Fae Warlocks
Nicknames: faerie mages (polite), fae struck, mad mages (derogatory)
Fae warlocks (and fae witches) are mortals who gain power from making pacts with Fair Folk. Some of these pacts do not involve the acquisition or use of arcane magic. Many mortals make a pact to gain strength, beauty, musical talent or some other enhanced trait other than spell casting, but these are not true witches or warlocks though their lives are usually just as weird and fae entangled as the true warlocks.
Some mortals make bargains with fae that don’t alter their bodies or minds at all, these are not really mystically significant, not much different from two mortals trading favors or performing barter.
Spread
Most Fae witches and warlocks are personally recruited by their Faerie patron or in some rare cases, minions of their patron. Less commonly, mortals will actively seek out Fair Folk seeking power from them. When this happens, a Faerie lord may be impressed by the mortal's moxy, or they may find this mortal's presumption highly annoying. There is alos the issue that only a powerful minority of Fair Folk are even capable of acting as Patrons. A few very powerful Fair Folk kings and queens serve as patrons to as many as a dozen witches and warlocks, but most Fae warlocks are the only warlock associated with their patron because these Fair Folk can’t or won’t support more than one warlock. Most Fair Folk have no warlock or witch pacts at all because they can’t do it or they have no interest in such pacts. Most mages seek out other mages of their mystic tradition either to amass political power, exchange knowledge or for simple fellow ships. Fae warlocks do not often seek out other Fae warlocks. The Fair Folk themselves are often in the middle of some kind of intercine squabble and fae warlocks often have their lives complicated enough by their own Fae patron that they don’t want to deal with someone else’s patron.Transmission & Vectors
Sometimes fae warlocks have pacts that transcend their family line, but this is pretty rare.
A few children of witches and warlocks never actually make a Fae pact but they still inherit powers from their Fae-touched parents. More often they inherit minor supernatural traits (both good and bad) but find themselves offered a new pact when they enter adulthood.
Causes
It is not clear what Fair Folk want when they empower a withc or warlock. Some believe they are after souls, emotions, pawns, spies, breeding stock, or simply for amusement.
Often Fae warlocks find themselves getting dragged into the squabbles of Fair Folk wars and intrigues and other times a witch or warlock barely every sees a Fae creature after their initial pact. Like with most things concerning the Fair Folk, the lives of witches and warlocks are hard to pigeonhole and predict.
Symptoms
Warlocks of any stripe are likely to have strange quirks but Fae warlocks are often especially prone to have psychological issues and/or supernatural blessings and curses that make them stand out, such as not having a shaow, being exceptionally beautiful or ugly, or being especially lucky or unlucky. Almost anything is possible. It is even possible for some fae warlocks to blend in with the crowd.
Affected Groups
The first witches and warlocks in the First Age were said to be kobolds who were cast out of their clans for various reasons.
In the the Third Age, the overwhelming majority of Fae warlocks are humans, elves, satyrs (who Fair Folk consider simply variant elves), or half-elves.
That said, the number of warlocks without human or elf blood is increasing with each generation. While it was almost unheard of in the Red Era for mortals other than humans or elves to become warlock, more varied fae warlocks are making themselves known in the modern feudal era.
Neffrey the tengku warlock by Eron12 with Heroforge
History
It is believed that the Fair Folk experimented with some warlock pacts in the First Age purely out of curiosity, but after the First Unmaking devestated the status quo in Fae Home, many Faerie lords and ladies turned to using warlock pacts to gain mystical sustenance.
As more Fae realized that warlocks could not just be food but act as proxy agents, the number of fae warlocks increased rapidly in the the Second Age and were at least as least as popular in the the Third Age.
Fae warlocks are easily the most commonly seen type of warlock though there are clearly more wizards than warlocks and their may or may not be more sorcerers.
Fae warlocks first became relatively commonplace in the Second Age and many Fae have picked up a favorable bias towards elves and even in the Feudal era of the Third Age, elves are proportionately over represented among fae warlocks, half-elves even more so.
Cultural Reception
General attitudes towards fae warlocks are not unlike attitudes towards the Fae themselves. Fae Warlocks are subjects of fear, envy, mystery, or even allure.
Given that fae warlocks are the most common type of warlocks and Nami Warlocks and Greymoria warlocks tend to be more quiet about their conditions, if you say "warlock" to most Scarterrans, they will assume you mean a fae warlock.
Testers, Stewards, Rovers, and Lanterns tend to be relatively tolerant of fae warlocks while Children, Keepers, Guardians, and Masks tend to view fae Warlocks with open distrust. That said, attitudes vary more from individual to individual instead of faction to faction.
The vast majority fae witches and warlocks are of common birth and low social status. Thus, they are often viewed with suspicious by highborn lords and ladies. There are exceptions where the ruling class is actually made up of warlocks or the friends and allies of warlocks but these places tend to be small and isolated locales such as the Barony of Bees where the ruling regime is basically a puppet of the local Fae.
Symbol of the Nine (with artist's permission) by Pendrake
The Fair Folk have a mixed and often rocky relationship with the Nine, so it is unsurprising that fae warlokcs have a mixed and often rocky relationship with their local Nonagons.
Many priests and theurgists view all arcane mages as rivals or competitors but they are especially likely to distrust fae warlocks as factionless wild cards.
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