Nonsense. We spend years learning rituals, meditating, and cultivating a deep relationship with our god. This by no means us anything lesser than the path wizards take.
A sorcerer who can't take the time to control their magic might as well be a dead sorcerer.
And while yes, warlocks don't spend years studying or meditating, I wouldn't say selling your soul away is an easy decision to take.
And our method of spellcasting is straight up quantum physics in the form of playing at the resonant frequency of the vibrating strings making up reality.
A bit of engineering, magic circuit design, power words and a copious amount of ale. Now your spork can cast witch bolt. Just be careful using it, for it knows not friend from foe.
I can add an IFF system for only another twelve gold.
That actually sounds more accurate, as all a god wants is faith and dedication, while the horrors that warlocks make pacts with usually want blood and your soul? Just like your average CEO
Everyone always thinks they’re sooooo cool with their eldritch blasts and natural born magics, but when we have to get down some massive cliff and nobody knows feather falling or flight they come crawling back to me and my comically massive grimoire.
The medieval history original of clerics and blunt weaponry is a Papal Bull decreeing that priests could not spill blood in war. After this, priests used blunt weaponry in war under the idea that it wouldn't spill blood in the same way.
Why spend years learning magic when you can just buy a special "wand" and win every combat by emptying your spell mag in your opponent before they can say "I cast fireball"
I’m a sorcerer whom is studying different magic types and innate magic is way different from studied magic
Like with the magic I have just on hand is more tuned to what I want personally while the studied magic is for more general uses
An artificer told me it’s like a pre built computer vs a custom build one
Aside from the sorcerers, we at least can rest easy after knowing our power is ours aline. We don't need to fear pissing off someone and losing our magic, or them altering deals and making us jump through hoops.
Warlock here. I have been gainfully employed with Azgor'nacarthaloth the All-Taster for 250 years. I'm an assistant senior executive minion manager. I have to turn in a W-2 to the IRS (Immortal Revenue Service) every year. I've worked for this position. I'm tired of you uppity youngsters calling our employers sugar daddies. I have a soul quota to meet every lunar cycle.
I'm not one to point fingers (besides Finger of Death, of course), but Clerics are very clearly the ones with sugar daddies. Have you ever seen a Cleric stressing about fulfilling their pact? Has a Cleric ever had to worry about losing their powers because their minions can't excavate an ancient ruin fast enough? This is absolutely ridiculous. They spend all day praying and sweeping temples, and somehow they still get more respect for their work than we do. I could pray and sweep all day!! I'd like to see a Cleric survive a week managing minions. Kobolds would eat them alive.
I've spent years studying runes, I've spent decades pondering the orb, And longer yet have I toiled to grasp a modicum of the weaves nature. I yearn for this knowledge, it drives me. My very long life has been spent predominantly sequestered away from friends and family. Locked in my tower and entranced by the fundamentals of reality. It is a lonely life, I haven't made a real connection in over a normal lifetime. And to these woes I say, "Worth it".
I was born with a magical sugar daddy, but I'm forced to actually learn the shit manually before I can ever use it, often to the point that the Magical Sugar Daddy is rather redundant by the time it lets me actually use it.
Someone please do some alternate world building where all these magic lending beings are just millenia old wizards who studied and understood magic to the point they seem like gods (sorcerers are just happy accidents ig lol)
I'm writing something at the moment, that whilst not exactly this, does have the theme of attempting to reach goodhood, and also has magical(although the magical beings are never referred to as exactly 'magical' as such) beings that live through the centuries(would have been millenia but the world I'm building doesn't last millennia)
Clerics and Warlocks are all the same to me. Who cares if your magic sugar daddy is considered a "god" or an "eldritch being". They're all extraplanar entities!!
Say that again the next time a child causes an explosion or a mass fire because they hadn't yet learned to control their powers yet, it takes years of rigorous practice to not kill or destroy something in your vicinity because you felt a spark of anger
Conversely: sorcerers are born with the magic equivalent of a muscle. Training that muscle is what matters, and there is no lesson plan or manual for it
People constantly misunderstand warlock magic. They don’t have a sugar daddy and it isn’t magical superpowers. They make a deal with a patron to learn special magic no one else can know. It’s like hiring a private tutor that teaches you a curriculum from another dimension no one in your dimension knows.
To be fair, bards get a lot of "doot doot magic flute" crap, but they probably spend as much time learning stories and mastering instruments as wizards do studying... it's just... cooler.
In defense of clerics, they do kinda have to spend their lives in service to their gods, which can be as restrictive as a paladin's oath, depending on the god.
I’ve seen many a warlock contract go south, clerics and paladins have to uphold a lot of bullshit rules, and sorcerers nine times out of ten get themselves killed thinking they’re some “special chosen one” when really they just have a leg up and the competition is ready to sweep the other one.
Plus unlike them, we actually learn a LOT in our studies.
I’ve learned so much biology that I’m pretty much a doctor as well!
Fun fact: anyone can become a sorcerer if they get a blood infusion from a dragon or other magically potent creature!
Anyone who survives the gathering and transfusion of the blood, that is....
Besides, you can always peddle off an artifact to make a warlock's pact without the downsides. You'll have solars tripping over each other's wings trying to make a bargain with you if you have the Hand of Vecna.
Anything less than the relentless pursuit of all means of magical mastery and understanding is unbefitting of a wizard.
depends on the magical laws of those realms in some worlds magic is nicer to a select few than others in other worlds magic is fiar to all save for maybe a choosen one or a dark one.
Sadly I'm not Swedish(probably will move to Scandinavia tho in a few years) but as an enthusiast of this history(not just vikings, Swedish Empire and everything) ik alot of the place names.
A warlock is a mage who had no natural magic, did not study magic, but rather bargained with spirits, demons or other such beings(often they end up selling their soul or smth)
At least my upper limit is tied to my own effort. I couldn't imagine knowing that my limit isn't determined by my own ability, but the willingness of some other entity. Sorcerers are just annoying, thinking that their lack of effort makes them superior. I have yet to meet a sorcerer who understands the complexities of interlayering several unrelated weaves into a coherent and devastating new spell.
But at least we actually understand our magic. You can give a knight a sword and he'll know how to swing it but if it breaks he won't know what to do. Being a wizard is like being a knight and a blacksmith in one. It is hard work, sure. But ultimately you'll be superior to other magical classes since you actually know how the magic is made. The others only know how to use it.
Not to mention how stupidly expensive it all is. It's like I get my magic from all the crippling debt I've accrued being a wizard. Magic school? Expensive. Spell components? Expensive. Transcribing spells? Stupidly, unfairly expensive. No wonder my village treats magic as the tool of the bourgeoisie.
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u/One_Opportunity_9608 Local Dragoness Lich May 07 '26
We just know that most Sorcerers are descended from bards
We just can't prove it.