contact with into D&D. When Blades in the Dark first came out there were a few different games flirting with that notion. So I thought it would be funny to do a dumb parody of the idea. So I thought I'll keep the Warlock in and just skewer them. But as I worked on the game, it stopped being a joke. I started working on the design and said "shit there's something here". This became even clearer in playtesting as I saw players who had left D&D and the like behind for indie games realizing they could recapture that magic without all the bullshit. So warlock sat on the back burner forever, it was one of the last classes I worked on.
And then one day I had a realization and everything clicked together: The warlock is a fucking bastard. Just the worst person you know. And I can write a bastard. I finished the entire playbook in an hour or two. It also the only playbook that contains only moves I created. The Warlock is my baby, the most proud I am of a playbook and the most popular class at the table so far.
But before we jump into mechanics I want to touch on one more thing, why is it still called the warlock? I had zero issue changing Barbarian to Berserker, the latter fits the playbook better and has less baggage(we'll talk about this more later). So how can the pact-bound warlock be the oathbreaker, how do I make that work? The other part of Heroes by Hearthlight, outside adventuring, is downtime in the settlement. You work on improving the town and the people in it, which in turn makes the heroes stronger and able to do more. Like the cleric and their god, its a positive feedback loop. We have an unspoken covenant with the people we form a community with- that we will look out for each other, that we will sacrifice for the communal good, that we will not break the other's trust. This is the covenant the warlock has broken- the bonds of community, and for lack of a better term, humanity. They have sought powers beyond mortal scope in order to enrich only themselves. Warlock patrons are monsters, they are the sort of things that need to be slain in order to protect those you care about... and instead you made a deal with them. This is what makes you a Warlock.
Surprising absolutely no one, the Warlock's power is BLAST. Each charge spent boosts the effect of a spell's damage, and you can spend multiple uses on a single attack. Rather than having eldritch blast be the Warlock's go-to spell, it has become a force multiplier that can be added to any spell they cast. Let your player's go off about how Blast changes the look and feel of their magic as they add it to a fireball, it's great. And while +damage might not seem the biggest power, the fact that it can stack means that the Warlock can do more damage than anyone else in the game with a single attack. I'll show you what I mean but first I need to explain-
BLOOD MAGIC lets you take harm to increase the effect on an attack equal to the level of harm. Take a level 1 harm and do +1 tick to an enemy's clock, and so on. It's worth noting this is specifically attack and not spell, any class can get into some forbidden blood magic to boost their shit. Anyways lets do some math.
3 ticks Great Effect
+1 tick for pushing yourself(2 stress)
+4 ticks for 4 charges of Blast
+4 ticks for taking level 4 lethal harm
That's 12 harm on a single attack not worrying about whether your crit or not. A 12 clock is, by standard rules, the largest clock in the game- and this will let you fucking one shot it. You will notice this includes level 4 harm, and yes, you can kill yourself with this attack to deal +4 damage with an attack. This is also an incredible ability for the Paladin to take since they could spend Smite to stay up for the rest of the adventure- Paladin/Warlock also is a great way to play the fallen Paladin archetype in this game.
So two big powerful damaging abilities which can lead to the possibility of turning your PC into a nuke. This is the kind of fucked up power I want to see a Warlock throwing around.
DARK ONE'S BLESSING is directly translated over from D&D. When something dies in your presence, clear 1 stress. I love this because it enforces the warlock as creepy ass mage obsessed with death and pushes them towards murder. But also as they broke their covenant I specifically did not give the Warlock any abilities affecting downtime. Blessing gives them a way to relieve stress on an adventure and potentially free up downtime actions for things other than indulging their vice.
Oh, I got so excited about big numbers I didn't talk about it alternate use. DOMINATE lets you spend a charge to seize the mind of a creature and make it perform one action. You have to spend more charges to affect higher tier foes. This is like the Bard's suggestion move from charm person on steroids. Instead of planting a suggestion they will follow you are directly seizing control and making them do something. Again, you cannot get someone to kill themselves with this move but you can force them into horrific peril. I am a little concerned about overlap between those two moves but I think there's enough give between hypnotic suggestion and full mind control to let them both exist as are for the moment.
SPEAK WITH DEAD lets you gather information from a corpse but it can only be used on a particular body once. This move was originally a cleric move but I realized it was a lot more fun and creepy with the warlock. All gather information is a fortune roll so this can't go bad but it does mean that you might only get one question and the information won't be great. But again its giving the Warlock another tool in their belt and something no one else can do.
THIEF OF ALWAYS allows you to try and steal a thought, desire, or wish from a helpless or unaware victim. I think this came about because the Warlock's stats wound up being +2 Bluff/+1 Thievery and that worked well for the image in my head of warlock where they are grasping for power but they needed a move to mechanize that. Thief lets them try and steal directly from someone's head. I make it clear that this isn't safe by any means as you are entering unfamiliar territory but it once again lets the warlock move in ways other do not. During playtesting I had a player fail this roll and their patron devoured the npc's personality- taking too much. Love this move, warlock fucking rock.
HELLFIRE is your push ability and lets you either coat a weapon in dark flames or ignite the blood of a wounded being. The first half of this is just cool villain shit but will also let you make a weapon that can potentially clear weakness and vulnerabilities. The other half is just pure cruelty- use it to stun a wounded enemy, to torture them for information, etc. As a reminder you get these for free when you push, so they will just happen. While most moves underline the warlock as a bastard, this shows how malicious they can be. Also I can't I got away with the Adam-X reference here.
SUMMON MONSTER also danced around between a few playbooks I think but Warlock was definitely gonna have the most fun describing fucked up critters to summon. Mechanically you are summoning an expert hireling to aid you- it costs 1 stress to cast and then you must spend an additional stress for each that's true: it won't bear a grudge, it can take more than one hit, it will last past the scene. I think this is an example of PbtA design slipping into FitD that I enjoy where a move is asking you to make choices and every option repercussions. You can max this out easily enough, spend 4 stress and get a loyal, tough, servant who is gonna stick with you for the adventure. But that's about half your stress right there, so you will wind up making sacrifices. My only thought here is that I might increase the initial cost to 2 stress. I think getting to summon an expert, even if just for a scene, should not be cheaper than pushing yourself.
Finally, we have what is my playtester's favorite move, ALTERING THE DEAL. When you make a devil's bargain you gain potency as well as +1d. Narratively this makes a lot of sense because the warlock knows how to get better deals from devils, but it also paints their Patron as the one who makes devil's bargains at the table. And whenever the player makes one, the GM gets to make a move for free- its great. There's a second half to this move that started as a joke (like this entire rpg): if you ever roll three 6s on a devil's bargain- someone in the scene dies. Your patron just fucking claims them. Then the next game I ran the warlock immediately got 666 and we all took that as an omen that the rule belong in the game. I am somewhat tempted to remove the aspect that the 666 has to be on a devil's bargain, and just make it a quirk the Warlock now has to deal with.
Yeah, I'll probably make that change. On 3d6, you've only got a .46% chance of having this come up, and high level play can wind up increasing those odds with bigger dice pools. But I want the warlock to be fucking sweating if they are ever rolling a large handful of dice, I want them to feel their patron's breath on their necks.
So that's the Warlock. Not a lot of changes, but I wasn't expecting that. I am still proud of this one and I can tell its great because I was jumping all over the sheet going oh man which move do I wanna talk about next. And that's the goal with a playbook, to have players be in the candy store unsure of what to get next because everything is SO GOOD. I am working on another FitD game slowly and my goal is to go off like this with each playbook.
Before I go into my comic recommendations, I wanna shout out the Junk Mage from Heart as being another excellent example of this kind of class. Now onto despicable spellcasters.
Hellblazer - I mean come on, it had to be fucking Constantine. John is such a fuck-up, surrounded by the ghosts of those he's killed and making deals with devils to try and escape worse deals with other devils. This is a character with a long history and lots of comics to read. I'd honestly avoid most of his team stuff because, as he's a DC character with some popularity he can weirdly wind up in the league of capes and the Justice League, but he works best in the shadows. However, my pull is going to be Si Spurrier's latest run. It's a great self-contained series with a few issues that genuinely haunt me (the fucking mermaid).
Damn Them All - Okay, this feels like cheating. This is essentially just Spurrier's series about Constantine's fuckup niece, but with all the serial numbers filed off. However, I can't in good conscious leave this book out. Our fuckup warlock moonlights with the mob when suddenly all of the demons in hell have been released and bound to coins like demonic pokemon. Anyone can get their hands on one of these fuckers and have them as their slave. This one is still ongoing and trust me it's worth checking out for how they render demons alone.
Fuck this is just two Si books for the warlock... this would be like if I only suggested Brubaker for rogues. I need to think of something else... oh wait, yeah
Jujutsu Kaisen - Yep, I'm recommending one of the most popular shounen manga. There's a long history of possessed protagonists channeling a patron's power. But there's a reason this book is here instead of Naruto. This isn't a case where the patron is a misunderstood villain, our hero is bound to a being who revels in cruelty and is as powerful as an apocalypse. Anytime, he is able to slip the leash it's an "oh, fuck" moment that radically shifts the course of the series. Great fucking source material if you want to give your Warlock a patron who may very well wind up as your big bad. Also, while I am giving comic recommendations here you are missing out if you aren't also checking out the anime.