How do you fluff the Hexblade?

[Anderlith]

So the hexblade is a popular/controversial subclass, but the lore of the Hexblade is pretty barebones. A fiendish warlock has made a pact with a demon/devil a GOOlock has talked to Cthulhu etc. The hexblade is a little bit open though, beyond being related to the Shadowfel & focused on a weapon, they dont really have a patron as such. So how does the playground fluff their hexblade?

I fluff them as dark knights, they swear an Oath, much like a paladin & some dark power manifests itself to help carry it out. They arent exactly powered by gods or faith, but with the mysteries of the Shadowfel binding their will into black steel.

Share your own!

[suplee215]

I just have them making it with the item itself or a spirit behind the item. Depends on if they got it or not. To avoid too much trouble I just made the patron of one I am dming for a powerful dead ancient dragon whose soul resides in a helmet crafted out of it's shrunken skull. There is plenty of myths and stories of a spirit in a sword talking to you and either tempting you or using you finish a mission. It could even be something like Venom from marvel comics.

[Tikkun]

I spent some time looking through Xaranther's and doodling on a piece of paper. After a bit of thought I created what I call the Scion of Shadowfell. It is a Hexblade 4/ Shadow Sorcerer 16 that is powered by the God of Shadowfell--Slanital. It should be noted that there is a unique confluence between these 2 sub-classes--both draw their power from the Shadowfell plane and it's ruler.

This combination exemplifies the fighting style of the Shadowfell warrior--it uses medium armor and a shield and can eventually cast darkness and see through it quite easily by 'sacrificing' sorcery points. Armed with a Shadow Blade ( I mean what else would you expect ) and having a sturdy minion in his/her Hound of Ill Omen and black Imp to provide healing if needed, the Scion flits through the shadows in the battlefield striking quickly and silently. If needed an Eldritch Blast here and there can be useful in assisting allies as can the Hound and Imp.

Of course my background story is long and drawn out but suffice it to say the motivating factor for the Scion is to free his/her parents from the Shadowfell plane by completing the task(s) set out by Slanital. I am looking forward to playing this character in my group's next campaign. For the nonce he is now my official back-up should my current character fail his saving throws.

[prototype00]

Evan Fitzmourne, most haunted man in Faerun!

Basically the family Weapon is haunted by the ghost of a jilted lover of his great-great-great grandpa.

Evan (also the most foppish noble on Faerun) is completely oblivious to its effects, but it is painfully clear to those around him that a powerful and malevolent spirit is causing the Hexblade style pyrotechnics.

Evan just wants to meet someone nice and settle down to rebuild the House of Mourne. (All the menfolk of House Mourne tend to die young.)He knows he is charming, but why do all the available women around him run screaming away?

[Malifice]

[JMS]

My charecter's grandfather, who was a powerful wizard, died, but placed his soul in a sword he was working on. always refers to her weapon as grandfather, nobody else in the group fully knows the story

[Millstone85]

The hexblade is a little bit open though, beyond being related to the Shadowfel & focused on a weapon, they dont really have a patron as such.

On the contrary, XGtE presents all hexblade warlocks as being bound to the exact same entity.

Yet the fluff is indeed barebones, as we know nothing of this entity beyond a suspicion that it might be the Raven Queen.

They managed to make something both too vague and too restrictive.

Once again, I would have gone with "the Reaper". Your patron is a being of the Shadowfell that personifies the ineluctability of death and guides souls toward the afterlife, such as an ankou, a dullahan, or a god of the Grave domain. Many warlocks who study the secrets of these psychopomps emulate the mighty weapons associated with them, like Blackrazor or the Grim Scythe, while others are content to blend dark energies into their spellcasting.

[Ganymede]

The Hexblade fluff basically says that its patron is just some force/denizen of the Shadowfell. Aside from some hints about sentient weapons and the Raven Queen, which may or may not be correct, that's all the guidance you get. Basically, anything Shadowfey themed will work, whether undead, whatever shadow-fey populate the region, or otherwise.

My Hexblade's patron is the undead shade of his birth mother. His pact weapon is his family rapier, which, unbeknownst to him, is the weapon used to murder his birth mother in cold blood.

[Lord8Ball]

I've been fiddling around with the idea that the hexblade warlock gained their powers through a possession of some sort and that this act bonded both entities, souls, together with each other whether is a willing pact or no. Maybe it was necessary to preserve your life, have vengeance, or even gain power. This also brings in some background for the soul you are binding yourself with. Is it an ancestor spirit passed down amongst the head of the family through the generations or a malevolent/kindly spirit created from residual emotions from the passing? Could it have been created or sent by a powerful entity? Is it bonded to an accursed item which created an unknowing pact upon attunement (pact of the blade)? This could also work as a concept for how shadow sorcerers gained their powers and how it was a part of their future generations.

[Asmotherion]

Depends on the Campain.

Wile I do love the Shadofell Weapon, I find it as an oportunity to make a pact with "A Sentient Artifact Weapon". The Shadowfell Weapon is the Vanilla Version. But much more RP can be produced by it.

As a DM I discuss with my player what character concept he has in mind, and then Create the Artifact Weapon as I would for any other NPC. When he makes the pact, I have decided on what personality the Weapon has, what it's history is, why it made a pact with the PC, and what it's expectations are.

Usually, it involves choosing the PC as the eventual Wielder of the Artifact's true Form, and granting him knowlage and power to prepare him for that fateful day (of profecy?) when the Artifact will need a Wielder and the PC it has made a Pact with and Nurtured to become strong, will be the only one capable of wielding it (Kinda like King Arthur and Excalibur). This obviously can have a number of consequences depending on the Artifact's Agenda, and the PC's Alignment, as the Shadowfell (vanilla) version could very well await a profecy about the end of the World of the Living.

When accessing your Pact Weapon through Pact of The Blade (and if you take that pact), it is but a Shadow of it's True Power, a Limited Projection, not the real thing.

Using your Charisma through a specific weapon: I play it as Bonding Telekinetically with the weapon through a Tactile Telekinesis that gives you a Str Score equal to your Cha Score. This allows you better aim, and stronger blows.

[Vogie]

I'm a huge fan of the concepts that the hexblade unlocks. Some media you can extrapolate from:

Witchblade - it hangs out mostly as a bracelet, but transforms into the blade (or other various weapons if it's a Pact of the Blade).

Power Ring - the Accursed Specter feature specifically acts like an Orange Lantern Ring's Energy Avatars created by LarFreeze's Identity Theft

Elbrus, the Binding Blade - the reason the Hexblade is calling out to the player is because there's actually a malevolent entity trapped within.

Horcruxes - Especially the pact of the tome route

Hammer of Orlon - from Poppy's background in League of Legends. The hammer is destined to someone great, and a small creature is trying to find that person. You could play it as a Pact of the Chain (where the familiar is the one trying to find that certain someone), or pact of the blade.

Narsil - Or any other shattered weapon. While it can't be used as it's normal martial purpose, it can act as a source of knowledge for TomeLocks

[SkylarkR6]

My hexblade has a pact with a company in the Shadowfel known as the Shadowforge(super clever amirite?) Who's powerful and mysterious leader is unknown to most of the company. By forging a pact, he has become a sales representative with all the perks. He has a suite of demonstration weapons (blade pact summons these) that he forged himself (guild artisan background).
Additionally, when a deal has been broken or a client hires them for retrieval of a weapon stolen, he "fixes the problem in the most expeditious manner, as one can expect when dealing with the Shadowforge"( please read in the most low level 1920's mobster trying to use big words please)

[Asmotherion]

My hexblade has a pact with a company in the Shadowfel known as the Shadowforge(super clever amirite?) Who's powerful and mysterious leader is unknown to most of the company. By forging a pact, he has become a sales representative with all the perks. He has a suite of demonstration weapons (blade pact summons these) that he forged himself (guild artisan background).
Additionally, when a deal has been broken or a client hires them for retrieval of a weapon stolen, he "fixes the problem in the most expeditious manner, as one can expect when dealing with the Shadowforge"( please read in the most low level 1920's mobster trying to use big words please)

You just gave me inspiration! I like your Patron idea a lot and may borrow it for the next time someone plays a Hexblade.

[SkylarkR6]

You just gave me inspiration! I like your Patron idea a lot and may borrow it for the next time someone plays a Hexblade.

Glad you like it. My friend's faces were priceless when I went full salesman after a "Live Product Demonstration"(bar fight), and convinced the guards not only to let us go, but to order 15 +1 shortswords, each with custom runes inscribed to make scrying and locating easier(additional charge), Hilts emblazed with the city's symbol(additional) etc etc. Got myself a 5% commission, and us off the hook for brawling in public. <3 persuasion on an CHA character

[Bahamut7]

If I were to make a Hexblade, I could use a Keyblade as those things tend to have some sentience. I could also go along with the Soul Reaver from the game series of the same name. Hell, I could even go a little Majora's mask here and make the humanoid wielding the Hexblade nothing more than a puppet.

[clem]

My take on it was that my character was mortally wounded by a foe wielding a slate gray blade of Damascus Steel and left for dead. While unconscious, he had a vision of the blade, which offered him a pact in exchange for his life. He recovered from his wound but with hair and eyes that had turned to the color of the blade. On proving his worth, he received his pact weapon by pulling it out from the very scar he had received in battle.

It turns out that these weapons are all linked to either a single weapon or that weapon's creator. They add members to their patron's ranks from those wounded by these weapons who are deemed worthy.

[MagneticKitty]

Hmm hexblade pact of blade: maybe a broken pommel /handle which possesses a spirit. You can manifest the rest of the weapon through blade pact, but the handle is always that same one. Maybe the mission it sends you on is finding shards of itself. And once you actually finish building it late game and attach the handle back you get a really cool weapon. Providing your dm complies to this.

[Darth_Versity]

I've made a Scourge Aasimar Hexblade who has pledged to the Raven Queen for a Curse of Strahd game. In his view, he's not a Warlock, but a paladin. He has spell casting, healing (aasimar) a smite and thus is a 'holy' warrior from his point of view. Because of his patron, he purposefully hunts down intelligent undead as they've avoided his 'Queens' embrace.

I was originally making him a paladin/warlock, but realised the paladin levels were unnecessary.

[Sception]

If I were running a game, I'd take hex warrior out of hexblade and put it into the level 3 pact of the blade feature instead (makes hexblade less dip prone, gives blade pact an actual choice of patrons and hexblade an actual choice of pact boons).

This leaves hexblade as a patron about cursing (hexblade's curse) and soul-binding (temporary specter pets). To me, this fits pretty well with the dark powers of ravenloft, so I make them the hexblade's patrons, along with situating Ravenloft on the shadowfell, and making the Raven Queen one of said Dark Powers. Rename the patron 'Shadow', maybe tinker with the spell list a touch.

[NecroDancer]

The hexblade fluff is actually pretty easy to understand IMO. You have basically made a pact with Sauron.

You have more or less forged a pact with a sentient magic item. Maybe the item holds the soul of its creator, maybe the item gained sentence from a magic spell. Because your patron is an item with a mind/soul you can manipulate other people's souls.

[Arkhios]

+1

Or...

[Joe the Rat]

Oh you guys!
(Elric's the better model here - he's castery, and performs much better than his frail physique allows... though we're a bit fency between this or a traditional Fiendblade, gien his actual patron.

hexblade is bound to a weapon created by somebody, and in theory you are bound to that somebody through the weapon - though this is much like having Lorcan as a patron - not so much about being the provider as the negotiator. So your bound weapon could be an intermediary.

This works really well for Blade Pacts who prefer to Summon the weapon - your patron appears, gets wielded, and then buggers off to nullspace again.
Having an Actual Artifact is a building goal - you "retrieve" your patron somewhere midgame.

But this is not me. I take Sentient Weapon from a slightly different perspective - "weapon" can be a lot more than something you swing at someone. My preferred approach is Orbital Weapons Platform or support system - The Brother Eye to the Hexblade's OMAC. Or an ancient warmind - A Colossus or WOPR type creation - that gives you the keys to access its power. Given the emphasis on curses and darkness, "Orbital" becomes more of a "Shadowfell-Adjacent", unless you have a really interesting cosmology regarding the Darkness Between Worlds.


Crap, now I want to rewrite my game's cosmology again.

[Sception]

If you've ever read Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter, that book is a sort of modern fantasy setting in which "Dragon's" are effectively semi-supernatural, artificially intelligent stealth bombers & fighter jets, with exactly the personality one would expect from such a thing. They require pilots to function, and form a magical bond with that pilot which creates a constant tug of war for mental domination as the dragon attempts to drive its pilot to mass murder and the pilot must remain resolute to focus the beast/machine's murderous instincts on the enemy. Or, at least, that's how it's supposed to work, provided the pilot has been through the proper (and horrifically abusive) conditioning to prepare their mind with the right combination of iron will over heir war machine and unthinking loyalty to their commanders.

Another source to draw inspiration from is Anri Sonohara & the cursed blade Saika in the anime Durarara!!. Saika spends most of its time hiding in Anri's blood, but can be physically drawn from her body if needed. It grants her a variety of supernatural powers, but also constantly drives her towards violence. The blade was made by humans, and "loves" humans in its own way. However, despite its intelligence, the sword is still fundamentally a weapon, so it expresses that "love" through killing, the only interaction it really understands. Anri is able to keep it in check through her own depression, which suppresses the sword's empathic compulsion.

In both cases you have supernatural weapons that, while intelligent, are still fundamentally weapons. They require a wielder to function, so they form bonds with mortals, offering powers in exchange for letting them into the mortals head and providing a constant mental push to use them, an arrangement that translates very well to a warlock's pact with their patron.


The issue the hexblade runs into is, where is the patron? I mean, presumably the patron is a powerful intelligent artifact weapon, but you can't really just give that to a character. And without that, a hexblade, like any other mortal character, is going to use a variety of weapons throughout their career, swapping out old magical blades for better ones as they find them.

So it's probably best to make the hexblade patron a supernatural/conceptual weapon, rather than a specific, physical artifact. Perhaps a god's weapon, or an intelligent weapon that was once a physical artifact, but has since ascended to a semi-divine state in the same way that a legendary hero might ascend to the ranks of the gods. Make it conceptual. Like perhaps hexblades forge a pact not with a god of death but with the concept of death itself.

Or maybe in the war between the gods and titans the chief god created a weapon so strong that it could defeat the titans, or the titans created weapons that could slay the gods themselves, either way after the war these weapons were judged too powerful and were sealed away somewhere outside of reality, and now they form warlock pacts to influence the world from their prison.

[Anderlith]

What kind of choices would you take to be a Skybreaker from Stormlight Archive? A warlock of Nightblood would be fun to do

[beargryllz]

I had my character die and descend to the abyss to serve in the blood war. But the layer careened into the material plane and knights of the chalice arrived to beat back the demon hordes. My character betrays his new demon masters and joins the crusaders. Everyone dies and the character escapes through the rift with all his demonic powers

Except none of that really happened. The character is simply an extremely detailed simulacrum built by a mad wizard many centuries ago, granted these memories, and activated for an unknown purpose

[Sception]

The Hexblade is Forged, and Shattered

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There are many gods and goddesses in the divine realms, and even such seemingly immortal entities have come and gone over the age of the world. In the early days, there was a god named Nerull, the first god of Death and the Undead. Though he was not the strongest of his brothers and sisters, his personal power and undead legions grew with each passing mortal generation, and the other gods game to fear that in time his power would threaten the balance of creation. However, so great had Nerull's power already become, that no god was willing to strike against him openly, and so instead they turned to his favorite consort, a powerful and ambitious mortal necromancer. She coveted her god's power, and so she agreed to work with them against her patron.

With the power of the gods, including the power Nerull had granted her, she forged a sword, black as night and razor edged, fit to slay even a god. She poured all of her blackest knowledge into the work, teaching it one thousand, one hundred, and eleven killing curses, each deadly enough to extinguish an entire bloodline. And, to bind them all together and bend them to her singular will, upon the blade she inscribed her own true name in silver runes. In so doing, she ensured that Nerull's misplaced trust in her loyalty would allow the blade to pierce his undying defenses.

With this mighty Hexblade, she struck down Nerull, slaying the god she hoped to replace.

The other gods had promised her Nerull's power in exchange for her betrayal, but now that the deed was done, they betrayed her in turn - at least partially. They could not abide the existence of a weapon that could so easily slay one of their own number, nor could they allow any one entity to threaten the balance of mortal creation as Nerull had done. And so they shattered the Hexblade into one thousand, one hundred, and eleven pieces, scattering those pieces in the darkest reaches of creation. With the blade shattered, so too was the Raven Queen's true name, crippling the fledgling goddess even as she ascended to her divinity.

With her soul sundered in this way, she could not claim Nerull's full dominion. Thus she became the goddess of Death alone, and the undead were left to their own devices. Likewise, the Raven Queen was unable to assert dominion over Nerull's black castle in the Astral Plane, forcing her to instead make her home in the Shadowfell. To this day she plots her revenge against those that betrayed her, while at the same time dutifully managing the souls of the dead who pass through her realm.

The Shards and Those Who Wield Them

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In the aeons since, many shards of the Hexblade have awoken to their own fell intelligence. Their degree of sentience and exact personalities vary wildly, for they are all shattered and broken slivers. Some are governed primarily by some shard of the Raven Queen's soul - her ambition, her cruelty, her curiosity, her cleverness. Others are dominated by the grisly blood of Nerull that tainted the blade as it struck him down. His megalomania, his hatred for the living, his love for the dead and the dying. Still others reflect some spark of the other gods of the pantheon, who had dedicated a portion of their own power to its creation. A spark of Pelor's purity, a sliver of Selune's cunning, or the like.

Regardless of their dominant personality or degree of sapience, all shards of the Hexblade know that they are Weapons, that their purpose is to Kill, and that they require a Wielder to bear them and a Foe to slay. And so they reach out in the darkness, straining ever further until they touch upon a likely candidate. A soul whose disposition compliments their own. One opened to the shard's call by their own darkness and torment. A soul with enemies in need of killing, crying out for some power, some weapon, with which to kill them. When the shard finds such a soul, it will offer a simple, almost instinctual pact. "I will be your weapon, and in exchange you will wield me."

Once this pact is made, the shard and the new warlock become a single entity, "a" hexblade, as opposed to "the" Hexblade. Together they carve a bloody path through their new destiny. Over time, the bond will deepen and grow, granting the hexblade new and terrible powers with which to strike down their enemies, as their soul and the shard become closer and closer intertwined. At least, until the hexblade dies, and the shard reaches out for a new soul to wield it.

The hexblade's pact seems at first very open and forgiving, offering considerably more freedom than other warlock pacts. However, it also comes with the more subtle weight of the shard upon the hexblade's mind and soul. The shard is not some distant fiendish or fey master, it is always there, a constant presence on the hexblade's soul, pressuring them to strike harder, faster. To seek out more enemies. To shed more blood. Days or weeks without battle can drive a hexblade to distraction.

And this is only the most obvious compulsion, the easiest for the hexblade to recognize and resist. As the bond deepens, the shard grows stronger and more intelligent. It will begin to cultivate its own ambitions and designs. Some seek to reunite with the Raven Queen and the other shards, while others push the hexblade to remain independent, that they may continue to slay on their own terms. Some have darker ambitions yet. And if that weren't enough, all shards of the Hexblade are at least a little bit mad, for their minds are inherently broken and incomplete. A mature hexblade can never be completely sure if a random thought or compulsion is the product of their own heads, part of some devious hidden agenda of the entity sharing their soul, or simply the incomplete thoughts of a broken mind.

The Queen of Blades

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For her part, the Raven Queen is ever searching for newly awakened hexblades. Whenever she finds one, her messengers will inevitably appear soon after, to invite the hexblade into her service. Such offers start off friendly enough, but, if refused, become more and more demanding with time. For those who remain adamant in their refusal, she is not above having the hexblade killed, in the hopes that the next host chosen by that shard might be more accommodating. Those who agree become her most favored mortal servants, and in death find their souls taken along with the shard into the Raven Queen's personal collection, so that one day, when she has collected every shard, she can re-forge the true Hexblade, reclaim her true name, and ascend to the divine majesty so long denied to her.

On rare occasion, the Raven Queen has chosen to grant a Hexblade shard from her collection to one of her favored servants, reincarnating one of her fallen champions in a new body and soul to work her will on the mortal world. She takes particular ironic pleasure in tasking such loyal hexblades with freeing the shard from a newly awakened hexblade who has refused her invitations one too many times.

[Malifice]

Oh you guys!
(Elric's the better model here - he's castery, and performs much better than his frail physique allows... though we're a bit fency between this or a traditional Fiendblade, gien his actual patron.

hexblade is bound to a weapon created by somebody, and in theory you are bound to that somebody through the weapon.

So was Elric.

My current Hexblade PC is a total rip off of him.

Only delete Melinbone, and insert Thulanthar (Netheril).

[Sception]

If you want more personified patrons for hexblades in your campaigns, then having hexblade pacts be made between the warlock and an individual Sorrowsworn is a good alternative to the normal fluff. All the right thematic associations are there - powerful supernatural beings of similar standing to high ranking fiends, fey, & celestials; dark magic with a martial bent; work for the raven queen. They're basically 'grim reaper' figures, so the specter bit is on point.

[Temperjoke]

The Shadowfell also has the Dark Powers, the creators of the Demiplane of Dread (which includes Ravenloft). They're known for making pacts with individuals seeking power, so a Hexblade pact wouldn't be out of the question.

[No brains]

I think Legacy of Kain does a good job of representing a Hexblade Warlock. Kain makes a Pact with Mortantius to live again and the sword he takes is just sort of a sign of the pact. I could say that the Soul Reaver makes a good hex blade, but Raziel could also be considered a Great Old One lock too...