Warlock question/Drugs in Areltih

[c0dfish]

Hello!

I'm fairly new to Arelith (and 3e lore in general), so please forgive me if there's something I've neglected to read or review. Any links to lore regarding this I would happily welcome!

Mainly, my question I'm asking here is "is this ok/would this be ok?"

I've been playing a star pact warlock for the past several months. He has a very low intelligence (8 or 9 I think) and fairly low wisdom (10) but very high charisma (24). Here is the explanation for how he got his pact:

In a nutshell, he wanted to catch the interest of a woman who was looking for a mage to help her with a job. He told her he was a mage despite the fact that he didn't have a magical bone in his body. He knew he had to find a way to get magic quick, as she was going to be leaving town the next morning. As he had dabbled in drugs in the past, his first idea was to go to his usual dealer and find some Haunspeir, as it enhances magical abilities, but his dealer realized that this wouldn't work if he didn't have any power to begin with. So his dealer referred him to a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-cousin-of-a-friend who had something stronger that might "awaken" any latent magical abilities in him (this is not what the drug actually did). He takes the drug in a way that he was warned against (he was meant to brew it as a tea and breathe in the steam, but he ended up just drinking the tea instead), passes out, has some insane cosmic horror star-related nightmares, and when he wakes up he finds a bunch of papers scattered around him that have tons of writing on them in his own hand that he can't really decipher, and he discovers he can cast spells now. I've flavored it such that, as he levels up, he's slowly understanding everything that he wrote while he was under the influence of the drug.

Is this an acceptable way of explaining his star pact? Also, the specific star I wanted him to be pacted with is the purple star, Caiphon, but I wasn't sure if that was acceptable for Arelith or not. He wouldn't necessarily know this, either--he knows that he sees a purple star when he looks at the sky that others don't see, and he often sees the stars even during the daytime. As for playing him--I wasn't sure what his patron would really want from him, if anything. Corrupting others? Spreading the word? What are its goals/intentions with him? Is that something I should know, or shouldn't know?

Finally, is Haunspeir the right drug to mention? I also had him being addicted to Terazul at one point as he was dealing with nightmares by simply staying awake constantly. Is there a different stimulant that is lore-friendly?

That's it If this is the wrong place to ask this, or the wrong question to ask, please let me know!

[The GrumpyCat]

Really this should probably have come though the PMs to Active DMs, or even the report system, but as it's here I'm ok to give an answer.

RE. Drugs: The way you seem to be treating them above (as a plot device) is basically fine. Just be wary of being too 'grim' and 'realistic' with them. It's a bit of a sensitive subject, so try and treat it with some delicacy.

Re Warlock: Slight concern in what you've laid out in that it didn't seem to be much of an active 'choice' on your characters part. They never 'chose' the pact it reads like it just happened. I'd add two things to this then
a) Perhaps your character has a vauge memory of being offered something, whilst on his 'trip' and of accepting. It doesn't need to be too specific, but I feel it needs to be there.
b) Consider why your character is STILL a warlock. Why isn't your character looking for every single way possible out of the pact? What does the pact offer (at least for now) that your character really likes? The answer can be simple, but it's useful to have one.

If you have those two things, then it should be alright.

[c0dfish]

1. Thanks for letting me know, if I have character questions like this in the future, I'll go through the report system.
2. Got it, I won't get too grim with the drug use.
3. Yeah, I should have specified, it was absolutely his choice. From his perspective, he made a "wish" upon a star while he was using the more powerful substance, and the star "granted" his wish. And he definitely has his reasons for keeping the pact, the main one being that he's never really been good at anything--this is the only thing he has been good at, despite it not being what he really wants to be good at. He doesn't really believe that he's capable of being anything more. Maybe he'll make some friends that can convince him otherwise (before it's too late, heheh).
   Thank you so much for the quick response, and for all your hard work in this community

[msterswrdsmn]

As someone whose played drug users on Arelith before (a heavy smoker/alcoholic and whatever my mad scientist was injecting/huffing):

The drugs don't have to be 100% lore conforming, but try to avoid the nastier side of addiction (no one wants to see you doing crack-addict shakes in the street) and don't go all in playing up the effects either (ie: making drug usage the main storytelling point of your character). Thing of them more as side traits to help emphasis other, more prominent points of your character WITHOUT making said traits 100% reliant on the drugs/drug usage to exist. Ex: drinking and smoking as a means of showing how visibly stressed someone is without going into hardcore addiction RP.

TLDR; try focusing less on the drug usage and emphasis more on what theme/element you're trying to convey with its usage.