October 23, 2017

The Pumpkin King

Otherworldy Patron
Comments from the Finger: In the spirit of Halloween, we've pulled this one out of our book, All Patreons Eve! If you like it, there's plenty more spooky warlocks where this came from, along with a host of invocations and pact boons that are just right for the season. (Plus, it's super, super cheap.)

The Pumpkin King

Known by many names, the Pumpkin King is the true patron of Halloween. Though not explicitly a deity, the pumpkin king is one of a very few gatekeepers to the land of the dead, and on the night of Halloween he is granted the opportunity to throw open the gates of the afterlife and let the dead roam the land once again. This is not with malicious intent, as most assume; Old Jack simply enjoys a bit of (mostly) harmless trickery and chaos, and the dead do enjoy a bit of time in the world of substance and life every now and then. He grants those who seek him the means to sow both joy and terror in equal measure, especially those most deserving.

Expanded Spell List
The Pumpkin King allows you to choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Pumpkin King Expanded Spells
Spell Level  Spells
1stgoodberry, silent image
2ndcontinual flame, spike growth
3rdbestow curse, spirit guardians
4thdeath ward, phantasmal killer
5thhallow, seeming

Trick or Treat
Starting at 1st level, you can use your bonus action to bestow minor boons or banes upon a creature within 60 feet that can hear you. If that creature is hostile to you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or gain a Trick die. If that creature is friendly to you, it gains a Treat die. Both Trick and Treat die are d6s.
     Once within the next 10 minutes, if the creature has a Treat die, the creature can roll the die and add it to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw it makes. If the creature has a Trick die, you can use your reaction to force it to roll the die and subtract it from one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw it makes. A Trick or a Treat die can be used after the roll is made, but can only be used before the GM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. Once a Trick or a Treat die is used, it is lost.
     You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
     Starting at 6th level, you regain all uses of this ability following a short rest. Starting at 14th level, both Trick and Treat dice become d8s.

Unearthly Fright
Starting at 6th level, as an action, you can perform a horrifying, macabre spectacle, terrifying all around you. Each creature within 30 feet of you which can see or hear you to make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you for up to a minute. A creature affected by this ability can make a new saving throw each time it takes damage and at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a successful save, or when the creature can neither see nor hear you.

Ghoulish Resilience
At 10th level, the Pumpkin King grants you some of the unnatural resilience of his ghastly companions. This is beneficial, but costly, as your skin takes on a deathly pallor and several of your bodily functions cease. You gain resistance to necrotic damage, and you no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe.
     Additionally, you can easily recover from horrific trauma. You can't be incapacitated or killed due to dismemberment or decapitation. If one of your body parts is severed but is still intact, you can hold it to the stump, and two instantly knit together. Lastly, you no longer take additional damage from critical hits.

Ghoulish Revelry
Starting at 14th level, Old Jack allows you to call on several of his friends to aid you in your revelry. You can cast animate dead as a 7th level spell without using a spell slot.


  1. So it occurred to me while reading this: What are the Pumpking Kings stats? Well that got me thinking of a good book: The Book of Stat'd Patrons.

    We have the Fiends and through the Tome of Beasts by Kobold Press we have the Arch Fey, but you have a number of Patrons you made. How strong is the Titan and more about those beings. What is the Parasite and from whence does it come? Who is the Pharaoh and where does HE draw his power? The Machine? The Spirit? Lady Luck? That could be an impressive book FULL of fun details and help a DM or player do a GREAT Patron/Warlock relationship...

    Just saying...

    1. It could be a good book, aye. I kind of hate writing high-CR stat blocks though, so it would probably depend on the other digits (monsters are usually my domain).

      Another complicating factor is that some of the patrons don't have physical forms or aren't people at all - and several represent a *type* of patron, of which there are several different options for exactly *who* it is (like the ones in the PHB).

      Maybe the Finger could put it in one of the polls or something...?

    2. I would be down for writing an NPC book for Warlock Patrons. However, it is my firm belief that you should never give stats to a patron. The moment something has stats, a player can kill it. Same reason I don’t stay up gods beyond the examples in the PHB.

      So if I were the lead on that project, I’d give the history and personality of a Patron, the types of Patron they can serve as (like say you had a Patron who could be either Great Old One or Archfey by the lore you wrote for them), and their favorite Pact Boons to hand out. Then I’d stat up what their cultists look like. So you’d have the grunts, mid-levels, high levels, and then the Cult Leader.

      And then I’d write specific Invocations and feats for each Patron, to further tie you to your Patron if you so choose.

      Basically if I were in charge, it would probably be a pain in the ass to write, but oh hell I’d enjoy that project so much.

    3. Aye, I do follow the rule of: Fun Before Rules.
      I would agree generally, with the sentiment of not stating. But at a certain point many characters WOULD want to challenge their Patron. Either they believe they have grown beyond their power (Mayhaps mistakenly), or they wish to break their contract on their Soul. And THAT is why I would want stats for those god tier beings.

      That said, the skinny on these beings other than written stats is MUCH more important. That History, those favors they like to give, the info on the Cults a la Elemental Evil, ect, ect. That would be a treasure trove to be sure!

      Just throwing it out there... Thanks for the GREAT replies!

    4. The solution to "if it has stats, they can kill it" is to only give stats for the Avatars of gods/patrons/other powerful beings, where an avatar is only the being's form on the Material Plane. The implication is that mortals can't kill gods or patrons directly, just as they can't kill an idea, but they can banish its chosen form from the Material Plane for a time.

      The more interesting challenge is filtering out what counts as a patron that people would want to include as part of their cosmology; after all, a lot of our patrons are pretty specific, and might not help fill out the pantheon of a world.

      But, yeah, I think this is a pretty rad idea, and it might even be something worth considering with the re-release of the Binder (whenever that gets picked by patrons): would any of the new vestiges have avatars, and how hard would they be to kill?

    5. I demand this be written as a Patreon book. I would vote for it so hard.

      Also, I know you just did Men & Monsters, but it would be really cool to see more races make it to the blog. And psionics-related stuff. The Soul Knife Monk was good, but give me MOOOOOAAAAAR!

      Thank you, and have a nice day.

    6. My vote would go to this after a siegeball and that gosh dang spellbooks.

  2. Pumpking.

    Sorry, I just had to say it.

    1. Dol Arrah knows how many times I had to stop myself.

    2. I see you sneaking in an Eberron reference. You thought you could slide it by us, but you were WRONG.

  3. Sirs,
    I will be creating a half elf warlock with an archfey patron in a podcast. While searching the internet, I came across your Pumpkin King. I would love to use him as my patron. I would like to ask your permission to use him and if there is anything I would need to do...i.e. acknowledge copyright credit or purchasing the book he is published in.
    Thank you for you consideration in this.