Warlock Patron: Tawantinsuyu Imperial Armories

By Inti and Inca Mancoti, you will bring light to these rich, fertile lands. Your light is glorious, blinding, and brief, but while it burns, how wondrous! Soldiers will fear the golden sun on your breast, shells and bullets will strike off you harmlessly, and you will wreak havoc.

Blind and blast! For Sun and Emperor!

Warlock Patron:

Tawantinsuyu Imperial Armories

Anthony Jones

Main warlock rules here. This warlock is dedicated to Lexi, as thanks for everything she's helped me with.

Starting equipment: A pair of darkened glasses, a beaten gold cup, a spyglass, and a quipu.

Boon: 5 in 6 chance to ignore damage from friendly fire. Self-damage does not count. If unsure, flip a coin. Occasionally, when you touch metal, it flashes.

Favors:
Convert ammunition types to different types - cartridges to bullets, artillery shells to bullets, etc - once a day. Can only do this for ammo you’ve used before.
Set off very flammable materials (oil, gunpowder, alcohol, dry tinder, etc) with a touch.
Dry and oil a metal object by running your hands over it.

Goals: Win conflicts for the holder of your contract, ideally the Tawantinsuyu Imperial Armories. Contract expires upon your permanent death or helping your contract holder to win 5 wars, whichever is sooner.

Obligations (1d8):
Kill 3 x [Debt] enemy creatures.
Assassinate [Debt] enemy commanders.
Ferret out [Debt] enemy agents.
Recover 2 x [Debt] taken weapons or equivalent objects.
Capture 3 x [Debt] war prisoners.
Destroy [Debt] enemy fortifications.
Rescue 2 x [Debt] captives.
Help [Debt] operatives infiltrate enemy territory.

Spells:
Sparks Off Cloaks
R: 0 T: [dice] creatures D: [sum]/target attacks
If an attack would damage you and it was faster than a thrown rock, step the damage dice down [dice] sizes. Step the damage dice of attacks slower than a thrown rock up [dice] sizes. If you cast this spell with 3 or more dice, you may reflect [dice] attacks faster than a thrown rock back at their origin.

Preundetonation
R: [dice] x 30’ T: explosive material D: [dice] rounds
With a gesture, you can either set off or defuse [dice] or less explosives that you can see. If you Test versus Dex, you can set off or defuse fast-moving explosives.

Ferrous Charmer
R: [dice] x 20’ T: ferrous metal D: [sum] rounds
You can attract or repel metal. See the table below for the size and speed of metal you can affect.

1 dice: Knife size at walking speed.
2 dice: Torso at running speed.
3 dice: Human running as fast as a horse.
4 dice: Cart blurring with motion. Can warp the paths of bullets.

Blast Wave
R: 200’ T: 20’ radius D: 0
Objects and people take [sum] damage. For every hard, immovable surface the blast wave overlaps, add [size] to the spell’s damage.

Shape Metal
R: touch T: metallic substance D: variable
You can mold refined metal that you touch like wet clay, sculpting it to your satisfaction. The changes last for [sum] rounds with 1 [dice], [sum] minutes with 2 [dice], [sum] hours with 3 [dice], and are permanent with 4 [dice].

Organs to Grenades
R: touch T: Fresh corpse with [dice] or less HD D: [sum] minutes
You convert [dice] organs of a fresh corpse (no older than [dice] days) into explosives. When you throw the meat nades, you may either set them to detonate on impact or detonate after [dice] or less rounds. Creatures in the radius of the explosives may Save vs Con for half damage.
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Hand/foot: 1d4 damage, 10 ft. radius
Arm/leg: 2d4 damage, 20 ft. radius
Eye: 1 damage, 5 ft. Can see through the eyes of one damaged creature for the duration of the spell.
Ear: 1 damage, 5 ft. Can hear through the ears of one damaged creature for the duration.
Tongue: 1 damage, 5 ft, can talk with one damaged creature’s tongue for the duration.
Head: Deals 1d6 Stress damage, those who take full damage from the blast gain the contents of 1 random mental inventory slot from the head.

Sunlust
R: 100’ T: [dice] creatures D: [dice] minutes
Creatures you can see that can see sunlight must Save or rush towards it, staying in the sunlight for the duration of the spell. If 4 [dice] are invested, the duration is days instead of minutes. If there is no sunlight visible, the spell fails.

Blood to Gunpowder
R: touch T: unclotted blood D: permanent
You touch up to [dice] buckets of fresh blood from a creature with [dice] or less HD and convert it to dry gunpowder. If this blood is in an open wound, the creature must Save vs Con with advantage or take [sum] damage as its blood turns into gunpowder.

Metal to Light
R: touch T: metallic substance D: [dice] hours
As you hold some metal, you convert part of it to light. This subtracts half an inventory slot per hour from the metallic object. The brightness depends on the [dice] invested: 1 [dice] for a candle, 2 [dice] for a torch, 3 [dice] for a bonfire, and 4 [dice] for daylight brightness. Alternatively, if you cast this spell with 4 [dice], you may choose to instead turn light into metal.
Casting this spell with certain metals has different effects: gold produces sunlight, silver moonlight, mercury a poisonous grey light, occultum octarine light, etc.

Compartmentalize Mixture*
R: touch T: object D: 1hr
Command a mixture of items (a soup, a pile of coins) that weigh no more than [dice]x100lbs to separate into [sum]+1 categories. The separation is slow, and hindered by even the slightest effort. The categories must be clearly defined and identifiable by inspection. For example, you could split a soup into "vegetables" "broth" and "poison", or a pile of coins into "minted during the last century" and "older". You could not, however, split a pile of coins into "handled by Xerphion the Tyrant" and "not handled by Xerphion the Tyrant", as there's no way to tell just by inspecting them. You could not separate "a locked chest" and "its contents", because the items could not flow freely into separate piles.

Teleport to Shooter
R: self T: self D: 0
You may trigger this spell upon taking projectile or firearm damage from a creature trying to kill you. The damage from that attack is reduced by [dice] x 2 and you teleport to a safe spot within [dice] x 10’ of the attacking creature. If you can see your attacker, you can choose where you teleport to.

Solar Flare
R: self T: creatures D: [dice] rounds
Creatures that can see you must Save vs Dex or be blinded by a flash of sunlight.

Gaze of Inti
R: sight T: [dice] creatures in sunlight D: varies
When you cast this spell, roll all your Credit Dice, and note the time of day and the number of 4’s you roll, and consult the table below. If you roll four 4’s and you cast this spell at noon, for 4 rounds, you achieve perfection.

Morning:
Creatures lose [number of 4’s] levels of exhaustion.
Noon:
Creatures must Save vs Con. If they fail, they take [# of 4’s] x [dice] damage. If they pass, they gain [# of 4’s] MD that last as long as they stay in sunlight.
Afternoon:
Creatures lose up to [# of 4’s] x [dice] HP, which go to creatures of your choice. Save for half.

* - spell from Skerples's excellent List of 100 Orthodox Spells.

Patron’s Gift: If you are killed by an explosion you cause, note how many HD of sentient creatures (except yourself) were killed by that specific explosion. Then roll a d20. If you roll under the number of HD recorded, you return to life intact (if blown apart) and in the nearest safe location.

Design Notes:
These spells are pretty powerful, but also somewhat situational. Lots of them require objects or input to activate, and depending on your campaign world/technology level, not all of these spells are useful. For wizards running around a battlefield, though, any one of these spells could be a lifesaver...or could mean you die in a fiery explosion. Your obligations are also quite lethal.
My favorite spell that I’ve created here is perhaps Teleport to Shooter because of how many uses it has with foes and friends and how wrong it can go. Teleporting into a fortified enemy position with a bleeding wound is always a good idea.
Organs to Grenades sounds like so much fun - I really hope someone uses it soon.
I’m a bit worried about the thematic overlap of these spells - 3 of them have to do with metal, 2 projectiles, and 4 with explosive material (I’m including a favor). I don’t think this warlock is too narrow for my setting, but they certainly will be helpless in a social situation, which is what I intended.

This is also the first warlock patron tailored to my setting!