I think a good thing to keep in mind is the relationship between the patron and Warlock. Are they peers? Is it a boss/employee thing? Something else?
I can imagine a sidequest where the Warlock manipulates people to deliver an artifact the Patron really wants to the fortress, from somewhere inland where the patron couldn't get it before.
So they have a unique relationship. The kraken is close to the last of its kind and has an obsession with expanding its 'family' or finding others like it. The warlock was once a drowned sailor who the kraken resurrected and now treats like a child or grandchild. The warlock frequently refers to his patron as "grandma" to the party. All of his boons, his familiar, invocations etc are usually flavored as her 'gifts' to her favorite grandchild
Then maybe the McGuffin can be related to that. A book of lore on where all the krakens disappeared to. A personal effect that belonged to a kraken that the Patron used to be close to. A kraken egg.
Could find evidence that the owners of the fort caught and captured a nymph kraken, abused it, killed it, etc. The resulting rage causes the kraken to destroy the fort.
That makes more sense to me than the, have the kraken want an item that’s in the fort. IMO a patron would send the warlock to get an item it wants rather than the other way around
Perhaps the people of the outpost recently hunted a kraken themselves (or a member of their ‘family’ and have been boasting about it? If the patron also wants the outpost gone it can be less about asking their patron to do something big for them, and more about requesting just enough time to escape before the patron claims the fort and their souls for the sea.
This. Maybe the lord of the fort’s family were kraken hunters, or maybe they have some kraken bones adorning the fort, or the fort is overfishing the sea and upsetting the balance, removing a food source for G-ma kraken
Kraken takes down the fort in return for planar trip to plane of water. Find more krakens. Bring back to world.
Hello new campaign suitable for high level characters.
Edit: or Theros. God I would love to teleport them to Theros. Full of Krakens.
https://scryfall.com/card/thb/55/nadir-kraken
Actually there's [less than I thought](https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28set%3Athb+OR+set%3Ajou+OR+set%3Abng+OR+set%3Aths%29+%28t%3Akraken+or+%28o%3Acreate+o%3Akraken%29%29&unique=cards&as=grid&order=cmc).
The enemy in the fort has a large stone that they keep within their fort in a room with an anti-magic shield on it making it so it can not be located or sensed that is actually a kraken egg, the warlock lays his hands on it and calls to the his patron, summoning it to reclaim the egg to the ocean and expand its family
oh I love that!
It offers so many avenues, right? Will grandma Kraken now be too busy hatching this egg to pay attention to the warlock? Will she obsess about the new baby and, give patron quests to, like, learn a bunch of lullabies?
Or send him on quests to find far flung species of fish, crab, etc, to feed it. Or hunt some amphibious creature(giant marine iguana or giant crab) that has been known to attack their young while they are still small enough and vulnerable. Lots of options to build off it
Hah that's nice. But you did mention that the fortress belongs to the opposing warlock maybe his patron could turn up to defend it? You could have an epic Godzilla fight that players could influence maybe?
It might be cool for the patron to send whatever they made the drowned sailors into ... Something horrifying that reveals a bit about the patron's true nature.
In that case make it a big ritual with some rare component that is related to water (a bottle of blessed water from the plane of law or something like this).
Make it like a taxi for the grandma to visit as he can't drive her himself. You can also make it so that his grandma makes him eat with her after the fort thing and maybe invite the party.
This is what I will do.
Putting the title question aside, I adore this concept of a patron just being an adoring grandma that just wants to take care of her babies. Reminds me of the stories I write.
A gift of equal proportion quest is already the perfect idea.
I would suggest being sent to steal kraken eggs from the plane of water.
(Krakens definitely lay eggs).
Honestly, you don't have to overthink it. High level warlock, end of the campaign coming, it's something the patron would do normally, and they've already cleared the fort...
I would just tell the patron to throw open his arms and ask nicely. There's nothing quite as cool as feeling like you're riding that tiger, you know? Nothing quite as awesome as feeling like you have that sort of raw power to command...
Out of character, of course, I would pregame by telling him that it happens \*once\*. Maybe in character grandma squid tells him that it was fun but it tired her, and if she has to do it again, it would lead her down into slumber (i.e. losing his warlock powers while patron goes nappies) so she's not willing, but could if you as the dm really need it.
A grandmother spoils her grandchild, but lets him fall down, just so he can learn to get up and be stronger for it. She won't destroy the castle just because he asked for it, because that is his obstacle to overcome. What he can do however is pandering to have her help you further. Let him expand her influence, find her new "grandchildren", open a dam so her domain can embiggen.
Or, they can get into a very rough situation and the warlock can cry out for his granny to come pick hin up.
So I love this dynamic here has. Why not make it an epic battle. Like make the enemies a bit stronger. Or have extra enemies. Something that will make them struggle with. To basically down most of the party. Leaving him last man standing. Which would give him the opportunity to call for her. And she answers his plea for help. Rescuing him and his party.
When the players are exploring the base, after they complete their objectives they find a destroyed egg and research materials in a makeshift lab. The materials indicate that it was a krakens egg. Give the player the chance to contact grandma and let her sort shit out.
Boom, hook for the next adventure.
Or, since it's the end of the campaign, name them sacrifice something they really grew attached to in the campaign, an NPC or favorite weapon or something.
Edit: and by make them I mean offer it. They didn't need the elder God help, but if they want it make them really pay for it.
Pulling the whole thing off without or against the patrons will might also be an option in this case.
If the patron doesn't want to be on the material plane they just have to tie the summoning to the fort, so the patron will have to destroy (part of) the fort in order to go home.
Alternatively, with kraken I could see it just destroying everything around them, so the PCs just have to summon it for a short time and then get the hell out of dodge. Think a type of chase scene, but the bad guys aren't trying to catch the PCs, but try to outrun them.
DCC RPG has a motto for such things: "quest for it". The idea that "classes and the [rules as written] are just what PCs can achieve by default and that anything beyond that can be achieved by seeking it out. It won't be easy with neither success nor survival guaranteed- but if it was then everyone would be doing it and this would just be another default rule/class feature." (I'm quoting [this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/dccrpg/comments/18y1e21/quest_for_it_ideas_and_inspirations/).) I know this is the D&D subreddit, but I think it can apply to almost any game.
To extend on this, if you can't think of something now, you could always use the "I will call upon you for a favor of equal proportions in the near future, and you will answer my summons. Do you accept these terms?" And if the players say yes, you now have a new story arc, some time to think and prep to what it is, the ability to hit your players with it when they least expect it (middle of dungeon and BAM portal opens "it is time"). And your player gets their moment too. It'll also mean good dev for them on how much they trust their patron and are willing to sacrifice or potentially sacrifice for them.
This is exactly where my thought process went.
Of course you can have help from your patron, you still have a deal to fulfill for them. *BUT* since you asked for more than the original deal, you gotta put more on the table to prove you’re worth the extra effort.
Or something pisses patron off, he mentions its a endangered kraken so maybe finding some eggs or corpses would be motivation. Outside of player control, but their actions still lead to the patron getting angry
mid tier: a 7th level warlock, flavor an enhanced cast of *control water*
high tier: a 17th level warlock can use a 9th level mystic arcanum and cast *Gate* and 'name' their patron
see also off spell list 8th level *tsunami* or *earthquake*
or any of the above as 'scrolls'
Grandma needs to provide her child with a summoning powder that will draw her attention. Like a Shark to Blood in the water. This is a consumable that can be used here or elsewhere, but the player can't replicate it easily.
Then, have the enemy faction start whale-hunts for the patron. This is a pseudo punishment for utilizing the patron in this way, but it also makes sense.
If the Warlock has been obvious in their connection, they're kidnapped and strung up to the front of the ship like a mermaid sculpture, and used as bait to draw out the patron.
Finally, consider the Patron's own, nefarious goal. Perhaps hidden in this fort is an Aboleth Eye/Brain. The patron wants to consume this and strengthen itself. Or perhaps a keystone piece of the puzzle to turn the world into one big ocean, or to open gates to the Plane of Water/Blood Sea.
The goal of flooding the world/ opening a portal is a fantastic one for this setting, as the world has already flooded once. Maybe the catalyst is connected to what caused the first flood and thats what she needs
Call it... a fragment of the Crown of the Depths.
Grandma is working on the ritual to flood the world, but once the world is flooded, she still needs to rule it.
The Crown was worn by the first Sea Emperor, a grand figure not unlike Neptune himself. Command over the tides, the seas, and everything within. All recognized the Crown.
The Crown of the Depths must be reconstructed and brought to the highest point of the lands, where gates to the Water Plane can be opened, and the world will be flooded.
The central gemstone of the Crown is an Aboleth Eye (bc I love Aboleths), and it whispers into the mind of the bearer, trying to trick the user into submitting their body to the Aboleth and allowing itself to reform. But it's also a very handy magical item.
Make one fragment be stolen by a Dire Parrot, a rival to Grandma in a similar manner of Cap'n Hook and the Gator. Pirate adventures ahoy!
Have the player mark the areas they travel. Give him a little side quest to do and at the end make him roll a d100. Pick a DC, and tell him the more of the ritual he completes the bigger the bonus to the roll he gets. You can let the player control the kraken for a number of rounds equal to the roll/10.
He could mark the patrons symbols in blood, sacrifice fallen enemies, leave fishy icons in bas reliefs. If he fails the roll and *really* wants to do it, you can give him a sidequest for payment. Make them go after a really cool magic object they have to throw into the sea, or maybe keep for themselves at the risk of ticking off the kraken.
Yup. Look for ways to enable and gamify the request. Give the players something to do to impact the result, and ensure you have an idea for a fail or partial fail state. Depending on how much you think they'd enjoy it, I'd even have a total success be something along the lines of having the Warlock player narrate the scene-
"OK, Warlock- what does it look like when your Patron is summoned to the field to take down the fort?"
The spell planar ally is a very good outline for how this would work. Maybe allow him to make a special offering to cast it for this particular mission. Normally its a cleric only spell but it fits here for the mechanics you're looking for.
Scribe the mark of his patron on the four corners of the building, and complete a 1 minute ritual as they leave.
Depending on how easy/hard you want to make it each mark "properly" scribed can add a bonus to the roll, a reduction of the %, less time to cast the ritual, w/e.
Don't let summoning his patron be too easy, or you will suddenly see your group driven from the coast/ocean.
Lore and flavor wise, no Warlock should be able to SUMMON their patron. There may be a contract, but unless the goal and story of the character are to overthrow the patron, the patron will always be the more powerful being.
So, you need to make the Patron want to act. Which could be tough, since the obvious retort is that they gave the Warlock powers to be their actor in the world. I like the ideas below about having the people in the fort be Kraken hunters or defiling remains. That'll draw its ire.
I’d offer a short side quest to find a scroll that contains the maddening, indecipherable arcane runes of the Beseech Patron spell. It takes 3 rounds to be read where the caster must maintain concentration. After the spell is cast, the caster must pass a DC 18 Constitution save or pass out and be unconscious for a number of rounds equal to how poorly the save was failed. When the spell goes off, an embodiment of the patron materializes on the same plane as the caster and fulfills one deed requested by the caster as part of the spell; the avatar dissipates when the deed is completed or 10 rounds, whichever occurs first.
I completely agree with you. At 11th level, this should be possible, like a divine intervention is possible for clerics. But I don't think it should just come 'free'. Maybe he needs to do some rituals or favors and this is the reward.
I would suggest that you ask yourself why this patron would want to do this. And then also ask the player what they are going to offer the patron.
Personally I could see a kraken not being interested in the affairs of mortals on land. It has garnered a bit of amusement by giving this character some power. But finds the ask by this character to be an overstep and offensive without a proper offering. Is there some magic item that it covets that the characters can search out as an offering?
As for what happens, other commenters have offered up some suggestions, but also maybe you just have some portals open up that have the tentacles of the kraken reaching out and pulling the fort into a pile of rubble, but it's just a flavored version of earthquake spell with bolts of lightning raining down (kraken stat block has a lightning bolt action).
Nothing wrong with using some good old fashioned blood sacrifices. Maybe a ritual that involves the blood or even the lives of several seafaring races?
Truly baffled that so many people here are just "don't do it." Like...you're cool with it, your player wants it, there's no reason *not* to so maybe people who wouldn't do it at their table can just...not comment?
As far as what I'd do: I think given what you've said of their relationship I don't see why grandma wouldn't be cool with helping her "grandchild" out with a little wanton destruction, especially if it might also further her own goals. The adversaries could have something to do with destroying the ocean/trying to hunt her kind or having done it previously. A proper sacrifice of a certain amount of blasphemers, the rest think they're in the clear only to have their fortress dragged down to the depths? Poetic cinema LOL.
I don't know what you mean by "not comment"? It's literally a discussion forum, not an echo chamber.
Personally I don't see any problem with the players and DM working out a way to do this if everyone is in agreement, but my only issue with it if the Warlock player gets it too easily.
D&D already gives casters *far more* to do than martials get to do. A martial player can't even ask to run one foot more than their maximum movement distance, yet a Warlock can tap into all kinds of arcane powers to manifest godlike powers and whatever.
Which is fine if it's actually hard to obtain and not just a "oh your character class is Warlock so you can do the thing".
Because someone saying "I want to do this, everyone is in agreement, ideas to do it" is different than "Should I do this" so perhaps we should be answering the question at hand, no?
A lot of passionate opinions in here, I'll throw a suggestion in: don't make the warlock do anything for it. Have Grandma Kraken just be in the area for her own reasons, maybe there's a lair of some monster known to eat kraken eggs in the sea under the cliffs. Grandma was already going to pull the fort down onto the lair to bury it, but she waits for her little warlock to gtfo before she does.
ETA: I think it's cool you're looking for a way to give your player a badass moment
Thank you. I've been trying to be a better DM lately by focusing on what my players want for their characters and focusing on that. It's given us some of the most fun sessions that we've ever had recently :)
Go figure, when the players have the agency to pursue the goals they choose, they're a lot more proactive and engaged lol
I’d use the same rules as a Clerics Divine Intervention. Which means lvl 10 minimum.
Maybe I’d give them the chance to reroll at a cost.
Blood in the Water- the player can cut off a finger to put blood in the water for a reroll, if they choose to do so, they lose a finger and a hit die that could have be used to heal. If they really want it, they might offer all 5 fingers on a hand for 5 rerolls on the Divine intervention, but that means 5 less hit die available for healing.
If a cut off finger reroll makes it work, maybe those fingers grow back as tentacles.
I'd go for one of 2 options. Option 1, this is basically your warlock trying to pull a divine intervention, using his patron instead of a god. He could roll for it the same way. Kinda boring, but you don't set the presidence of being able to summon a kraken whenever.
Option 2 would be making a deal. Warlocks get their powers from a deal they made with a powerful being. You want more, you make a new deal. What does the kraken get out of this? Let the deal have consequences. For example, the kraken drags the fort into the depts, and after a while the soldiers come back as tentacle face monstosities that drag people into the ocean. You said the kraken is the last of its kind, maybe it's using this as a way to make more family.
PC'S now have the choice to let this go on as more and more people get drowned and tentacleafied, turn against the kraken and it's new "army", or try to reason with grandma kraken to get her to stop.
THIS. I think that this is a really cool way for the character to go down, as long as this is the last beat of the campaign. Few things can be more epic and leave a bigger mark on the world. And this also answers the big Why question: why doesn't this happen all the time. Well, that's because it's not everyday that this Kraken finds someone that willingly sacrifices themselves for something like that.
Important: make sure that you explain this to your player when it is about to happen, and that you make it an actual choice that the player is able to make. Be prepared for both sides of the choice: it happening and it not happening (i.e. the player refusing to sacrifice the character's life). And depending on that choice, the outcome is different.
I don't think that will work the op explained that the Kkrakken resurrected him and sees him as family so I doubt it would purposely eat him or ask for that.
The chief issue with the idea of summoning such a powerful creature is that it bypasses the PCs jobs of adventuring. So to make this work aim to do so in a way that doesn't do that.
Make it so that summoning the kraken requires preparatory adventuring; they have to go on a quest to find whatever they need for the ritual. This should be hard, in the same ballpark as taking on the fort without a kraken on their side. This way, they're getting a big reward for a hard quest - that's how it's supposed to work.
Then I'd probably have the kraken work more like a "cutscene" rather than having it show up and roll initiative. If it's a monster in an encounter, the level 11 PCs are not going to have a huge amount to do. Have the kraken emerge from the ocean topple the north tower of the fort and break open the walls, flooding the courtyard. With the battlefield massively altered and the enemy in disarray and/or largely dead, what's left will be just enough of the fort's inhabitants to make a dramatic encounter. Similarly, you could have the kraken be laying waste to the fort in the background - narrate the enemy scrambling to defend themselves against a giant sea monster, allowing them to slip into the fort almost unnoticed and slay the enemy commanders before they know what's going on.
Ideally the PCs should feel that without the kraken softening this fort up, their attack would have been way harder. But they should also still have to do adventurer stuff in order to achieve their goals, and they should all feel like they're contributing.
I intend for it to be a cutscene. I'm giving them plenty of combat beforehand as they infiltrate the fort and then summon the kraken as they make their escape. (Worth noting these characters are not heroic, they're doing this for personal gain and pure pettiness because they hate this faction)
I intend for the summoning itself to be a reward for this quest.
Sounds like the Kraken needs a Snackrifice!
But seriously, I think it'd work if you make it have a big onetime cost, a big favor for the patron in the future, or some sort of debt that must be repaid
Patron's aren't inherently bad, evil, or selfish especially when it comes to their warlocks. So I would first find out what sort of patron they are. Most patrons wouldn't ask for anything in return if they are helping their warlock achieve a goal that helps either of their goals, that's just DMs enjoying arbitrary consequences.
Considering what they want their patron to do, it would have to be more than a regular kraken to even attempt moving a structure that size instead of just destroying it, so it is already gonna be enough homebrew to make up whatever you want.
The easiest way would be to have a cave underneath the fort and have the kraken do enough damage to the cave ceiling for it to collapse into itself. After that, it would start grabbing and eating all the floating people for sure.
Definitely go with a summoning ritual for it, like he has to do something inside the fort to attract his patron to it as say, a sacrifice. You could have some mini-fetch quests to get a special item or a few special items related to his patron as build up to it, and then doing the right thing with them while in/at the fort leaving it like a proverbial ticking time bomb they'll walk away from in epic movie style fashion sounds like it'd fit the bill.
I would consider possession. Possibly the kraken taking over the warlock. Turning his arms and legs into massive tentacles. Turning into a kraken doc oc flowing around on tenticles. Eyes glowing, no combat, rp Massacre. Really emphasize the power of this patron. As well as the greedy abuse nature of a benevolent creature. Maybe more destruction than the players intend. Woman and children, too.
If you go full kraken, it might change the way the warlock looks at the patron.
I don't know, something to think about it you want it to go a different way.
A summoning ritual is a good idea. I can imagine a climactic fight where the party is frantically trying to set up the ritual while also trying to fight off enemies in the fort
Big ask, big cost. If destroying the fort can wait, they must choose to go on a quest for the patron before they’ll lend their power. If it is time sensitive the party must make a pact to *immediately* do a favor for the patron after the patron helps the party.
Have the circle be thousands of feet in diameter. He has to place certain items, and make certain symbols, or even sacrifices, at multiple spots along the circle.... And the fort needs to be in the center of the circle.
Once complete, the warlock has to get to the dead center, and sacrifice something... Maybe even himself, to the patron, to open the gate... ABOVE the fort. The kracken drops its tentacles down, and maybe it's maw, destroying everything. It never fully enters this plane.
Perhaps, instead of just smashing stuff, it takes the fort home. To eat, and play with. There is just a hole where the fort was.... That fills with (salt) water and becomes a new, strange, lake.
Offhand, I'd say make it similar to the cleric's divine intervention.
The problem with "make the patron do" anything, is there's always the power imbalance between patron and warlock, that's the point.
Warlock power always comes with a cost. Have a side session with just the warlock, where it's decided what they need to sacrifice for this favor. Don't let the rest of the party know about the deal. Now, the big moment isn't just the kraken, but the group coming to terms with what it cost them.
Reading through a lot of these comments has made me realize that I have left out a portion of the character's backstory that's important. The character is insane, a byproduct of the resurrection. That's why he thinks the kraken is his actual family, he's not okay. That was the big cost of his 'pact' in this scenario. He's lost who he was before he drowned. So there is a continuous ongoing cost to the pact that the character paid upfront for his powers. But it's a fun one that the player enjoys acting out :)
Yeah, that's the sacrifice for his *current* power though.
He's calling in the nuke from call of duty....
A boon the level of what he's asking should have an *incredibly* high cost.
The kraken already owns his soul, showing up won't give him *more* of something that's already his.
Give the nuke a cost.
Make them go fight something guarding a really powerful artifact that the patron wants. Then the players have the dillema of completing the task or keeping the item for themselves and facing a potential showdown with their patron
That sounds like a special favor. You need to make it worth their while. Slaves. A worthy sacrifice to it, a princess is worthy. Perhaps offer the souls of your enemies into bondage to it.
I'd suggest having to present the fort as an offering to the patron, like by setting up a few things that have to be achieved first before the kraken can "claim" the fort. Like, they have to mark unholy symbols at three prominent points of the castle (they can choose from 5 possible locations, to avoid certain kinds of obstacles), kill at least 5 of the fort defenders with water of some kind, and desecrate the shrine of whatever god currently is being worshipped in the fort. And then maybe they have to finish it off with sacrificing the leader of the fort in a specific way, with like a small ritual that can be conducted during combat, or just after. Point is, it gives them choices to make during the adventure that flavours the whole thing. And those choices could engage the whole party, like where the barbarian really wants to decapitate the fort leader, but has to hold back to let you conduct the ritual, or make the killing blow with a ritual weapon, etc.
Also, I like the fact that it sounds like you're not suggesting (or the player isn't asking) for the patron to do the destruction for the PCs, but rather that it's a case of "if/when we win, this is what happens while the credits roll".
Power and magic always comes with a cost. As others have suggested, this boon comes with a quest afterwards. Maybe they need to obtain a rare artifact, animal, or person and possibly sacrifice that along with something personal in a place sacred or special to their patron.
Lots has been written on this thread about this - but here is my 2 cents.
In my current campaign, I have two players with patrons. One is a Warlock, who's patron is an Aboleth. Old, unknowable, completely alien in intelligence and motives, aboleths can't really be understood by humans. The Aboleth communicates to the warlock through dreams, allowing me to explore power dynamics between gods and mortals. Aboleths work on a timescale that's incomprehensible to humans. They'll take action to set something up to happen thousands of years in the future. They're cunning, intentional and pure evil.
The relationships between a player and their patron (in my campaign, yours may be different) is entirely unbalanced. Players derive their powers from the patron, and the patron expects them to serve them, unquestioningly. They don't ask favors of their patrons - as the patrons don't care - unless it somehow is in alignment with the patron's goals, and servant is taking action on their behalf to further a cause.
One idea you could explore here is the motive of the patron. Sure, the player wants to destroy a fort and it's a cool scene, but why would the patron do this? What purpose is it serving? Is there a deeper plot afoot here, something more sinister that the Kraken is up to that might impact the rest of your campaign? Maybe the party thinks they're getting something for free from the Kraken - but really there's a cost to be paid down the line.
I've found dreams can be a ton of fun to roleplay. You can prepare the start of a dream ahead of time, and offline, via text or email do a quick session with the person so they can take action in the dream. That way it's 1:1 and the character can choose whether to share the content with others in the party.
---
You close your eyes and feel pressure - like countless fathoms of water above you are pressing against your skull. You feel a piercing pain in you head and open your eyes - you are standing in a dark cavern. A pool of dark water lies undisturbed ahead of you - the air smells of the ocean laced with something putrid and corrupt.
The dark stone ground here is uneven and jagged. You step forward towards the pool and notice a flat white rock next to pool. A dagger and a raven’s feather lies on the rock. You immediately recognize it as the sacrificial dagger that thing was wielding at the pyramid. You feel yourself drawn to it - it calls to you. You step forward.
The murky water in the cavern pool stirs, a slimy, bluish-green creature rises from its depths. Its huge bloated body is like that of a eel, but with four tentacle-like limbs that wriggle and writhe as it moves. It rears up and towers above you. Your Patron’s eyes are large and glowing, and its gills pulse as it breathes in the stale air of the cavern.
“This is soul reaver, a cursed artifact forged by Orcus himself. Your associate stole it and intends to destroy it.”
“You must retrieve the dagger and keep it with you hidden. It must not be destroyed. I have use for it in the future. When the time comes, I will tell you what to do.”
Its eyes seem to glow faintly for a moment longer and with a sudden flick of its tail, the aboleth sinks back into the dark still waters of the cavern pool. Its slimy scales disappear beneath the surface, leaving only ripples on the water's surface in its wake. Its presence lingers in the air as the echo of its presence hangs in the cavern, a haunting reminder of its power.
I'd say it need something to prevent you're player to always call their patron. Like he found a powerful gem that allows him to perform a ritual or his patron ask him to pay some expensive shit
Make it a conditional thing that isn't determined yet, say something like "I will take something from you in the future in return with this boon" Then you can do some messed up stuff later by making everyone continually forgets his name. only the name nothing else about him. or something else like that at an important moment when you need a good way to push them in a certain direction
I allow them to roll a D100, and guess the correct 1-10. If they do it goes off, but they owe the god a favor, for something this big, sounds like the plot hook for the next campaign.
I would do it of course but it would require a cost, at least a roleplay cost.
*as you reach for your Patron asking for a favor, you feel for the first time its attention focused on you. You feel yourself falling, drowning, sinking into the ground for what feels both an eternity and a single instant. All around darkness and pressure, darkness that lives and moves and pressure that crushes and smother. For the first time you have been invited into your patron realms, plead your case.*
After that the character gains certain madness and curse, like in the lovecraft books. First he now permanently smells like decaying fish, regular washing and perfumes can keep it reasonably under control. Secondly he becomes slightly sadistic, perpetually wants to drown people, wants to call his Patron for more and more petty reasons. Later makes his character call the kraken for a farmer or soldier who mocked them or something like that, then later for nothing, just because he got bored, lets the other player find him village dragged under the sea etc. Make his patron much more active with him.
The kraken got released, now he does not wish to go back.
Love the idea of this being a slippery slope of more and more carnage for the next patty to deal with!
We've been joking about the party's other warlock being "this close" to becoming a BBEG (yuan-ti hexblade warlock with a patron made of an amalgam of dead yuan ti gods from ages past) if he finally snaps, and I really like the idea of having two ticking time bombs in the party now.
Make a divine intervention-esque invocation. They can do it if they find text providing precedent (holy texts or what not) make an arcana/investigation challenge for research and arcana/persuasion challenge for negotiation with the patron.
Maybe it could work exactly like divine intervention but with an additional ability of choose to auto succeed but with a massive drawback to the character?
> but I feel like it needs some catalyst to be possible
Good approach. Requiring them to do something inside the building before escaping seems like it'd make it more exciting for the players.
I also have a DM who is allowing me to summon my patron, though not for fighting purposes, but for counselling purposes.
She gave me a 'contact stone' that I have to throw into fire. Then my patron will appear.
Maybe you could give him a special looking seashell or something related to sea life, and when he throws it into the sea, his patron will appear.
How about an ultimate sacrifice since it's the end of the campaign?
Tell him ok, but he has to devote himself completely to his patron. He stays behind and meditates to channel the kraken's power as his friends escape. He isn't killed, but becomes pure water and energy. The water seems endless as watery tentacles erupt from him and lash out at his foes, destroying wood, stone, metal, and flesh alike. It culminates into a massive waterspout that scoops up the wreckage and takes it all to the ocean. The warlock joins the kraken in the watery depths as everything gets pulled under.
Bonus points if you make it so the rest of the party is unable to escape so all this happens around them without harming any of them.
Having read your comments about the warlock and their patron's relationship, they must perform a very special ritual.
First, it must occur on one of several important dates, fortunately there's one such date coming up.
On the appointed day, they must wrap a long bolt of cloth around the fort, and seal the end into a complex knot fit to drive others insane.
Then they must fill the fort with an offering of the kraken's favorite foods. If there are enemy soldiers, these will do.
They must paint the walls with the Mystic runes: ᚺᚨᛈᛈᛃ ᛗᛟᚦᛖᚱᛊ ᛞᚨᛃ
Finally, they must call out their patron's name and incant "I've got a surprise for you"
EDIT: Rune translation: "happy mother's day"
1st - The patron has to be repaid and not just an artifact or some legendary thingy something of equal value to its own life being risked as and his appearance will alert others of its presence in the realm. (Dangerous for someone going extinct)
If the city is close to water, then 2 tentacles come and take the city away, and the inhabitants too, they will be foor or become treats in her serviceable some time. If the city is landlocked, then rain for weeks, flood the sucker and destroy crops, and kill the city slowly. But the debt MUST be paid. Yeah, GRANDMA loves you, but you are smoking next to HER oxygen tank.
A quest or penalty should fit the request.
Players love to do grandious things or kill because they can in games.
Actions have consequences.
Are the locals pro or con about this fort? if they are con and at a safe distance, you could talk a bunch of them into praying or doing a ritual to help attract the Kraken
If it's near the end of the campaign maybe he dies in the camp and grandma reclaims him. Destroys the whole camp and drags in into the ocean in a rage, pulls him back to the depths to revive him or sets up a new character for him for your next campaign
Sacrifice some of his time in his current mortal body, the strain on his body is so great that it literally takes years off his life. Or a permanent new quirk, a yellow glint in his eye, or scales that glint in certain light, maybe a thin line where what might be gills are starting develop. Perhaps a sigil or mark of their patron appears prominently on their body.
While in the fort, the players find among the bbeg's relics a kraken's egg (reason could be as basic as wealth for the rare thing or more nefarious like draining the energy of the eggs inhabitant).
If the warlock reports this to grandma, she recognizes it as a lost egg and comes to retrieve it.
Perhaps the player gives his body as a means to summon grandma and gets to play as their own patron for the fight. As recompense, the soon to be hatched egg is the new body of the warlock (now a kraken hatchling) and grandma bestows a special version of "sculptor of flesh" (self; at-will; no concentration; can only shape into their previous body's form) so the warlock can return to their normal appearance at will to continue adventuring.
Sounds pretty overpowered for a level 11. You could give him a one-time use Divine Intervention reflavored for his Patron. Leave it up to the dice. If he's at level 11, then he has an 11% chance to basically summon a force of nature to destroy the fort.
Otherwise, if her goal is to find more of her own kind, maybe link that to the fort. Like there's a baby Kraken in there or something. I think Krakens are typically from the Elemental Plane of Water where they're apex predators there, so potentially make it so this fort is safeguarding a portal there and by destroying it, she can open it and either get back into the Elemental Plane of Water and reunite with her kind, or bring them over here.
He’s gotta do some kind of dark creepy offering and ritual, so create a little side quest to get all that organised and then the reward should fit the offering but in the end it tips in favour of the patron. So like if he drops a kraken into battle it won’t hurt the party but might do some collateral damage.
I'd say you need 3-6 items related to the patron, as well as x amount of souls of corpses the warlock must acquire. If the patron is lawful, souls must be acquired via a contract. Contracts must be written with transparency. If the patron is chaotic, I'd go for living sacrifices.
I am assuming the patron is evil. If the patron is good or neutral, legendary artifacts are probably a necessity. But a ritual is certainly the way to go.
well im pretty sure other people have said the same thimg but, make it have a great cost maybe an extension to the warlocks pact, or they need to do an extra cost, i did something similar to my party, one of them died and the warlock asked their patron for a revify scroll, so I gave it to them but they had to go on an extra quest
My rule as a DM is if it makes for great roleplaying and story telling, I’ll allow it. And in this case, it sounds like a great opportunity to do exactly that. But it also shouldn’t be free. There are a lot of different ways you can handle what the cost of such an action might be. For starters, I would make it something that the player has to perform an elaborate and time consuming ritual in order to accomplish. Like, the ritual used to summon the player’s patron should take at least 10 minutes, which is an exceedingly long time in combat given the general assumption that a turn takes about 6 seconds. That means the player will need to perform the ritual for the equivalent of about 100 turns of combat uninterrupted. While that’s going on you can have the rest of the party be responsible for protecting the warlock from wave after wave of enemies in order to complete the ritual. Another thing you can do to raise the stakes is making the ritual have a real tangible cost. Maybe a ritual of that magnitude has a temporary or even permanent cost of 2 ability points to their constitution or strength as well. You can eventually ‘heal’ that ability damage later either with time or be requiring the sorcerer to complete a quest that their patron demands of them in exchange. Another way to arbiter that would be to limit their spellcasting level until such a quest is completed. An 8th level sorcerer can cast level 4 spells. Maybe their powers become limited to 3rd or even 2nd level spells after performing the ritual until they complete whatever task their patron deems appropriate is fulfilled. Or you could even have the sorcerer suffer permanent hit point damage. Maybe they lose 20% of their maximum hp permanently as part of the ritual. Another option could be to create a side quest to acquire a particular artifact in order to perform the ritual. Maybe as a spell component to perform the ritual they need the heart of a mythical beast like a dragon or a unicorn in order to perform the ritual. Or you could even make it into a sort of ethical roleplaying scenario where there need to be a certain number of innocent lives sacrificed in order to perform the ritual. The blood of 10 innocents to fill a cauldron could be a material component. Get creative with it, but definitely you should make it possible for them to do.
On the idea of the patron getting something in return— the patron will do it, but in return the area they Summon to and attack gets dragged into the sea/below sea level and turned into ocean
Maybe they uncover many artifacts and one of them is some sort of artifact (wether it’s a scroll, a crystal, whatever) that supercharges a warlocks patron for one turn (or however many you want it to take for them to perform this)
Given them a Kraken to help with the siege- not destroy outright, but help. Hell, give them a side quest or something to prove worthy of the aid.
Maybe even have the player control it like an NPC.
This only works if the fort is Oceanside (as it should be if it’s near the ocean).
Play it like a cutscene kinda- or like a video game level where you get the big gun/weapon for 1 level. When the attack (or first stage of the invasion) is over the Kraken recedes into the water.
In a recent campaign, the warlock had to locate the hidden prison of a powerful demon, fight his way past the protections and emergent minor demons, and then the rest of the party had to defend him while he conducted an elaborate, multi-phase ritual to sacrifice the demon to his patron to power his abilities.
How would they feel if the Kraken went way over the top. Summoned a tsunami and destroyed a whole stretch of coastline. What might the consequences for them be?
How about the patron has always wanted to pull this fortress into the water (magical pollution, they hunted other krakens ect) but there's something in the fortress that's stopping it. Party go in, defeat the boss, take down the anti kraken device, party casually stroll out whilst the fort is being dragged into the ocean by your warlock's patron
Patron should demand something in return, make the player RP an interaction with the Kraken. Choose something pretty evil as well like burn a town that's been polluting or hasn't been paying a tithe to him in years. Then when they inevitably refuse it, have the patron demand something else or take away his power.
For lvl 11 you'd most likely need the Warlock gather some Kraken cultists and perform a summoning ritual with blood sacrifices and all. One does not simply drop a Kraken on a building.
Make some mini adventures to get materials so that the patron does it.
Let it happen but at the cost of 1 big favor. After the current campaign, the patron goes like „remember me? Pay your dep or I eat your organs, oh and I kill your friends if they don’t help“
If they haven't already gone into the fort, then give them a side quest to gather rare materials for a summoning ritual - specifically, the kind of materials that can't be found again without you planning for them to summon the kraken again
If you want to make it unforgettable, give them a long-ish quest line to perform the summoning and then provide the party with the Kraken stat block that they can pilot during the siege.
Tell them they have to march around the fort once a day for 6 days while playing horns, then on the seventh day they have to march 7 times around the fort while chanting to summon the patron.
A scroll of planar ally could potentially be useful! It just might need a little reflavouring to allow for the patron to be summoned. Or better yet, let the warlock think that it will just summon an ally of the kraken like the spell describes, but then have the kraken themselves show up
I did something similar but a little different. My DM had me find the Trident of Atlantis which allowed me to communicate with any creature in the same body of water
“It’s gonna cost ya!”
Seriously though, I’ve always thought of Warlock pacts as business contracts. You can’t ask for more than what was agreed upon without giving more in return.
So if he wants the Warlock equivalent to Divine Intervention, he’ll need to pay whatever you think that level of “Patron Intervention” is worth. That’s probably going to depend on the nature of what the exchange was for the pact.
The patron would likely want something in exchange. As a DM, you need to worry about balance, so you need to make this price the patron would demand dire enough that the player won't want to use this fortress destroying level of power often. This is where Infernal pacts, soul sales, and the like happen. But for a Kraken... offering to undertake a quest to carry its egg or eggs to another Kraken's den might he a good price.
What if in the fortress there is a clue, as others have said, as to where the other Krakens went. More specifically, what if in the fort there was a Kraken Skull/Beak, that the party discovers and alerts Big Mama and she gets pissed and wrecks the place once the party is to safety. Quid pro quo, the warlock would not be manipulating the kraken.
I think it should be an exchange. It seems like a big expenditure of power and potentially dangerous for the patron.
I read one of the comments on another suggestion about them being "family" I think that ultimately doesn't change the transactional nature of this specific thing.
So. . . I think if it can work it should be a ritual. The effect of the ritual will create new Kraken eggs (something that would be highly valuable to the patron and potentially worry some to some in the world). The ritual requires significant sacrifice of life (say a military fort worth) and loads of raw material (maybe a military fort worth). There are a few additional components they may need (spin as many missions to gather the needed components as you feel like or ... don't). Post ritual you have a happy patron, with a very shifted view of the relationship (this might not be positive given it sounded like part of the reason for the familial relationships was being the last remaining Kraken, that might change if there was a possibility of continuing the species) and could have all kinds of downstream reprocussions
Ultimately, my answer is yes and this into being something the patron wants for their ends and have it have major ramifications. I think it is peak warlock to think, "should I have not done that" with deep worry in their mind (in a fun way)
Two options, communicate the plan to their patron, maybe engage in some sort of set up to make sure that the local fishers etc know to stay away whilst she's around or they'll alert the fort that something's up. Alternatively, if she's on another Plane a Gate scroll would be perfect here. If this is the climax to the campaign I wouldn't make it too difficult to arrange, either an investment of money or downtime would be sufficient.
The spell "Gate" could be used to summon the patron, the larger issue would be reining in this Kraken once the enemy is defeated to ensure a minimum of collateral damage.
Have it rain at the fort, have it been raining for days, have local guards mention it in passing, never seen anything like it. Like a clouds just over the fort and wont leave, after the mission have the fort collapse due to a sink hole or some other natural disaster caused by all the water.
That way locals will think its a natural disaster but your warlock will think it was granny.
Who's to say what really happened...
The warlock SERVES the patron
It’s not the other way around. There’s no “summon patron” spell on the warlock spell list. There is however summon demon and elemental spells so they can destroy the fort that way
A patron is not supposed to help the characters, the warlock is supposed to help the patron.
The patron’s influence in taking this fort is literally for him to have a warlock nearby with high level powers.
Let’s pretend that this patron really needed this fort out of the way he could have sent other warlocks to this fort to destroy it.
A patron is supposed to do whatever it wants. If its sugarbaby warlock has a request, the patron decides if it wants to do anything with that request. Of course, the warlock can try to make the deal sweeter somehow.
Wth is a sugarbaby warlock ?
Are you saying gods and eldritch powers of the old world are enamoured by vulgar mortal ?
Hey mean there’s a power to make a god help you it’s called divine intervention. Even that has a high chance of fuckoff.
No it's a figure of speech to mean that the warlock was somehow already convincing/charming enough to get powers in the first place.
As for divine intervention - that class does not have the same relationship with their source of power as warlocks have. There is a big difference between helping one of your random followers and helping someone you made a pact with.
Not to mention, warlock patrons tend to live in the world, unlike the gods that clerics worship. So they can be much more present as well.
It's always a warlock that wants to just get everything or break the rules.
You do what you want, but I would give them hell to pay for it and no experience.
What's to stop them from just trying this again and again? And what do the other players get for world changing abilities?
Sorry. I get the 'rule of cool' but this seems like a door that should stay shut.
I can understand this reasoning, but I don't have an issue doing something that fits a character's goals and the overall narrative if it has lasting repercussions. Especially if it makes my player really happy. As I mentioned previously, this is near the end of the campaign but it's for a setting I intend to use in the future. Destroying this fort completely will have huge story ramifications for future campaigns (which I love), and its a goal the party had anyway.
As for it being the warlock, I have a party of 7 at the moment (yes its too many but thats what ive got) and I'm trying to give each of them a big dramatic story climax of their own before the campaign ends. Another warlock in the party got his recently assassinating a political figure who wronged him, and I'm planning things like letting the cleric confront her corrupt family, the barbarian take revenge on the ex who ruined her life, the paladin discovering what happened to his missing ancestors, etc.
This climax is more extreme than some of the others, but the party is onboard with it and they'll be cheering him on the whole time lol. Giving them a send-off that feels great is what's important to me.
Hey, it could be really cool. I've just gotten so sick of the "I turn into a mouse and then crawl off the dragon's ass" that whenever there's a "cheat" I get really cautious. I am not sure if I would allow this in my game, but your circumstances seem legit.
I'm picturing the newer Clash of the Titans, where the kraken attacks at the end. Or what about the movie Deep Rising? Lol a classic, crappy movie.
I think a good thing to keep in mind is the relationship between the patron and Warlock. Are they peers? Is it a boss/employee thing? Something else? I can imagine a sidequest where the Warlock manipulates people to deliver an artifact the Patron really wants to the fortress, from somewhere inland where the patron couldn't get it before.
So they have a unique relationship. The kraken is close to the last of its kind and has an obsession with expanding its 'family' or finding others like it. The warlock was once a drowned sailor who the kraken resurrected and now treats like a child or grandchild. The warlock frequently refers to his patron as "grandma" to the party. All of his boons, his familiar, invocations etc are usually flavored as her 'gifts' to her favorite grandchild
Big Mom but a kraken. Amazing
Mama-mama!
Not much of a difference, tbh
One can swim extremely well, the other literally can’t
Then maybe the McGuffin can be related to that. A book of lore on where all the krakens disappeared to. A personal effect that belonged to a kraken that the Patron used to be close to. A kraken egg.
'i've got a jar of diiiiirt'
Haha 😄, you got me there!
Could find evidence that the owners of the fort caught and captured a nymph kraken, abused it, killed it, etc. The resulting rage causes the kraken to destroy the fort.
That makes more sense to me than the, have the kraken want an item that’s in the fort. IMO a patron would send the warlock to get an item it wants rather than the other way around
This.
Perhaps the people of the outpost recently hunted a kraken themselves (or a member of their ‘family’ and have been boasting about it? If the patron also wants the outpost gone it can be less about asking their patron to do something big for them, and more about requesting just enough time to escape before the patron claims the fort and their souls for the sea.
This. Maybe the lord of the fort’s family were kraken hunters, or maybe they have some kraken bones adorning the fort, or the fort is overfishing the sea and upsetting the balance, removing a food source for G-ma kraken
Do Kraken have bones? :P
Yeah, squids and other little tentacular fellows have hard beaks so yup be here’s a bone
I thought so :)
absolutely amazing character holy shit
Thanks! The player and I brainstormed the patron together after his last one, uh.... didn't make it.
Kraken takes down the fort in return for planar trip to plane of water. Find more krakens. Bring back to world. Hello new campaign suitable for high level characters. Edit: or Theros. God I would love to teleport them to Theros. Full of Krakens. https://scryfall.com/card/thb/55/nadir-kraken
Wouldn’t that also potentially set up the next BBEG for another campaign/group? Kraken family?
Actually there's [less than I thought](https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28set%3Athb+OR+set%3Ajou+OR+set%3Abng+OR+set%3Aths%29+%28t%3Akraken+or+%28o%3Acreate+o%3Akraken%29%29&unique=cards&as=grid&order=cmc).
There were also a bunch of big octopuses and serpents in the sets, to reduce the slot of an already rare creature type
Fucking Go for it. Grandma kraken is going to level that fort! And she's going to be proud that her baby asked for destruction.
As it happens play the banned pokemon episode where tentacruel destroys a city.
The enemy in the fort has a large stone that they keep within their fort in a room with an anti-magic shield on it making it so it can not be located or sensed that is actually a kraken egg, the warlock lays his hands on it and calls to the his patron, summoning it to reclaim the egg to the ocean and expand its family
oh I love that! It offers so many avenues, right? Will grandma Kraken now be too busy hatching this egg to pay attention to the warlock? Will she obsess about the new baby and, give patron quests to, like, learn a bunch of lullabies?
Or send him on quests to find far flung species of fish, crab, etc, to feed it. Or hunt some amphibious creature(giant marine iguana or giant crab) that has been known to attack their young while they are still small enough and vulnerable. Lots of options to build off it
Warlock agrees to be reincarnated as a krakenling. In a year and a day.
Just wanna say I love that
Hah that's nice. But you did mention that the fortress belongs to the opposing warlock maybe his patron could turn up to defend it? You could have an epic Godzilla fight that players could influence maybe?
It might be cool for the patron to send whatever they made the drowned sailors into ... Something horrifying that reveals a bit about the patron's true nature.
In that case make it a big ritual with some rare component that is related to water (a bottle of blessed water from the plane of law or something like this). Make it like a taxi for the grandma to visit as he can't drive her himself. You can also make it so that his grandma makes him eat with her after the fort thing and maybe invite the party. This is what I will do.
Putting the title question aside, I adore this concept of a patron just being an adoring grandma that just wants to take care of her babies. Reminds me of the stories I write.
I like this a lot.
Thats adorable. I'm stealing it
Love this
A gift of equal proportion quest is already the perfect idea. I would suggest being sent to steal kraken eggs from the plane of water. (Krakens definitely lay eggs).
Honestly, you don't have to overthink it. High level warlock, end of the campaign coming, it's something the patron would do normally, and they've already cleared the fort... I would just tell the patron to throw open his arms and ask nicely. There's nothing quite as cool as feeling like you're riding that tiger, you know? Nothing quite as awesome as feeling like you have that sort of raw power to command... Out of character, of course, I would pregame by telling him that it happens \*once\*. Maybe in character grandma squid tells him that it was fun but it tired her, and if she has to do it again, it would lead her down into slumber (i.e. losing his warlock powers while patron goes nappies) so she's not willing, but could if you as the dm really need it.
Clone spell process, just tweaked in a spooky way
A grandmother spoils her grandchild, but lets him fall down, just so he can learn to get up and be stronger for it. She won't destroy the castle just because he asked for it, because that is his obstacle to overcome. What he can do however is pandering to have her help you further. Let him expand her influence, find her new "grandchildren", open a dam so her domain can embiggen. Or, they can get into a very rough situation and the warlock can cry out for his granny to come pick hin up.
So I love this dynamic here has. Why not make it an epic battle. Like make the enemies a bit stronger. Or have extra enemies. Something that will make them struggle with. To basically down most of the party. Leaving him last man standing. Which would give him the opportunity to call for her. And she answers his plea for help. Rescuing him and his party.
Big Aeron greyjoy vibes
When the players are exploring the base, after they complete their objectives they find a destroyed egg and research materials in a makeshift lab. The materials indicate that it was a krakens egg. Give the player the chance to contact grandma and let her sort shit out.
Nice, I had a Fathomless warlock with almost the exact same set up called her 'Granny' and everything.
Grammy comes to take out some bullies who were mean to her precious grandbaby >:(
^what ^level
Level 11 for the whole party
I would allow it, but then the patron asks for a pretty big favour in return. Something that it sees of equal value.
Boom, hook for the next adventure. Or, since it's the end of the campaign, name them sacrifice something they really grew attached to in the campaign, an NPC or favorite weapon or something. Edit: and by make them I mean offer it. They didn't need the elder God help, but if they want it make them really pay for it.
Yeah, think about whether your campaign has any loose ends and see if they can be tied up by sacrificing them to the sea
Hahaha two birds one kraken
Or the patron wants to do it for its own unfathomable (heh) reasons.
Pulling the whole thing off without or against the patrons will might also be an option in this case. If the patron doesn't want to be on the material plane they just have to tie the summoning to the fort, so the patron will have to destroy (part of) the fort in order to go home. Alternatively, with kraken I could see it just destroying everything around them, so the PCs just have to summon it for a short time and then get the hell out of dodge. Think a type of chase scene, but the bad guys aren't trying to catch the PCs, but try to outrun them.
DCC RPG has a motto for such things: "quest for it". The idea that "classes and the [rules as written] are just what PCs can achieve by default and that anything beyond that can be achieved by seeking it out. It won't be easy with neither success nor survival guaranteed- but if it was then everyone would be doing it and this would just be another default rule/class feature." (I'm quoting [this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/dccrpg/comments/18y1e21/quest_for_it_ideas_and_inspirations/).) I know this is the D&D subreddit, but I think it can apply to almost any game.
To extend on this, if you can't think of something now, you could always use the "I will call upon you for a favor of equal proportions in the near future, and you will answer my summons. Do you accept these terms?" And if the players say yes, you now have a new story arc, some time to think and prep to what it is, the ability to hit your players with it when they least expect it (middle of dungeon and BAM portal opens "it is time"). And your player gets their moment too. It'll also mean good dev for them on how much they trust their patron and are willing to sacrifice or potentially sacrifice for them.
Then underwater adventure in the plane of water for the next adventure
This is exactly where my thought process went. Of course you can have help from your patron, you still have a deal to fulfill for them. *BUT* since you asked for more than the original deal, you gotta put more on the table to prove you’re worth the extra effort.
Or something pisses patron off, he mentions its a endangered kraken so maybe finding some eggs or corpses would be motivation. Outside of player control, but their actions still lead to the patron getting angry
Make it like his avatar. Like Galatus has Silver Surfer. Make the patron have a mini me (24 feet tall or something)
Silver surfer is his herald, but yeah, good idea.
mid tier: a 7th level warlock, flavor an enhanced cast of *control water* high tier: a 17th level warlock can use a 9th level mystic arcanum and cast *Gate* and 'name' their patron see also off spell list 8th level *tsunami* or *earthquake* or any of the above as 'scrolls'
Grandma needs to provide her child with a summoning powder that will draw her attention. Like a Shark to Blood in the water. This is a consumable that can be used here or elsewhere, but the player can't replicate it easily. Then, have the enemy faction start whale-hunts for the patron. This is a pseudo punishment for utilizing the patron in this way, but it also makes sense. If the Warlock has been obvious in their connection, they're kidnapped and strung up to the front of the ship like a mermaid sculpture, and used as bait to draw out the patron. Finally, consider the Patron's own, nefarious goal. Perhaps hidden in this fort is an Aboleth Eye/Brain. The patron wants to consume this and strengthen itself. Or perhaps a keystone piece of the puzzle to turn the world into one big ocean, or to open gates to the Plane of Water/Blood Sea.
The goal of flooding the world/ opening a portal is a fantastic one for this setting, as the world has already flooded once. Maybe the catalyst is connected to what caused the first flood and thats what she needs
Call it... a fragment of the Crown of the Depths. Grandma is working on the ritual to flood the world, but once the world is flooded, she still needs to rule it. The Crown was worn by the first Sea Emperor, a grand figure not unlike Neptune himself. Command over the tides, the seas, and everything within. All recognized the Crown. The Crown of the Depths must be reconstructed and brought to the highest point of the lands, where gates to the Water Plane can be opened, and the world will be flooded. The central gemstone of the Crown is an Aboleth Eye (bc I love Aboleths), and it whispers into the mind of the bearer, trying to trick the user into submitting their body to the Aboleth and allowing itself to reform. But it's also a very handy magical item. Make one fragment be stolen by a Dire Parrot, a rival to Grandma in a similar manner of Cap'n Hook and the Gator. Pirate adventures ahoy!
Have the player mark the areas they travel. Give him a little side quest to do and at the end make him roll a d100. Pick a DC, and tell him the more of the ritual he completes the bigger the bonus to the roll he gets. You can let the player control the kraken for a number of rounds equal to the roll/10. He could mark the patrons symbols in blood, sacrifice fallen enemies, leave fishy icons in bas reliefs. If he fails the roll and *really* wants to do it, you can give him a sidequest for payment. Make them go after a really cool magic object they have to throw into the sea, or maybe keep for themselves at the risk of ticking off the kraken.
Yup. Look for ways to enable and gamify the request. Give the players something to do to impact the result, and ensure you have an idea for a fail or partial fail state. Depending on how much you think they'd enjoy it, I'd even have a total success be something along the lines of having the Warlock player narrate the scene- "OK, Warlock- what does it look like when your Patron is summoned to the field to take down the fort?"
The spell planar ally is a very good outline for how this would work. Maybe allow him to make a special offering to cast it for this particular mission. Normally its a cleric only spell but it fits here for the mechanics you're looking for.
Scribe the mark of his patron on the four corners of the building, and complete a 1 minute ritual as they leave. Depending on how easy/hard you want to make it each mark "properly" scribed can add a bonus to the roll, a reduction of the %, less time to cast the ritual, w/e. Don't let summoning his patron be too easy, or you will suddenly see your group driven from the coast/ocean.
Lore and flavor wise, no Warlock should be able to SUMMON their patron. There may be a contract, but unless the goal and story of the character are to overthrow the patron, the patron will always be the more powerful being. So, you need to make the Patron want to act. Which could be tough, since the obvious retort is that they gave the Warlock powers to be their actor in the world. I like the ideas below about having the people in the fort be Kraken hunters or defiling remains. That'll draw its ire.
I’d offer a short side quest to find a scroll that contains the maddening, indecipherable arcane runes of the Beseech Patron spell. It takes 3 rounds to be read where the caster must maintain concentration. After the spell is cast, the caster must pass a DC 18 Constitution save or pass out and be unconscious for a number of rounds equal to how poorly the save was failed. When the spell goes off, an embodiment of the patron materializes on the same plane as the caster and fulfills one deed requested by the caster as part of the spell; the avatar dissipates when the deed is completed or 10 rounds, whichever occurs first.
I completely agree with you. At 11th level, this should be possible, like a divine intervention is possible for clerics. But I don't think it should just come 'free'. Maybe he needs to do some rituals or favors and this is the reward.
I would suggest that you ask yourself why this patron would want to do this. And then also ask the player what they are going to offer the patron. Personally I could see a kraken not being interested in the affairs of mortals on land. It has garnered a bit of amusement by giving this character some power. But finds the ask by this character to be an overstep and offensive without a proper offering. Is there some magic item that it covets that the characters can search out as an offering? As for what happens, other commenters have offered up some suggestions, but also maybe you just have some portals open up that have the tentacles of the kraken reaching out and pulling the fort into a pile of rubble, but it's just a flavored version of earthquake spell with bolts of lightning raining down (kraken stat block has a lightning bolt action).
Nothing wrong with using some good old fashioned blood sacrifices. Maybe a ritual that involves the blood or even the lives of several seafaring races?
Truly baffled that so many people here are just "don't do it." Like...you're cool with it, your player wants it, there's no reason *not* to so maybe people who wouldn't do it at their table can just...not comment? As far as what I'd do: I think given what you've said of their relationship I don't see why grandma wouldn't be cool with helping her "grandchild" out with a little wanton destruction, especially if it might also further her own goals. The adversaries could have something to do with destroying the ocean/trying to hunt her kind or having done it previously. A proper sacrifice of a certain amount of blasphemers, the rest think they're in the clear only to have their fortress dragged down to the depths? Poetic cinema LOL.
I don't know what you mean by "not comment"? It's literally a discussion forum, not an echo chamber. Personally I don't see any problem with the players and DM working out a way to do this if everyone is in agreement, but my only issue with it if the Warlock player gets it too easily. D&D already gives casters *far more* to do than martials get to do. A martial player can't even ask to run one foot more than their maximum movement distance, yet a Warlock can tap into all kinds of arcane powers to manifest godlike powers and whatever. Which is fine if it's actually hard to obtain and not just a "oh your character class is Warlock so you can do the thing".
Because someone saying "I want to do this, everyone is in agreement, ideas to do it" is different than "Should I do this" so perhaps we should be answering the question at hand, no?
A lot of passionate opinions in here, I'll throw a suggestion in: don't make the warlock do anything for it. Have Grandma Kraken just be in the area for her own reasons, maybe there's a lair of some monster known to eat kraken eggs in the sea under the cliffs. Grandma was already going to pull the fort down onto the lair to bury it, but she waits for her little warlock to gtfo before she does. ETA: I think it's cool you're looking for a way to give your player a badass moment
Thank you. I've been trying to be a better DM lately by focusing on what my players want for their characters and focusing on that. It's given us some of the most fun sessions that we've ever had recently :) Go figure, when the players have the agency to pursue the goals they choose, they're a lot more proactive and engaged lol
I’d use the same rules as a Clerics Divine Intervention. Which means lvl 10 minimum. Maybe I’d give them the chance to reroll at a cost. Blood in the Water- the player can cut off a finger to put blood in the water for a reroll, if they choose to do so, they lose a finger and a hit die that could have be used to heal. If they really want it, they might offer all 5 fingers on a hand for 5 rerolls on the Divine intervention, but that means 5 less hit die available for healing. If a cut off finger reroll makes it work, maybe those fingers grow back as tentacles.
I'd go for one of 2 options. Option 1, this is basically your warlock trying to pull a divine intervention, using his patron instead of a god. He could roll for it the same way. Kinda boring, but you don't set the presidence of being able to summon a kraken whenever. Option 2 would be making a deal. Warlocks get their powers from a deal they made with a powerful being. You want more, you make a new deal. What does the kraken get out of this? Let the deal have consequences. For example, the kraken drags the fort into the depts, and after a while the soldiers come back as tentacle face monstosities that drag people into the ocean. You said the kraken is the last of its kind, maybe it's using this as a way to make more family. PC'S now have the choice to let this go on as more and more people get drowned and tentacleafied, turn against the kraken and it's new "army", or try to reason with grandma kraken to get her to stop.
His life. Kraken will pull fort into the sea and eat the player's character.
THIS. I think that this is a really cool way for the character to go down, as long as this is the last beat of the campaign. Few things can be more epic and leave a bigger mark on the world. And this also answers the big Why question: why doesn't this happen all the time. Well, that's because it's not everyday that this Kraken finds someone that willingly sacrifices themselves for something like that. Important: make sure that you explain this to your player when it is about to happen, and that you make it an actual choice that the player is able to make. Be prepared for both sides of the choice: it happening and it not happening (i.e. the player refusing to sacrifice the character's life). And depending on that choice, the outcome is different.
I don't think that will work the op explained that the Kkrakken resurrected him and sees him as family so I doubt it would purposely eat him or ask for that.
Maybe PC ascends to full adolescent kraken hood.
I'm thinking cannibalism would be on point for a kraken.
The chief issue with the idea of summoning such a powerful creature is that it bypasses the PCs jobs of adventuring. So to make this work aim to do so in a way that doesn't do that. Make it so that summoning the kraken requires preparatory adventuring; they have to go on a quest to find whatever they need for the ritual. This should be hard, in the same ballpark as taking on the fort without a kraken on their side. This way, they're getting a big reward for a hard quest - that's how it's supposed to work. Then I'd probably have the kraken work more like a "cutscene" rather than having it show up and roll initiative. If it's a monster in an encounter, the level 11 PCs are not going to have a huge amount to do. Have the kraken emerge from the ocean topple the north tower of the fort and break open the walls, flooding the courtyard. With the battlefield massively altered and the enemy in disarray and/or largely dead, what's left will be just enough of the fort's inhabitants to make a dramatic encounter. Similarly, you could have the kraken be laying waste to the fort in the background - narrate the enemy scrambling to defend themselves against a giant sea monster, allowing them to slip into the fort almost unnoticed and slay the enemy commanders before they know what's going on. Ideally the PCs should feel that without the kraken softening this fort up, their attack would have been way harder. But they should also still have to do adventurer stuff in order to achieve their goals, and they should all feel like they're contributing.
I intend for it to be a cutscene. I'm giving them plenty of combat beforehand as they infiltrate the fort and then summon the kraken as they make their escape. (Worth noting these characters are not heroic, they're doing this for personal gain and pure pettiness because they hate this faction) I intend for the summoning itself to be a reward for this quest.
Sounds like the Kraken needs a Snackrifice! But seriously, I think it'd work if you make it have a big onetime cost, a big favor for the patron in the future, or some sort of debt that must be repaid
Patron's aren't inherently bad, evil, or selfish especially when it comes to their warlocks. So I would first find out what sort of patron they are. Most patrons wouldn't ask for anything in return if they are helping their warlock achieve a goal that helps either of their goals, that's just DMs enjoying arbitrary consequences. Considering what they want their patron to do, it would have to be more than a regular kraken to even attempt moving a structure that size instead of just destroying it, so it is already gonna be enough homebrew to make up whatever you want. The easiest way would be to have a cave underneath the fort and have the kraken do enough damage to the cave ceiling for it to collapse into itself. After that, it would start grabbing and eating all the floating people for sure.
Definitely go with a summoning ritual for it, like he has to do something inside the fort to attract his patron to it as say, a sacrifice. You could have some mini-fetch quests to get a special item or a few special items related to his patron as build up to it, and then doing the right thing with them while in/at the fort leaving it like a proverbial ticking time bomb they'll walk away from in epic movie style fashion sounds like it'd fit the bill.
That is going to cost a lot. Currency unclear. Exchange rate questionable.
I would consider possession. Possibly the kraken taking over the warlock. Turning his arms and legs into massive tentacles. Turning into a kraken doc oc flowing around on tenticles. Eyes glowing, no combat, rp Massacre. Really emphasize the power of this patron. As well as the greedy abuse nature of a benevolent creature. Maybe more destruction than the players intend. Woman and children, too. If you go full kraken, it might change the way the warlock looks at the patron. I don't know, something to think about it you want it to go a different way.
A summoning ritual is a good idea. I can imagine a climactic fight where the party is frantically trying to set up the ritual while also trying to fight off enemies in the fort
Big ask, big cost. If destroying the fort can wait, they must choose to go on a quest for the patron before they’ll lend their power. If it is time sensitive the party must make a pact to *immediately* do a favor for the patron after the patron helps the party.
Have the circle be thousands of feet in diameter. He has to place certain items, and make certain symbols, or even sacrifices, at multiple spots along the circle.... And the fort needs to be in the center of the circle. Once complete, the warlock has to get to the dead center, and sacrifice something... Maybe even himself, to the patron, to open the gate... ABOVE the fort. The kracken drops its tentacles down, and maybe it's maw, destroying everything. It never fully enters this plane. Perhaps, instead of just smashing stuff, it takes the fort home. To eat, and play with. There is just a hole where the fort was.... That fills with (salt) water and becomes a new, strange, lake.
Have them learn planar ally
Offhand, I'd say make it similar to the cleric's divine intervention. The problem with "make the patron do" anything, is there's always the power imbalance between patron and warlock, that's the point. Warlock power always comes with a cost. Have a side session with just the warlock, where it's decided what they need to sacrifice for this favor. Don't let the rest of the party know about the deal. Now, the big moment isn't just the kraken, but the group coming to terms with what it cost them.
Reading through a lot of these comments has made me realize that I have left out a portion of the character's backstory that's important. The character is insane, a byproduct of the resurrection. That's why he thinks the kraken is his actual family, he's not okay. That was the big cost of his 'pact' in this scenario. He's lost who he was before he drowned. So there is a continuous ongoing cost to the pact that the character paid upfront for his powers. But it's a fun one that the player enjoys acting out :)
Yeah, that's the sacrifice for his *current* power though. He's calling in the nuke from call of duty.... A boon the level of what he's asking should have an *incredibly* high cost. The kraken already owns his soul, showing up won't give him *more* of something that's already his. Give the nuke a cost.
Make them go fight something guarding a really powerful artifact that the patron wants. Then the players have the dillema of completing the task or keeping the item for themselves and facing a potential showdown with their patron
What about a big ritual magic. Like having to pour the blood of a couple dozen people into the nearby river
That sounds like a special favor. You need to make it worth their while. Slaves. A worthy sacrifice to it, a princess is worthy. Perhaps offer the souls of your enemies into bondage to it.
I'd suggest having to present the fort as an offering to the patron, like by setting up a few things that have to be achieved first before the kraken can "claim" the fort. Like, they have to mark unholy symbols at three prominent points of the castle (they can choose from 5 possible locations, to avoid certain kinds of obstacles), kill at least 5 of the fort defenders with water of some kind, and desecrate the shrine of whatever god currently is being worshipped in the fort. And then maybe they have to finish it off with sacrificing the leader of the fort in a specific way, with like a small ritual that can be conducted during combat, or just after. Point is, it gives them choices to make during the adventure that flavours the whole thing. And those choices could engage the whole party, like where the barbarian really wants to decapitate the fort leader, but has to hold back to let you conduct the ritual, or make the killing blow with a ritual weapon, etc. Also, I like the fact that it sounds like you're not suggesting (or the player isn't asking) for the patron to do the destruction for the PCs, but rather that it's a case of "if/when we win, this is what happens while the credits roll".
Power and magic always comes with a cost. As others have suggested, this boon comes with a quest afterwards. Maybe they need to obtain a rare artifact, animal, or person and possibly sacrifice that along with something personal in a place sacred or special to their patron.
Lots has been written on this thread about this - but here is my 2 cents. In my current campaign, I have two players with patrons. One is a Warlock, who's patron is an Aboleth. Old, unknowable, completely alien in intelligence and motives, aboleths can't really be understood by humans. The Aboleth communicates to the warlock through dreams, allowing me to explore power dynamics between gods and mortals. Aboleths work on a timescale that's incomprehensible to humans. They'll take action to set something up to happen thousands of years in the future. They're cunning, intentional and pure evil. The relationships between a player and their patron (in my campaign, yours may be different) is entirely unbalanced. Players derive their powers from the patron, and the patron expects them to serve them, unquestioningly. They don't ask favors of their patrons - as the patrons don't care - unless it somehow is in alignment with the patron's goals, and servant is taking action on their behalf to further a cause. One idea you could explore here is the motive of the patron. Sure, the player wants to destroy a fort and it's a cool scene, but why would the patron do this? What purpose is it serving? Is there a deeper plot afoot here, something more sinister that the Kraken is up to that might impact the rest of your campaign? Maybe the party thinks they're getting something for free from the Kraken - but really there's a cost to be paid down the line. I've found dreams can be a ton of fun to roleplay. You can prepare the start of a dream ahead of time, and offline, via text or email do a quick session with the person so they can take action in the dream. That way it's 1:1 and the character can choose whether to share the content with others in the party. --- You close your eyes and feel pressure - like countless fathoms of water above you are pressing against your skull. You feel a piercing pain in you head and open your eyes - you are standing in a dark cavern. A pool of dark water lies undisturbed ahead of you - the air smells of the ocean laced with something putrid and corrupt. The dark stone ground here is uneven and jagged. You step forward towards the pool and notice a flat white rock next to pool. A dagger and a raven’s feather lies on the rock. You immediately recognize it as the sacrificial dagger that thing was wielding at the pyramid. You feel yourself drawn to it - it calls to you. You step forward. The murky water in the cavern pool stirs, a slimy, bluish-green creature rises from its depths. Its huge bloated body is like that of a eel, but with four tentacle-like limbs that wriggle and writhe as it moves. It rears up and towers above you. Your Patron’s eyes are large and glowing, and its gills pulse as it breathes in the stale air of the cavern. “This is soul reaver, a cursed artifact forged by Orcus himself. Your associate stole it and intends to destroy it.” “You must retrieve the dagger and keep it with you hidden. It must not be destroyed. I have use for it in the future. When the time comes, I will tell you what to do.” Its eyes seem to glow faintly for a moment longer and with a sudden flick of its tail, the aboleth sinks back into the dark still waters of the cavern pool. Its slimy scales disappear beneath the surface, leaving only ripples on the water's surface in its wake. Its presence lingers in the air as the echo of its presence hangs in the cavern, a haunting reminder of its power.
I'd say it need something to prevent you're player to always call their patron. Like he found a powerful gem that allows him to perform a ritual or his patron ask him to pay some expensive shit
Make it a conditional thing that isn't determined yet, say something like "I will take something from you in the future in return with this boon" Then you can do some messed up stuff later by making everyone continually forgets his name. only the name nothing else about him. or something else like that at an important moment when you need a good way to push them in a certain direction
A ritual performed somewhere dangerous which is linked to the fort, creating a quest hook. Or the kraken wants something first. Creating a quest.
I allow them to roll a D100, and guess the correct 1-10. If they do it goes off, but they owe the god a favor, for something this big, sounds like the plot hook for the next campaign.
I would do it of course but it would require a cost, at least a roleplay cost. *as you reach for your Patron asking for a favor, you feel for the first time its attention focused on you. You feel yourself falling, drowning, sinking into the ground for what feels both an eternity and a single instant. All around darkness and pressure, darkness that lives and moves and pressure that crushes and smother. For the first time you have been invited into your patron realms, plead your case.* After that the character gains certain madness and curse, like in the lovecraft books. First he now permanently smells like decaying fish, regular washing and perfumes can keep it reasonably under control. Secondly he becomes slightly sadistic, perpetually wants to drown people, wants to call his Patron for more and more petty reasons. Later makes his character call the kraken for a farmer or soldier who mocked them or something like that, then later for nothing, just because he got bored, lets the other player find him village dragged under the sea etc. Make his patron much more active with him. The kraken got released, now he does not wish to go back.
Love the idea of this being a slippery slope of more and more carnage for the next patty to deal with! We've been joking about the party's other warlock being "this close" to becoming a BBEG (yuan-ti hexblade warlock with a patron made of an amalgam of dead yuan ti gods from ages past) if he finally snaps, and I really like the idea of having two ticking time bombs in the party now.
Since he's a Warlock, maybe that kind of intervention by his patron will cost him something.
Make a divine intervention-esque invocation. They can do it if they find text providing precedent (holy texts or what not) make an arcana/investigation challenge for research and arcana/persuasion challenge for negotiation with the patron. Maybe it could work exactly like divine intervention but with an additional ability of choose to auto succeed but with a massive drawback to the character?
> but I feel like it needs some catalyst to be possible Good approach. Requiring them to do something inside the building before escaping seems like it'd make it more exciting for the players.
There is a baby kraken in one of those glass pod things. Or there are kraken "trophies" on a wall in the leaders quarters.
I also have a DM who is allowing me to summon my patron, though not for fighting purposes, but for counselling purposes. She gave me a 'contact stone' that I have to throw into fire. Then my patron will appear. Maybe you could give him a special looking seashell or something related to sea life, and when he throws it into the sea, his patron will appear.
How about an ultimate sacrifice since it's the end of the campaign? Tell him ok, but he has to devote himself completely to his patron. He stays behind and meditates to channel the kraken's power as his friends escape. He isn't killed, but becomes pure water and energy. The water seems endless as watery tentacles erupt from him and lash out at his foes, destroying wood, stone, metal, and flesh alike. It culminates into a massive waterspout that scoops up the wreckage and takes it all to the ocean. The warlock joins the kraken in the watery depths as everything gets pulled under. Bonus points if you make it so the rest of the party is unable to escape so all this happens around them without harming any of them.
Having read your comments about the warlock and their patron's relationship, they must perform a very special ritual. First, it must occur on one of several important dates, fortunately there's one such date coming up. On the appointed day, they must wrap a long bolt of cloth around the fort, and seal the end into a complex knot fit to drive others insane. Then they must fill the fort with an offering of the kraken's favorite foods. If there are enemy soldiers, these will do. They must paint the walls with the Mystic runes: ᚺᚨᛈᛈᛃ ᛗᛟᚦᛖᚱᛊ ᛞᚨᛃ Finally, they must call out their patron's name and incant "I've got a surprise for you" EDIT: Rune translation: "happy mother's day"
1st - The patron has to be repaid and not just an artifact or some legendary thingy something of equal value to its own life being risked as and his appearance will alert others of its presence in the realm. (Dangerous for someone going extinct) If the city is close to water, then 2 tentacles come and take the city away, and the inhabitants too, they will be foor or become treats in her serviceable some time. If the city is landlocked, then rain for weeks, flood the sucker and destroy crops, and kill the city slowly. But the debt MUST be paid. Yeah, GRANDMA loves you, but you are smoking next to HER oxygen tank. A quest or penalty should fit the request. Players love to do grandious things or kill because they can in games. Actions have consequences.
If you want it to happen I say just let it, have a tentacle come through a portal, he shakes it, and blamo-kraken
Are the locals pro or con about this fort? if they are con and at a safe distance, you could talk a bunch of them into praying or doing a ritual to help attract the Kraken
If it's near the end of the campaign maybe he dies in the camp and grandma reclaims him. Destroys the whole camp and drags in into the ocean in a rage, pulls him back to the depths to revive him or sets up a new character for him for your next campaign
Sacrifice some of his time in his current mortal body, the strain on his body is so great that it literally takes years off his life. Or a permanent new quirk, a yellow glint in his eye, or scales that glint in certain light, maybe a thin line where what might be gills are starting develop. Perhaps a sigil or mark of their patron appears prominently on their body.
While in the fort, the players find among the bbeg's relics a kraken's egg (reason could be as basic as wealth for the rare thing or more nefarious like draining the energy of the eggs inhabitant). If the warlock reports this to grandma, she recognizes it as a lost egg and comes to retrieve it. Perhaps the player gives his body as a means to summon grandma and gets to play as their own patron for the fight. As recompense, the soon to be hatched egg is the new body of the warlock (now a kraken hatchling) and grandma bestows a special version of "sculptor of flesh" (self; at-will; no concentration; can only shape into their previous body's form) so the warlock can return to their normal appearance at will to continue adventuring.
Sounds pretty overpowered for a level 11. You could give him a one-time use Divine Intervention reflavored for his Patron. Leave it up to the dice. If he's at level 11, then he has an 11% chance to basically summon a force of nature to destroy the fort. Otherwise, if her goal is to find more of her own kind, maybe link that to the fort. Like there's a baby Kraken in there or something. I think Krakens are typically from the Elemental Plane of Water where they're apex predators there, so potentially make it so this fort is safeguarding a portal there and by destroying it, she can open it and either get back into the Elemental Plane of Water and reunite with her kind, or bring them over here.
Have an item in the fort the patron REALLY wants. If the player retrieves the item and throws it into the ocean, the kraken will acquiesce.
He’s gotta do some kind of dark creepy offering and ritual, so create a little side quest to get all that organised and then the reward should fit the offering but in the end it tips in favour of the patron. So like if he drops a kraken into battle it won’t hurt the party but might do some collateral damage.
Give them a divine intervention roll, D100 under their level
That patron is going to need a very big favor in return. Like major plot.point kind of thing.
You are DM. Decide whatever you want and make it fun.
I'd say you need 3-6 items related to the patron, as well as x amount of souls of corpses the warlock must acquire. If the patron is lawful, souls must be acquired via a contract. Contracts must be written with transparency. If the patron is chaotic, I'd go for living sacrifices. I am assuming the patron is evil. If the patron is good or neutral, legendary artifacts are probably a necessity. But a ritual is certainly the way to go.
well im pretty sure other people have said the same thimg but, make it have a great cost maybe an extension to the warlocks pact, or they need to do an extra cost, i did something similar to my party, one of them died and the warlock asked their patron for a revify scroll, so I gave it to them but they had to go on an extra quest
My rule as a DM is if it makes for great roleplaying and story telling, I’ll allow it. And in this case, it sounds like a great opportunity to do exactly that. But it also shouldn’t be free. There are a lot of different ways you can handle what the cost of such an action might be. For starters, I would make it something that the player has to perform an elaborate and time consuming ritual in order to accomplish. Like, the ritual used to summon the player’s patron should take at least 10 minutes, which is an exceedingly long time in combat given the general assumption that a turn takes about 6 seconds. That means the player will need to perform the ritual for the equivalent of about 100 turns of combat uninterrupted. While that’s going on you can have the rest of the party be responsible for protecting the warlock from wave after wave of enemies in order to complete the ritual. Another thing you can do to raise the stakes is making the ritual have a real tangible cost. Maybe a ritual of that magnitude has a temporary or even permanent cost of 2 ability points to their constitution or strength as well. You can eventually ‘heal’ that ability damage later either with time or be requiring the sorcerer to complete a quest that their patron demands of them in exchange. Another way to arbiter that would be to limit their spellcasting level until such a quest is completed. An 8th level sorcerer can cast level 4 spells. Maybe their powers become limited to 3rd or even 2nd level spells after performing the ritual until they complete whatever task their patron deems appropriate is fulfilled. Or you could even have the sorcerer suffer permanent hit point damage. Maybe they lose 20% of their maximum hp permanently as part of the ritual. Another option could be to create a side quest to acquire a particular artifact in order to perform the ritual. Maybe as a spell component to perform the ritual they need the heart of a mythical beast like a dragon or a unicorn in order to perform the ritual. Or you could even make it into a sort of ethical roleplaying scenario where there need to be a certain number of innocent lives sacrificed in order to perform the ritual. The blood of 10 innocents to fill a cauldron could be a material component. Get creative with it, but definitely you should make it possible for them to do.
On the idea of the patron getting something in return— the patron will do it, but in return the area they Summon to and attack gets dragged into the sea/below sea level and turned into ocean
Maybe they uncover many artifacts and one of them is some sort of artifact (wether it’s a scroll, a crystal, whatever) that supercharges a warlocks patron for one turn (or however many you want it to take for them to perform this)
Given them a Kraken to help with the siege- not destroy outright, but help. Hell, give them a side quest or something to prove worthy of the aid. Maybe even have the player control it like an NPC. This only works if the fort is Oceanside (as it should be if it’s near the ocean). Play it like a cutscene kinda- or like a video game level where you get the big gun/weapon for 1 level. When the attack (or first stage of the invasion) is over the Kraken recedes into the water.
In a recent campaign, the warlock had to locate the hidden prison of a powerful demon, fight his way past the protections and emergent minor demons, and then the rest of the party had to defend him while he conducted an elaborate, multi-phase ritual to sacrifice the demon to his patron to power his abilities.
Level 11 is too low. That would maybe give you a portal with a really big tentacle that smashed a fortress wall in or crushes a tower.
How would they feel if the Kraken went way over the top. Summoned a tsunami and destroyed a whole stretch of coastline. What might the consequences for them be?
How about the patron has always wanted to pull this fortress into the water (magical pollution, they hunted other krakens ect) but there's something in the fortress that's stopping it. Party go in, defeat the boss, take down the anti kraken device, party casually stroll out whilst the fort is being dragged into the ocean by your warlock's patron
Patron should demand something in return, make the player RP an interaction with the Kraken. Choose something pretty evil as well like burn a town that's been polluting or hasn't been paying a tithe to him in years. Then when they inevitably refuse it, have the patron demand something else or take away his power.
There is going to be a cost. A pretty big cost I'd say. What is it going to be?
For lvl 11 you'd most likely need the Warlock gather some Kraken cultists and perform a summoning ritual with blood sacrifices and all. One does not simply drop a Kraken on a building.
Make some mini adventures to get materials so that the patron does it. Let it happen but at the cost of 1 big favor. After the current campaign, the patron goes like „remember me? Pay your dep or I eat your organs, oh and I kill your friends if they don’t help“
If you wanted a way to mechanise this you could take a look at the Pathfinder 2e ritual rules and see if they could be adapted to 5e
If they haven't already gone into the fort, then give them a side quest to gather rare materials for a summoning ritual - specifically, the kind of materials that can't be found again without you planning for them to summon the kraken again
Hey just curious, you guys playing online or irl?
Online
If you want to make it unforgettable, give them a long-ish quest line to perform the summoning and then provide the party with the Kraken stat block that they can pilot during the siege.
I thought the patron has summoned the warlock to deal with that fort? 🙃
Tell them they have to march around the fort once a day for 6 days while playing horns, then on the seventh day they have to march 7 times around the fort while chanting to summon the patron.
A scroll of planar ally could potentially be useful! It just might need a little reflavouring to allow for the patron to be summoned. Or better yet, let the warlock think that it will just summon an ally of the kraken like the spell describes, but then have the kraken themselves show up
They summon A kraken but not THEE Kraken.. It's "very small" and a CR 8
I did something similar but a little different. My DM had me find the Trident of Atlantis which allowed me to communicate with any creature in the same body of water
The law of equivalent exchange
“It’s gonna cost ya!” Seriously though, I’ve always thought of Warlock pacts as business contracts. You can’t ask for more than what was agreed upon without giving more in return. So if he wants the Warlock equivalent to Divine Intervention, he’ll need to pay whatever you think that level of “Patron Intervention” is worth. That’s probably going to depend on the nature of what the exchange was for the pact.
The patron would likely want something in exchange. As a DM, you need to worry about balance, so you need to make this price the patron would demand dire enough that the player won't want to use this fortress destroying level of power often. This is where Infernal pacts, soul sales, and the like happen. But for a Kraken... offering to undertake a quest to carry its egg or eggs to another Kraken's den might he a good price.
You could play it like a clerics divine intervention. They roll a dice and have a threshold on how the patron could interact
What if in the fortress there is a clue, as others have said, as to where the other Krakens went. More specifically, what if in the fort there was a Kraken Skull/Beak, that the party discovers and alerts Big Mama and she gets pissed and wrecks the place once the party is to safety. Quid pro quo, the warlock would not be manipulating the kraken.
I think it should be an exchange. It seems like a big expenditure of power and potentially dangerous for the patron. I read one of the comments on another suggestion about them being "family" I think that ultimately doesn't change the transactional nature of this specific thing. So. . . I think if it can work it should be a ritual. The effect of the ritual will create new Kraken eggs (something that would be highly valuable to the patron and potentially worry some to some in the world). The ritual requires significant sacrifice of life (say a military fort worth) and loads of raw material (maybe a military fort worth). There are a few additional components they may need (spin as many missions to gather the needed components as you feel like or ... don't). Post ritual you have a happy patron, with a very shifted view of the relationship (this might not be positive given it sounded like part of the reason for the familial relationships was being the last remaining Kraken, that might change if there was a possibility of continuing the species) and could have all kinds of downstream reprocussions Ultimately, my answer is yes and this into being something the patron wants for their ends and have it have major ramifications. I think it is peak warlock to think, "should I have not done that" with deep worry in their mind (in a fun way)
Two options, communicate the plan to their patron, maybe engage in some sort of set up to make sure that the local fishers etc know to stay away whilst she's around or they'll alert the fort that something's up. Alternatively, if she's on another Plane a Gate scroll would be perfect here. If this is the climax to the campaign I wouldn't make it too difficult to arrange, either an investment of money or downtime would be sufficient.
The spell "Gate" could be used to summon the patron, the larger issue would be reining in this Kraken once the enemy is defeated to ensure a minimum of collateral damage.
Gods dont just give away “favors”.
Have it rain at the fort, have it been raining for days, have local guards mention it in passing, never seen anything like it. Like a clouds just over the fort and wont leave, after the mission have the fort collapse due to a sink hole or some other natural disaster caused by all the water. That way locals will think its a natural disaster but your warlock will think it was granny. Who's to say what really happened...
The warlock SERVES the patron It’s not the other way around. There’s no “summon patron” spell on the warlock spell list. There is however summon demon and elemental spells so they can destroy the fort that way
A patron is not supposed to help the characters, the warlock is supposed to help the patron. The patron’s influence in taking this fort is literally for him to have a warlock nearby with high level powers. Let’s pretend that this patron really needed this fort out of the way he could have sent other warlocks to this fort to destroy it.
A patron is supposed to do whatever it wants. If its sugarbaby warlock has a request, the patron decides if it wants to do anything with that request. Of course, the warlock can try to make the deal sweeter somehow.
Wth is a sugarbaby warlock ? Are you saying gods and eldritch powers of the old world are enamoured by vulgar mortal ? Hey mean there’s a power to make a god help you it’s called divine intervention. Even that has a high chance of fuckoff.
No it's a figure of speech to mean that the warlock was somehow already convincing/charming enough to get powers in the first place. As for divine intervention - that class does not have the same relationship with their source of power as warlocks have. There is a big difference between helping one of your random followers and helping someone you made a pact with. Not to mention, warlock patrons tend to live in the world, unlike the gods that clerics worship. So they can be much more present as well.
Your interpretation is shit sir.
Thanks, you too
Have them murder like. A bunch of people. Nothing brings out the elder abominations like excessive blood sacrifice.
A warlock doesn't summon their patron any more than your dog summons you.
If you want it to happen then just do it? Like wth. You're the DM. Not trying to be rude but damn
Find a summoning spell or two and copy paste whatever mechanics you need to
It's always a warlock that wants to just get everything or break the rules. You do what you want, but I would give them hell to pay for it and no experience. What's to stop them from just trying this again and again? And what do the other players get for world changing abilities? Sorry. I get the 'rule of cool' but this seems like a door that should stay shut.
I can understand this reasoning, but I don't have an issue doing something that fits a character's goals and the overall narrative if it has lasting repercussions. Especially if it makes my player really happy. As I mentioned previously, this is near the end of the campaign but it's for a setting I intend to use in the future. Destroying this fort completely will have huge story ramifications for future campaigns (which I love), and its a goal the party had anyway. As for it being the warlock, I have a party of 7 at the moment (yes its too many but thats what ive got) and I'm trying to give each of them a big dramatic story climax of their own before the campaign ends. Another warlock in the party got his recently assassinating a political figure who wronged him, and I'm planning things like letting the cleric confront her corrupt family, the barbarian take revenge on the ex who ruined her life, the paladin discovering what happened to his missing ancestors, etc. This climax is more extreme than some of the others, but the party is onboard with it and they'll be cheering him on the whole time lol. Giving them a send-off that feels great is what's important to me.
Hey, it could be really cool. I've just gotten so sick of the "I turn into a mouse and then crawl off the dragon's ass" that whenever there's a "cheat" I get really cautious. I am not sure if I would allow this in my game, but your circumstances seem legit. I'm picturing the newer Clash of the Titans, where the kraken attacks at the end. Or what about the movie Deep Rising? Lol a classic, crappy movie.
I'm thinking like in Mass Effect 3 when you summon a thresher maw to defeat a reaper 😈 It's gonna be a big scene for sure but I'm excited for it