Editing Warlock (section)

===How to build a warlock that the [[Paladin]] won't try to kill===

At first glance the warlock would look like a class that would be difficult to justify having a Good alignment. This is not true; all it takes is some roleplaying creativity and lore familiarity. Here are some ideas sorted by pact:

''Archfey''
*There are just as many Good or Neutral Fey as there are Evil ones. Just take your pick.
*You actually work for a full Faerie Court. The Evil jerk you take orders from is just your immediate supervisor and/or teacher, and you sometimes report to somebody non-Evil further up the chain of command on what he has you doing, just to make sure he's not using you for his personal benefit.
*Straight out of an old fairytale, your patron took the form of a disase-ridden beggar on day, and gave you your powers because you were the only person in the whole city who showed them anything resembling kindness (also works for Celestial).

''Fathomless''
*This category includes water elementals and "merfolk demigods" neither of which are necessarily evil by default. For example, your patron could be [[Ben-Hadar]], Elemental Prince of Good Water Creatures, though he's not canon to 5e yet.
*The Fiendish ideas can also work here if your patron is [[Dagon]], demon prince of all things aquatic.

''Fiend''
*You offered someone on one side of the [[Blood War]] your services against the other, on the condition that you *only* be sent to kill people connected to the enemy (This is easiest with whoever's currently [[Archdevil|Archduke]] of the first layer of [[Baator]], since they have to fumigate their lawn of demons every freaking morning and are always looking for help).
** Your patron is a [[Demodand|Kelubar]] who uses you in the Ghereleth's eternal war against all other fiendish races, as such you are basically the D&D version of [[Kaleb Daark]]. (taking a few levels in one of the edgier paladin subclasses is recommended in this case).
** You're a pawn in a diabolic or demonic civil war; maybe [[Zuggtmoy]] empowered you to scrub Juiblex off some part of the Material Plane she wanted, Titivilus hired you as a hitman to take out devils who might expose his plots to Dispater, or Shami-Amoure wants you to destabilize Malcanthet's power-base. You get to kill fiends who would've otherwise been spreading evil, the patron gets an advantage over a rival; everyone's happy!
* Speaking of [[Juiblex]], it's a great option all by itself. It's a Demon Prince who's basically just a giant talking slime mold whose shtick is that it wants to eat everything, so you could probably get away with saying that it merely sets you a tenday quota of digestible material to sacrifice to it. Best of all, compared to humans, "digestible material" covers a much broader range of materials even for ''normal'' slime molds let alone the demonic avatar of the munchies (for the record, real slime molds' favorite food is actually oats, but again they'll eat jut about anything organic). This is an especially goo(d) way to get rid of all the corpses you'll inevitably leave in your wake.
*You made the old classic "Sell the soul of my future firstborn child to the devil in exchange for power" bargain... but conveniently failed to mention that you're gay (this also works with the archfey pact if none of the good or neutral options appeal to you, since fairy tale creatures sometimes have a habit of abducting children).
*You straight-up bought the powers from Mammon, Archduke of greed, with ordinary freaking money. Because Mammon is a fiend who actually does that.
** You could probably also use money to buy powers off some powerful Yugoloth, as they are extremely mercenary and don't trade in souls (depending on edition).
*Like the Hellknights of [[Pathfinder]], you are more concerned with order and empire-building than being evil.  Stability is your primary concern. (Be warned, some Paladins will probably still kill you for this)
*You were a prostitute (the "hate this job but am fucking broke" kind), and got a visit from [[Graz'zt]] or [[Malcanthet]] one day, who opted to give you the powers instead of money as payment. You still [[/d/| don't like to talk about that day]], but in the end, it allowed you to pursue other means of employment.
*There have been ''extremely'' rare cases of fiends working to redeem themselves, such as [[Planescape: Torment|Fall-From-Grace]] and [http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a Eludecia]. Your patron could be one of these rare fiends that is either working to achieve redemption, or has already been redeemed, though your DM may rule that such a being would grant a Celestial pact instead.
* You're a Purified and your pact is with the [[Church_of_the_Silver_Flame|Silver Flame]] itself. It's just influenced by Bel Shalor.
* Your job isn't to to tempt Good people into being Evil, it's to tempt Chaotic people into being Lawful (or vice versa). If they decide to be Lawful/Chaotic Good or Neutral instead of evil? That's somebody else's problem.
* You made a deal with a powerful Night Hag; you get the powers, she gets the souls of any evil creature you kill.
* You woke up in bed one day with a hangover next to an incubus/succubus named Dick Plumpus/Bewbs E. Normos. [Note: realistically an incubus/succubus wouldn't be powerful enough to grant a pact (see The Elder Brain Rule below), but some DMs will allow it anyway for the lulz].

''Genie''
* While [[Dao]] and [[Efreeti]] are evil, [[Djinn]] are chaotic good by default, and [[Marid]]s are chaotic neutral. Just pick the latter two.
* If you really want an Efreet or Dao patron, you could say that you freed one from imprisonment and he offered you a wish in gratitude. Your wish was for the powers.

''Ghost In the Machine''
* Just because a brain is made of metal doesn't mean that the resulting personality is automatically predisposed towards any one particular mindset, worldview, or attitude towards fleshies. Just look at the Warforged of Ebberon. Really, you could give your patron any characterization under the sun here.

''Great Old One''
*This one is actually a lot easier than you might think. Firstly, it's important to remember that Far Realm entities aren't evil-aligned, they're [incomprehensible symbol] or [different incomprehensible symbol]-aligned. Secondly, most GOO's are by-nature nearly-if-not-completely impossible for beings native to the [[Great Wheel]] to cognitively process, so if you're lazy you could just say that your patron, Covfefe the unknowable, never explained their motives to you and thrust these powers upon you without you ever having asked for them in the first place. 
*Heck, the PHB itself outright says that a GOO patron doesn't even need to be '''aware''' of you, and that your powers might've just come from reading a copy of the Necronomicon!
*If you insist on having a backstory more fleshed-out than that however, then you could say that your patron finds the Great Wheel reality and its denizens just as alien and incomprehensible as we would the GOO's, and is using you to try to make sense of it as best they can; they might for example periodically take over your body and crudely try to mimic common human activities (the way an ape or toddler would) in an attempt to discern the meaning behind them.
**Or your Patron sees through your eyes, and asks you strange questions; but as long as you survive, and seek out "interesting" things, it's happy just to observe the mortal world through you. (Think "Very strange overly-inquisitive six-year old".)
*You developed a beef with devils for some reason, and were offered warlock powers by [[Zargon]], the leader of the Baatorans and the guy who ruled [[Baator]] before Asmodeus kicked him out. Also works as a fiendish patron.
*Your patron is Caiphon, a [[Awesome|giant, sapient, purple star that wanders around the night sky]], said to have an important role to play in the future of the world. (This being is listed among the "Elder Evils," [[What|but those beings, despite the name, are noted to only ''generally'' be evil]]).
**Or your patron is Ulban; a sapient comet made from the last surviving souls after a future apocalypse which has traveled back in time to recruit agents to prevent that apocalypse from coming to pass.

''Undying''
*Remember, the description for this patron is that they have "Cheated death" somehow, so they don't have to be undead; As mentioned above, entities like originally-mortal gods or The Nameless One (the PC from the videogame [[Planescape: Torment]]) would work just fine here.
* You serve [[The Undying Court]] of Eberron.
*Your patron is an ''Arch''lich, which is a type of lich who isn't evil (they've been in D&D lore for longer than the "must periodically feed mortal souls to phylactery to stay around" aspect of lichdom has, so they probably sustain themselves on bandits and murderhobos, the plane of positive energy, or maybe just sheer force of willpower and magical might).
*Another non-evil pseudo-lich is the Baelnorn, elven liches that become undead so that they can guard a particular area, clan, or object. Maybe something important was stolen from the place they're protecting, but they can't go after it themselves because that would mean abandoning their post and leaving it vulnerable to thieves or attackers.
* Your tragically dead family/village/former adventuring party sticks around in the form of one or more restless ghosts that have bound themselves to you, empowering you to avenge them, resolve their unfinished business, or merely for the sake of protecting you.
*Most of the Fiendish ideas can also work here if your Patron is [[Orcus]], the Demon Prince of the Undead (doubly so since he was originally a mortal). Loopholes, ho!

''Undead''
* This pact shares most patron options with the above, although the patron must be explicitly undead, so most of the above ideas will work fine.
 
''Hexblade''
*The [[Shadowfell]] is no more an inherently Evil plane any more than [[Feywild]] is an inherently Good one. Maybe your Patron weapon really hates Fey creatures or some such.
*There is no reason you could not refluff the hexblade to be any kind of high powered magical sentient sword and the archetype could also work if you, say, had Excalibur as  your patron. or maybe it's just an axe that's always eager for you to hit stuff with it.
*Since the Shadowfell is (among other things) the "waiting room" where the recently deceased get sorted into the proper [[Outer Planes|Outer Plane]], your Patron could be something that seeks to destroy undead and send them where, in its eyes, they should've arrived long ago.

''Celestial''
*Normally this pact should present even less of a problem than the Archfey one, but it can be just as problematic as any of the others if, say, the DM is running an Explicitly Evil Campaign set in [[Ravenloft]]. So in a situation like that, you could for example say that your Patron gifted you your powers as an act of goodwill in the hopes that it might change your outlook on life.
*Or more believably, your patron could be an evil Empyrean.
*A fallen angel could also work as an evil Celestial patron, though some DMs may rule them as only being eligible as Fiend patrons.
*You have an arrangement with a radical Celestial entity who [[Stupid Good|gives you the power to go on a magical killing spree, so they can prove that something needs to be done about people going on magical killing sprees.]]

''Any''
*Your powers come from your (likely Aberrant) [[Dragonmark]]. This one is an officially suggested option, albeit [[Eberron]] specific.
*You won your powers in a game of chance or skill, The-Devil-Went-Down-To-Georgia style.
*Your pact is tied to your bloodline like a sorcerer, not anything ''you'' in particular did; maybe some distant ancestor of yours helped one of the archdevils get into their current position for example, so they guaranteed that all that person's firstborn descendants would be warlocks. (Surprisingly common with Fiends. In the [[Nentir_Vale]] setting, this is implied to be the case with many [[Tiefling]] Infernal Warlocks.)
*Your patron isn't asking you to do anything particularly evil; for example, the Lawful Evil Fiend wants you to fight off the Orcish Horde which is endangering his long-term plans (and killed your family), or the entity is more interested in having a reliable diplomatic courier.
*You're somehow important to your patron's long-running scheme, whether as a chosen one or in a simple "for want of a nail" kind of way. What matters is that your patron needs you to survive long enough to serve your purpose, which the warlock powers are useful for.
*You and your patron share a common enemy; particularly reasonable if the enemy wants you dead to the point that they will throw serious resources at you.
*You gave your patron something like a decade of your youth, your creative spark, your social tact, your L33t Overwatch skills, etc.
**One especially useful idea is if you sold them your memories, and as such don't have a clue who you are or why you wanted the power in the first place. This works great for when you need to write up a warlock in a hurry and only have time for the crunch.
*You genuinely did not know that the entity you bargained with was evil, as it was masquerading as a more benevolent entity. 
*You were tricked or coerced into becoming a servant of your patron and they gave you warlock powers so you could be a more versatile pawn, not because you actually wanted them.
*You got your powers by theft or trickery, not because your patron actually wanted to give them to you.
*You killed the previous person your patron empowered, justified or by accident, and the patron has decided '''you''' are going to replace them, like it or not.  
*Your patron was bored and gave you powers just to see what you will do with them, possibly against your will, like Outsider from Dishonored.
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*You went stag on your boss, as mentioned above.
*You keep the paladin constantly charmed.