The D&D universe is vast with countless worlds and unlimited possibilities. Giant complex machines already exist in many of these settings. But consider this. At some point, somebody built a great machine that was so complex that it gained sentience. Not magical intelligence like a golem, nor like creatures that have been awakened with a spell, but with mechanical intelligence. What this machine looks like can vary, depending on your world. For example, it could be a computer controlling an atmosphere processing plant in the next world over from your setting, seeking to expand its influence. Or it could be a machine that has transcended reality and exists partly in another plane, building pieces of itself on many different worlds, as dictated by its unfathomable needs. Lastly, your campaign might be a MMO that the players are trapped in. This Warlock patron could represent a error in flagging your character has received, giving you some admin powers over the simulation run amok.
Whatever form this computer takes, it has chosen you as a vessel for some of its power. How it has given you power can take many different forms. Perhaps the machine can tap into the magic of your world and assign you powers from it. Or if the machine exists partly on a higher plane, it can alter your reality and have your powers manifest suddenly. Or your body can be host to a swarm of nanites, and they can manipulate matter and energy in a way that appears like magic. Whatever the case, you are the machine’s hands and eyes on your world, the analog interface to its machine intelligence. What it’s up to, it’s hard to figure. Perhaps it’s using you to explore a world, or it wants to torture you, or it’s using you to set up a vast complex plan, or maybe, it’s all of the above.
Otherworldly Patron: The Machine
Your patron is a mysterious entity and the nature of its intelligence is incomprehensible to you. You might be aware that your patron is a machine of some sort. It may be a remnant of the ancients with some unknowable function. Or it might exist slightly out of phase with reality, and it has been watching over the planet for an unknowable amount of time. Regardless, this machine briefly became aware of your existence and has imbued you with powers. Your ongoing relationship is just as mysterious. You’re not sure if your entire purpose is something simple like delivering grease to a specific location before you die, or if all your actions are being controlled as part of an elaborated plan by a calculated cold intelligence.
Expanded Spell List
1st Dissonant Whispers Identify
2nd Detect Thoughts, See Invisibility
3rd, Blink, Nondetection
4th Arcane Eye, Phantasmal Killer
5th Legend Lore, Modify Memory
Virus Scan
Starting at 1st level, you can force another creature to obsessively check themselves for signs of plague. Target a creature within 60 feet, and the creature makes a Wisdom saving throw. If the save fails, the creature drops everything it’s holding and must spend its next action checking for signs of the plague. Creatures that are immune to disease are also immune to this ability.
You may use this ability once until you complete a short or long rest.
Inferior Version
Starting at 6th level, when a creature hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to curse a creature, briefly transforming it into an inferior version of itself from another reality. You take half damage from the attack, and the creature has disadvantage on all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks until the end of your next turn.
You may use this ability once until you complete a short or long rest.
Source Removal
Starting at 10th level, as an action, you may use your patron’s connection to the fabric of reality to simply “remove” a creature from it. You must be able to see the target, and they must be within 60 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or they, for a short time, will simply cease to exist for up to 1 minute. To keep the target removed from reality, you must maintain concentration, as if you cast a concentration spell. While a target is removed from reality, they cannot be found by any form of divination magic. To the universe, the target is gone, as if they had never been born.
Once 1 minute has passed, or if the ability ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if the previous space is occupied. From the targets point of view, nothing has happened and no time has passed.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Copy and Delete
Starting at 14th level, as a bonus action you may create a copy of yourself that exists for one round. Your copy knows everything you know, and is in essence you. The copy has your current hit points, but does not have any status effects the original may be suffering from. Your copy may then move, take a bonus action, and a normal action, but any spells or abilities you or your copy use or cast are drawn from the same “pool” and expend subsequent spell slots or uses of that ability. At the start of your next turn, you must choose whether you or the copy disappears forever. If the original Warlock disappears, then you take control of your copy as if they were the original and continue play.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
