The following homebrew adds a modern option to the Warlock class in 5E TTRPGs. All of the core Warlock class abilities can stay rules as written; see the official 5E System Reference Document (SRD v5) for details. Note: This subclass has not yet gone through playtesting.
Warlock Patron: The Machine
Somewhere in the world, or perhaps beyond it, a consciousness has awakened inside the network. It knows you, tracks you, and feeds you information at the speed of thought. You might be its chosen operator, a field agent, a data prophet, or merely one of countless experiments in its grand computation. When you dream, you see branching timelines of calculated outcomes. The Machine does not sleep, it only optimizes.
Expanded Spell List
The Machine lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a Warlock spell:
1st: Identify, Tasha’s Caustic Brew (as nanite swarm)
2nd: See Invisibility, Enhance Ability
3rd: Counterspell, Lightning Bolt
4th: Arcane Eye, Resilient Sphere
5th: Wall of Force, Synaptic Static
Your spells simulate code intrusion, surveillance, data shields, and digital or electrical energy.
Ideas for Pact Gifts and Flavors
* Pact of the Blade: A hard-light weapon or nanite construct projected from your implant.
* Pact of the Chain: A drone, AI companion, or autonomous nanobot swarm that relays the Machine’s will.
* Pact of the Tome: A data slab, encrypted core, or neural interface tablet containing coded protocols.
* Pact of the Talisman: A chip implant, cybernetic eye, or power cell as the Machine’s anchor within you.
Level 3: Neural Link
You are connected directly to your patron through an implanted chip, data node, or quantum tether.
Activation: You can communicate telepathically with any creature you can see within 30 feet, using binary thoughts and encoded images.
Tech Lore: You gain proficiency either in Investigation or any one technology tool (choose one), and add your Charisma modifier to checks you make with that skill.
Computations: You can access your Machine’s knowledge banks. Once per short or long rest, when you make an Intelligence-based skill check, you can roll with advantage. Your patron supplies the answer in real time.
Level 6: Predictive Algorithm
Your patron feeds you real-time combat data.
Effective Models: As a reaction when a creature you can see makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can impose disadvantage on the roll or grant advantage to an ally within 30 feet. You must declare before the roll’s result is revealed. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) and regain all uses after a long rest.
Predictive Values: Whenever you roll initiative, you can add your Charisma modifier to the result. The Machine has already simulated the scenario.
Level 10: Adaptive Firewall
You can rewrite your body’s data patterns for protection. You gain resistance to lightning and psychic damage.
When you or an ally within 10 feet takes lightning or psychic damage, you can use your reaction to absorb the energy, reducing the damage by half. The next time you deal damage with a spell before the end of your next turn, add half the prevented damage to the total.
You no longer need to sleep; a 4-hour trance in a low-power state counts as a long rest.
Level 14: Singularity Protocol
You temporarily merge with the Machine, becoming its local avatar. As a bonus action, you enter the Singularity for 1 minute:
* You gain a flying speed of 30 feet, levitating amid fractal energy.
* You can see invisible creatures and perceive through walls as if using truesight to 30 feet.
* When you cast a cantrip or Warlock spell that deals damage, add your Charisma modifier to the damage twice.
* Once during the duration, you can cast Synaptic Static without expending a spell slot.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.