Identity
The Old One is not a name. It is a category. Old Ones predate the current organization of the planes; they remember (insofar as memory applies) the conditions that obtained before. They notice their warlocks the way a librarian notices the books on a low shelf — peripherally, occasionally, and only when something is on fire. Old One warlocks are not chosen so much as registered: a presence that vast does not select, it merely contains. Old One warlocks tend toward unsettling levels of calm, a strangely good memory, and a tendency to know things they have not been told.
Features
- L3 Awakened Mind
Your patron's awareness widens yours. You can speak telepathically to any creature you can see within 30 ft. The creature receives your message in a language it understands; it does not need to share a language with you. The creature can reply telepathically only if it has telepathy of its own; otherwise, communication is one-way. This is not mind-reading — only directed thought. Range increases to 60 ft at Warlock level 11.
- L7 Entropic Ward
Your patron's vast disinterest in causality occasionally bends a hostile probability. Once per short rest, when a creature you can see makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on that attack roll. If the attack misses as a result, your next attack roll before the end of your next turn is made with advantage.
- L11 Thought Shield
Your patron's geometry settles permanently into your skull. You become immune to having your thoughts read by channels, augments, Rift-based interrogation devices, or any other effect that would directly perceive your unspoken thoughts (your spoken words, expressions, and physiological tells remain readable normally). Additionally, you have resistance to psychic damage, and when a creature within 30 ft of you deals psychic damage to you, that creature takes the same amount of psychic damage as it deals you.
- L15 Create Thrall
Once per long rest, as an action, you can touch an Incapacitated humanoid and attempt to draw it into your patron's quiet protective ambit. The target makes a Wisdom save against your channel save DC. On a failure, the target is Charmed by you for the duration of the effect (until you or your patron's regard ends it, or until 30 days pass without contact). The thrall can communicate telepathically with you on the same continent and obey reasonable requests. The thrall remembers being Incapacitated and remembers volunteering to follow you afterward; the thrall does not consciously remember the saving throw. A thrall who suffers harm from you or your allies repeats the saving throw, ending the effect on a success. You can have only one thrall at a time.
- L18 Strangely-Bent Mind
Your continued exposure to your patron's geometry has compacted your defenses. You gain: • **Immunity** to psychic damage and to the Charmed condition. • **Resistance** to cold and necrotic damage. • Advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against channels and Rift effects. • Once per long rest, when you fail a saving throw against an effect that would deal psychic damage or impose a mental condition (Frightened, Charmed, Stunned, Incapacitated), you can choose to succeed instead, with no further consequence. Observers who interact with you for an extended period (over several days) come away unable to entirely describe your face afterward; this is a side-effect of the bent geometry and not something you can suppress.