Curse your enemies with the witchcraft of the horned king.
Those warlocks that receive their power from the horned patron, do so through a pact sealed with blood. In return, they receive the powers of witchcraft from this beastly creature. As these warlocks harness these abilities, they become increasingly like their patron, wielding increasingly potent powers.
Primarily, you should expect to debuff enemies quite consistently. These effects can easily be woven between spells and attacks too by utilising your bonus action and reaction making the subclass flow nicely with your action economy.
I picked up the 2024 version of Legends of Avantris’ Crooked Moon supplement for D&D 5e. In this article, I’m taking a deep dive into how good this 3rd party subclass is, and how you can optimise for it.
At a glance
- Versatile spellcaster that can engage in melee or ranged combat
- Use debuffs consistently to more easily wear foes down
- Have a few more spell-like effects to ease the burden on spell slots
4/5 – The horned king warlock draws on witchcraft in a way that still feels very much like a warlock, but doubling down on curses and debuffs. Handily, they can be dishing out lots of debuffs to various targets without getting in the way of concentration spells you might also want to be casting. This is a solid subclass that balances nicely in comparison to other warlocks.
Horned King patron features
Horned king spells (Lv3) – 4/5
A solid bunch of spells with a decent amount of variety. You’ve got debuffs with bane, battlefield control with spike growth, utility and protection with fly, save or suck options in polymorph and dominate person and scrying is good for information gathering.
Not all the spells are good though. Animal friendship and bestow curse are both less exciting, but it’s still a strong bunch of spells. The only thing lacking from a warlock’s perspective, is any kind of upcasting benefits. Most of these spells don’t become better with higher spell slots which may feel like a waste as you gain levels and only want to be expending spell slots on the most powerful spell options.
Witch mark (Lv3) – 4/5
Granting someone else the power to cast one of your spells is quite powerful. Not only is this effectively an extra spell slot per long rest but it’s also an extra use of a potent action in a round too. You can easily give this to a familiar if you have pact of the chain and have them cast this on your behalf, effectively giving you 2 levelled spells cast in a round. It’s not as potent as an artificer’s spell storing item, but the level of the spell does have a higher ceiling.
One thing to note is you just choose a spell but there’s no indication that it follows your pact magic rules for upcasting so you may want to choose from among your higher level spells when choosing an option here. You should also be aware that mystic Arcanum spells are not prepared warlock spells so can’t be used in this way, limiting you to level 5 spells.
Malediction (Lv3) – 4/5
This is not nearly good enough to bother using as an entire action for unless you really needed to help an ally land a save or suck spell. I’d much rather just use eldritch blast. Fortunately, using it as a reaction is a much fairer trade off.
Effectively, you’re making a creature easier to succumb to spells and damage. It can be quite good but the reaction form limits your target to those that target you. Still, you could make their concentration easier to break once they’ve affected you with the spell. If they’re making an attack roll against you, because the reaction works when you’re targeted, not hit, you can cause disadvantage on that attack roll too.
Spiteful curse (Lv6) – 4/5
Enhancing one of your maledictions with a concentration-less bestow curse is quite good. I generally don’t think bestow curse is worth the concentration cost, but removing that gives you some flexible options for debuffing and this removes other problems with the spell like the touch requirement and needing an action to cast it.
The fact this attempt isn’t wasted on a succeeded saving throw makes it even better and worth attempting when you can.
Crown of horns (Lv10) – 5/5
Like a weaker eyebite that doesn’t require concentration and can be cast with a bonus action but with the addition of extra damage each turn. For me, that makes this superior to eyebite allowing you to layer on other nasty effects with your action (perhaps even eyebite). It’s potent for nullifying enemies temporarily and a worthy use of a pact magic spell slot when needed too.
Gather the coven (Lv14) – 4/5
This is decent but a little uneven in application. The main culprit is hand of the king which will only work while using crown of horns (so once per long rest for a minute potentially). Compare this to witchcraft which will let an ally use malediction once per long rest per party member. You then have fly by night which is once per short or long rest, but doesn’t expend uses while using crown of horns.
These are wildly different numbers of uses for capabilities that aren’t wildly different potency-wise. Technically, that makes fly by night superior as warlocks struggle for consistent teleportation and it can be very useful.
Witchcraft depends on the number of characters in your party. A large party will do quite well here, but a small party will leave this option feeling weak.
It’s not a bad feature, just very variable in power.
How good is the Horned king patron subclass?
The horned king warlock is a lot about gaining extra spell-like powers and dishing out plenty of debuffs. It succeeds quite well at this and not only manages to have a lot of these options available, but can be applying them simultaneously to other spells effects.
This also operates as slight backup to the fact you won’t be able to always be casting levelled spells but can at least have a solid magical impact on a combat.
None of this feels too overpowered and you end up with a nice dose of witchcraft, which despite slightly different flavouring, actually manages to feel a lot like being a warlock too.
4/5
Building a horned king patron warlock
Horned king warlocks can fit most kinds of warlock builds meaning that largely the same build recommendations for any warlock also apply to the horned king patron. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my warlock optimisation guide.
As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this warlock subclass.
Species/race
Below are some of The Crooked Moon species that I think have the best synergy with the horned king patron subclass:
- Azureborn: Flight is really handy for staying safe from melee specialists, especially for a ranged build. Guidance and augury are both good spells and augury can be cast again by a warlock. Enhanced initiative for the party is good on any class.
- Bogborn: Warlocks tend to make a lot of attacks rolls either through their pact weapon or eldritch blast so guiding bond is a useful boost to those attack rolls. Bonus action healing is useful too for a sometimes melee class that isn’t the toughest.
- Gnarlborn: A changeable skill proficiency is useful for a class that’s likely to be the party face. Restraining as a bonus action will give your bonus action something important to be doing and fits with the multitude of debuffs the horned king warlock likes to be spreading around the battlefield.
- Harvestborn: More damage against bloodied creatures works nicely for a class that often focuses on damage dealing. Bonus action is the other useful thing here. You don’t have a lot occupying your bonus action so this gives you an option to help the party.
- Plagueborn: A face skill is useful for a charisma class. You also get poison resilience and another option for debuffing those you attack.
- Relicborn: A face skill is good for a charisma class (even if it’s performance). This is especially the case as you can use this with your bonus action to grant yourself advantage on your next attack roll and potentially gain temporary hit points. Moment of remembrance is good, but may conflict a bit with your other reaction options.
Backgrounds
Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a horned king warlock:
| Name | Ability scores | Origin feat | Skill proficiencies | Tool proficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crossroads gambler | Any | Fate gambler | Deception, insight | One kind of gaming set |
| Cultist | Any | Cult initiate | Arcana and one other | Calligrapher’s supplies |
| Druskenvald dweller | Any | Any | Survival and one other | Choose one |
| Experiment | Any | Altered | Intimidation, medicine | Alchemist’s supplies |
| Scholar of the forbidden | Any | Dread speech | Arcana, intimidation | Calligraoher’s supplies |
| Wicker weaver | Any | Charm twister | Insight, nature | Weaver’s tools |
Feats
I’d consider the following feats for a horned king warlock:
- Altered: Natural armor will always be good as it accomplishes what mage armor does without using a spell slot or needing to be prepared (or taking an eldritch invocation). Night vision might be a good choice if you don’t already have darkvision.
- Charm twister: Bless is a good buff and you can repeat cast it. Twisted hex can be situational to engineer, but if you can plant it in the right place, then that disadvantage can be a real pain.
- Cult initiate: You already have access to warlock spells, but extra options and an extra casting are still decent for a warlock, though I might favour magic initiate if possible.
- Dread speech: Bane is a pretty good debuff and frightened with a bonus action is a decent option too.
- Fate gambler: It’s probably saving throws you’ll be forcing most out of this list. The heroic inspiration will be handy, as will the temporary hit points.
More from The Crooked Moon
Interested in what else is available from The Crooked Moon? Why not check out some of our other guides?
