The Azgurathul Patron
Warlock Subclass — Homebrew for Heretics of the Old Gods
Overview
Your patron is Azgurathul — not a god, not a devil, not anything with a name that maps onto a category you can hold in your mind. It is something that pressed through a gap in the fabric of the planes a thousand years ago when a catastrophic device was destroyed in the Hellcatch Valley, and it has been here ever since, bleeding heat into the desert, indifferent to the city built above it, indifferent to the faith that accumulated around it, indifferent to you.
You are Forgekissed. You pushed your devotion further than the others. You opened the channel wider than it wanted to go and something answered — not because it chose to, not because it knows you exist, but because the channel was open and the overflow had somewhere to go. The power is real. The cost is real. And you keep going back because the alternative is losing the power, and you cannot imagine who you are without it anymore.
Stress
This subclass uses the Stress mechanic. Refer to the Stress rules document for the full effects of stress, stress checks, dissociation, and pushing yourself.
This subclass is designed to accumulate stress faster than it can be recovered. This is intentional. The Azgurathul patron’s features — The Hunger, Devil’s Bargain, The Burning Eye, and Consume the Flesh — all generate stress as a cost of use. Standard stress recovery is halved, short rests provide no recovery, and the only meaningful relief comes through Communion at level 9, which extracts its own price.
Players choosing this subclass should expect their character to drift through the stress tiers over the course of a campaign. The effects of stress at each tier are not obstacles to be optimized around — they are the story of what this patron does to a person. Review the Stress rules document before play and discuss with your DM how stress effects will be handled at your table.
The source of your stress is not something you can walk away from. It is in your head. The connection does not close when you rest.
Azgurathul Stress Recovery
| Activity | Stress Points Recovered |
|---|---|
| Short Rest | 0 |
| Long Rest | 1 |
| A week of downtime (pursuing other activities) | 2 |
| A week of downtime (prioritizing relaxation) | 10 |
Patron Spells
| Warlock Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3 | Burning Hands, Scorching Ray |
| 5 | Hunger of Hadar, Fear |
| 7 | Wall of Fire, Phantasmal Killer |
| 9 | Synaptic Static, Eyebite |
| 11 | Delayed Blast Fireball, Power Word Pain |
Features
Level 3: Forge-Hardened
The fire that bleeds through the rift has tempered your body against its own nature. You have resistance to fire damage.
Level 3: The Hunger
When you cast a Warlock spell that deals fire damage, you may gain up to your proficiency bonus in stress points. For each stress point gained this way, the spell deals an additional 1d6 fire damage.
Level 6: Devil’s Bargain
You may gain a number of stress points equal to your Pact Magic spell slot level to regain one expended Pact Magic spell slot.
Level 9: Communion
When you contact Azgurathul through any of the following means, you reduce your stress by 5 points:
- Using the Contact Patron feature (free, once per long rest)
- Expending a spell slot to use Contact Patron again
- Casting Contact Other Plane using a spell slot
However, Azgurathul takes its price — at some point within the next 24 hours, one of your actions will be controlled by the DM. You retain your movement, bonus action, and reaction.
Level 10: The Burning Eye
As a Bonus Action, you activate truesight out to 60 feet for 1 minute. You gain 1 stress point when you activate this feature. While active, the DM may introduce hallucinatory elements alongside true vision at their discretion.
Level 14: Consume the Flesh
As a Magic action, you expend a Pact Magic spell slot to tear open your connection to Azgurathul. You gain 1d6 stress as the channel opens. A 60-foot cone of fire erupts from you — every creature in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC, taking 8d10 fire damage on a failed save or half that total on a successful one. Before rolling damage, you may spend additional stress points, adding 1d10 fire damage per stress point spent, up to your proficiency bonus.