Contract
- Class
- Warlock
- Name
- Contract
- Subclass
- Infernal
- Brief
- The Faustian engine: offer binding bargains, buy outcomes outright, and profit whether the mark pays or defaults
- Actions
- ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/offer-terms, ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/call-in, ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/fine-print, ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/repossess, ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/broker, ../../../play/actions/powers/warlock/infernal-writ
The warlock gains shards when they convince someone to sin. Contract is the machinery that makes that a repeatable action instead of a roleplay note. It touches assault, defense, support, social, and exploration, and it's the only power in the game that lets you buy an outcome outright.
The Ledger
You may hold a number of active contracts equal to your Charisma modifier. Each has a Boon (what you gave), a Price (what they owe), and a Debt rated in soul shards.
Boons
Boons scale with rank:
| Rank | Boon |
|---|---|
| 1 | A die bonus on a roll |
| 2 | Healing, or a removed condition |
| 3 | A truthful answer |
| 3 | Temporary HP and proficiencies |
| 4 | One of your own powers cast on their behalf |
| 5 | Soul held in escrow, so they survive death for a scene |
| 5 | Resurrection |
Prices
Prices are where the power lives. A Price may be:
- Soul shards, in installments
- A Service, called in later
- A truth
- An object
- A clause — "you may not raise a hand against me while you owe me" — which is how this becomes a combat action against things that laugh at mind control
- Something abstract and expensive: their name, their voice, their capacity to lie, their memory of someone
The terms you speak must be literally true. They need not be complete.
Breach
Break the terms and the contract enforces itself: the breacher suffers damage scaling with the Debt, and you seize shards equal to it. No GM arbitration required — the clause is the enforcement.
Why You Always Win
- The mark pays a Price that is a sin (betray an ally, take the gold, kill the prisoner) → you collect sin-shards, at double rate, and they did it willingly.
- The mark breaches → you collect the forfeit.
- The only losing contract is one whose Price is virtuous and gets honored. So you learn to write sin into the terms. The Lower Planes don't want your marks to default. They want them to perform.
Take Corruption to make the offer irresistible; earn more back off the Debt than you spent. That's the loop, and it's a soul economy no other class has.
Actions
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Offer Terms | propose a binding bargain; take Corruption to make it tempting. |
| Call In | invoke a Service clause. The debtor performs, or breaches. |
| Fine Print | detect the exact terms and the flaw in any oath, geas, curse, pact, ward, or summoning circle — and exploit it. |
| Repossess | revoke a Boon at will, or seize a pledged object at range. |
| Broker | witness and bind a deal between two others; take a cut of the Debt from both. |
| Infernal Writ (rank 5) | a contract binding a group, a bloodline, an organization, or a place. Outlives the signatories. |
Notes
- Overlap with Fey: Temptation is currently filed under Fey. The split is flavor of enforcement: fey bargains are whimsical, unfair, and enforced by curse; infernal bargains are legalistic, itemized, and enforced by clause. Same fiction, different machinery.