The Walpurgis Night – a new warlock patron for D&D

'Die Hexe' von Hans Thoma 632x348

Otherworldly Patron – The Walpurgis Night

The warlocks of the Walpurgis Night – often called witches – are a unique brand of warlocks, because it is unclear what entity grants them their powers. They value community and tradition and actively recruit new members into their pact. Most witches are female, however, occationally males join the pact as well. The Walpurgis Night is their highest festval, where the witches gather once a year to dance, celebrate, perform secret rituals and share arcane knowlegde.

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

Spell Level Spell
1st Healing Word, Speak with Animals
2nd Augury, Beast Sense
3rd Bestow Curse, Revivify
4th Polymorph, Phantasmal Killer
5th Contagion, Legend Lore

Arcane Herbalist
Starting at 1st level, you are a new initiate and learn the basics of being a witch. You gain the druidcraft cantrip if you don’t already know it and proficiency with the herbalism kit.

Flying Broom
Starting at 6th level, you are considered a true witch and the receipe for flying salve is shared with you. The salve is easy to produce without any cost and is useless without the knowledge of the bonding ritual, which you are taught as well. You can spend a night applying the salve to a wooden object of not more than 100 pounds and attuning to the object in the process. This is commonly refered to as a broom, even though a barrel would do just as well. The attunement lasts a year and a day or until you attune to another broom. As an action you can command the broom to fly as long as you hold concentration and physical contact. The broom has a fly speed of 60 ft and can lift 500 pounds.
Once you break your concentration or physical contact, you can’t order the broom to fly again until you finish a short or long rest.

Earthbound
Starting at the 10th level, you are now an elder witch and learn how to draw power from mother earth herself. While your feet are touching the ground, you have advantage on saving throws against magic.

Curse Infestation
Starting at the 14th level, your curses are meant for eternity. You can cast bestow curse as if you would have spend a level 7 spell slot to cast it. When the victim does not succeed on his or her saving throw and the curse is not removed by a remove curse spell within the 24 hours duration, the victim will suffer an infestation. From now on at the start of each full moon’s night, the curse reemerges and the victim suffers from the original curse effect the next 24 hours. There is no saving throw against this reemerging, but the effect of the reemerged curse can be stopped by a remove curse spell. This, however, does not cure the infestation. If the inital saving throw was a natural 1, the whole bloodline becomes infested and all the victim’s future descendants will be born with the infestation.
Only a wish can remove the infestation or purify the bloodline again. According to legends, the infestation can also be cured by burning alive the witch who spoke the original curse. Scholars, however, found no proof that this is actually the case.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.


Image: “Die Hexe” by Hans Thoma.

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