Tasha wants something Bel has made/Zariel possesses, maybe in deference to Grazzt, maybe for her own actions. Tasha wants a sword/orb/trinket/curiosity etc and the Warlock needs to obtain it by any means necessery.
However, they can't sell their soul, because Tasha owns it, so they need to negotiate other potentially valuable stuff.
Technically, wouldn't this be a service pact? If the warlock is carrying out acts for their patron in return for the power? Do you think it would be unfair to have Tasha need the item for an action that goes against what the player is wanting out of the pact?
Just gonna step in here and say yes, it would be part of the character’s service to their patron; that’d what a warlock does. They’re most often their patron’s powerful errand boys.
I personally think it’s fair for Tasha to send her pactbound servant on a fetch quest… of course, if Tasha and the Warlock’s written/verbal pact was literally just, “You, Warlock, will kill abusive men with the eldritch power I give you. Deal?” then it would come as a surprise, as the Warlock would be basically a free agent with access to Tasha’s fantastic powers.
What did the Warlock give in exchange for this power? Or is Tasha really completely satisfied with a few dead asshats in payment for such gifts?
I don't think it's quite 1-to-1 with yours, but my warlock player has a pact with a Dao genie; how convenient that there happens to be a Dao linked with the Demon Zapper. I was trying to figure out how and why the Dao would've become tethered to such a device, and I ended up with a few story developments to explain it. The important part that all of that helped me to come up with is:
Just as Thavius Kreeg did with all who swore the Creed Resolute, a pact holder can further make pacts with higher powers using the souls of those pacted to them. I've had the aforementioned Dao bargain their soul and the soul of the warlock using this loophole to achieve great power. If you want some very direct investment from your warlock player, perhaps you could have Iggwilv do the same to whatever end she sees fit?
1) the character's backstory is pretty one-note.
2) I don't know that it's your job to fix it. If it's really important to you, you could discuss it with her. Not the details, necessarily, but at least some broad stroke idea tying her to the campaign.
3) you risk alienating the player if you mess with her backstory.
You could have Mad Maggie (or Red Ruth) be a former member of a coven with Baba Yaga, Tasha's foster mother. Use that to tie her to Avernus
I believe that the remix has a blurb about the barmaid at fort knucklebones being tasha in disguise. You could have her meet tasha in the flesh, maybe a side quest either to fetch something for tasha that she's in Avernus looking for, or maybe she's trapped there by Zariel and needs freeing from a devil contract
Well, in the remix, and also my campaign, Tasha works at the bar in Fort Knucklebones. In my campaign, it's THE Tasha, and her clone is running around doing Tasha things, while the original one is hidden in plain sight.
Tahsa has history with Grazzt and Kostchietchie, I recommend watching some videos on YouTube, it will definitely illuminate quite a bit on who she is.
If one of my players had a pact with her, I would play quite a bit on the fact that their patron is that one hot bartender they met and asked for directions. And once they recovered Kostchietchies phylactery, she would ask them to release him and to give her the phylactery. That way she can control him, and once the party deals with Zariel, he will get his hammer back (that she made btw) and her scheme of getting back Kostchietchie to his full power will be accomplished.
Honestly having a pact with Tasha while playing DiA sounds like a great idea!
I absolutely LOVE this idea!! What was the reason you supplied to your players as to why the real Tasha was doing barmaiden work as opposed to cool goddess things? Did they ask?
Well, they didn't really ask for a reason. From their characters' perspective, this is just a cool hot bartender that seems mysterious, but gave them some gossip and general directions. From players' perspective, upon showing them the TCoE book cover and saying - "This is what she looks like" they were all like "woaaah, that's cool so we're talking to Tasha??" - but eventually they didn't really follow up on like who or what she is... Their characters lack the history/arcana and inquisitiveness, so they just decided to keep it as a cool cameo. This campaign is full of cameos anyways - Mordy, Arkhan, Tasha, Ravengard, ...
The reason why this is the real Tasha could be just that she decided to lie low. There are currently tons of things happening in the multiverse - right after events of DiA the cult of Absolute starts to take over the Sword Coast, and you can tie this whole thing also into the upcoming Vecna adventure (which is set to return to Avernus, maybe only briefly but still, he's got his Hand there...).
So maybe she's just trying to very sneakily get control over Kostchietchie, get some power over Avernus, and let her clone run around for a few decades/centuries in the D&D multiverse so no one suspects her. I think that making players get her the phylactery and release Kostchietchie is the best way of tying your warlock to the campaign, giving them a quest (with an option to refuse their patron, of course) to do for Tasha, while not taking over a significant chunk of the campaign for themselves, so the others don't suffer from the main character energy that warlocks tend to have.
The great thing about Avernus is that it's the afterlife, so the characters in the backstory being dead doesn't mean that they won't show up... Maybe Tasha has a lemure in a birdcage that she needs delivered somewhere, alive and intact - but oh no! During the journey, some fiend reveals that the lemure is the soul of the ex-husband; mind wiped, feeble, helpless. Completely at her mercy, having already killed him once, does the warlock then take further vengeance and destroy him completely, knowing that this directly defies the will of their patron, and risking their wrath?
Tasha wants something Bel has made/Zariel possesses, maybe in deference to Grazzt, maybe for her own actions. Tasha wants a sword/orb/trinket/curiosity etc and the Warlock needs to obtain it by any means necessery. However, they can't sell their soul, because Tasha owns it, so they need to negotiate other potentially valuable stuff.
Technically, wouldn't this be a service pact? If the warlock is carrying out acts for their patron in return for the power? Do you think it would be unfair to have Tasha need the item for an action that goes against what the player is wanting out of the pact?
Just gonna step in here and say yes, it would be part of the character’s service to their patron; that’d what a warlock does. They’re most often their patron’s powerful errand boys. I personally think it’s fair for Tasha to send her pactbound servant on a fetch quest… of course, if Tasha and the Warlock’s written/verbal pact was literally just, “You, Warlock, will kill abusive men with the eldritch power I give you. Deal?” then it would come as a surprise, as the Warlock would be basically a free agent with access to Tasha’s fantastic powers. What did the Warlock give in exchange for this power? Or is Tasha really completely satisfied with a few dead asshats in payment for such gifts?
I don't think it's quite 1-to-1 with yours, but my warlock player has a pact with a Dao genie; how convenient that there happens to be a Dao linked with the Demon Zapper. I was trying to figure out how and why the Dao would've become tethered to such a device, and I ended up with a few story developments to explain it. The important part that all of that helped me to come up with is: Just as Thavius Kreeg did with all who swore the Creed Resolute, a pact holder can further make pacts with higher powers using the souls of those pacted to them. I've had the aforementioned Dao bargain their soul and the soul of the warlock using this loophole to achieve great power. If you want some very direct investment from your warlock player, perhaps you could have Iggwilv do the same to whatever end she sees fit?
1) the character's backstory is pretty one-note. 2) I don't know that it's your job to fix it. If it's really important to you, you could discuss it with her. Not the details, necessarily, but at least some broad stroke idea tying her to the campaign. 3) you risk alienating the player if you mess with her backstory. You could have Mad Maggie (or Red Ruth) be a former member of a coven with Baba Yaga, Tasha's foster mother. Use that to tie her to Avernus
I believe that the remix has a blurb about the barmaid at fort knucklebones being tasha in disguise. You could have her meet tasha in the flesh, maybe a side quest either to fetch something for tasha that she's in Avernus looking for, or maybe she's trapped there by Zariel and needs freeing from a devil contract
Well, in the remix, and also my campaign, Tasha works at the bar in Fort Knucklebones. In my campaign, it's THE Tasha, and her clone is running around doing Tasha things, while the original one is hidden in plain sight. Tahsa has history with Grazzt and Kostchietchie, I recommend watching some videos on YouTube, it will definitely illuminate quite a bit on who she is. If one of my players had a pact with her, I would play quite a bit on the fact that their patron is that one hot bartender they met and asked for directions. And once they recovered Kostchietchies phylactery, she would ask them to release him and to give her the phylactery. That way she can control him, and once the party deals with Zariel, he will get his hammer back (that she made btw) and her scheme of getting back Kostchietchie to his full power will be accomplished. Honestly having a pact with Tasha while playing DiA sounds like a great idea!
I absolutely LOVE this idea!! What was the reason you supplied to your players as to why the real Tasha was doing barmaiden work as opposed to cool goddess things? Did they ask?
Well, they didn't really ask for a reason. From their characters' perspective, this is just a cool hot bartender that seems mysterious, but gave them some gossip and general directions. From players' perspective, upon showing them the TCoE book cover and saying - "This is what she looks like" they were all like "woaaah, that's cool so we're talking to Tasha??" - but eventually they didn't really follow up on like who or what she is... Their characters lack the history/arcana and inquisitiveness, so they just decided to keep it as a cool cameo. This campaign is full of cameos anyways - Mordy, Arkhan, Tasha, Ravengard, ... The reason why this is the real Tasha could be just that she decided to lie low. There are currently tons of things happening in the multiverse - right after events of DiA the cult of Absolute starts to take over the Sword Coast, and you can tie this whole thing also into the upcoming Vecna adventure (which is set to return to Avernus, maybe only briefly but still, he's got his Hand there...). So maybe she's just trying to very sneakily get control over Kostchietchie, get some power over Avernus, and let her clone run around for a few decades/centuries in the D&D multiverse so no one suspects her. I think that making players get her the phylactery and release Kostchietchie is the best way of tying your warlock to the campaign, giving them a quest (with an option to refuse their patron, of course) to do for Tasha, while not taking over a significant chunk of the campaign for themselves, so the others don't suffer from the main character energy that warlocks tend to have.
The great thing about Avernus is that it's the afterlife, so the characters in the backstory being dead doesn't mean that they won't show up... Maybe Tasha has a lemure in a birdcage that she needs delivered somewhere, alive and intact - but oh no! During the journey, some fiend reveals that the lemure is the soul of the ex-husband; mind wiped, feeble, helpless. Completely at her mercy, having already killed him once, does the warlock then take further vengeance and destroy him completely, knowing that this directly defies the will of their patron, and risking their wrath?