Masters of Fluff Arise!!! (I need help re-fluffing the Warlock)

[wotmaniac]

I'm stuck .... again.

I'm helping someone put together a character; and while Warlock is the perfect mechanical fit, the fluff just isn't jiving.
CMage showed us that warlock can fit just fine with a fey background, and EjoThims gave us gave us a few; but none of it is resonating with me. 

I'm wanting to re-fluff warlock to fit a non-evil yuan-ti character (but genericizing for scalies is fine).
I can sorta imagine it in my head; but fuck me running if I can translate it in to anything resembling coherent for someone else.

[bhu]

Make it based on pacts with the reptile gods?

[SolEiji]

Making a pact with Sertrous seems best.  In 4e at least, one of the warlock fluffs is making pact with elder evils after all.  I imagine all his stuff gains a serpentine flavor (Eldritch Blast?  I mean HYPER VIPER BEAAAAAAM!) and stuff like DR is a result of scales and other dark reptilian blessings.

[wotmaniac]

You're the tits, bhu -- how did I miss that?

Okay, I'm thinking of simply basing it off the World Serpent ('cause, well, everything else is just a fractured piece of it).  Oh, but fuck dragons, 'cause they already got their own shit.

I'm gonna let this percolate a while, and come back when I have something resembling a concept.


Oh, and you're pretty alright too, Sol.

[Chrononaut]

Yuan-ti are one of the quintessential psionic races, right? You could refluff it into working to awaken latent powers. Eldritch blast is mind bullets (that can kill a yak at 500 yards) and so forth. You don't actually need the XPH or whatever the shorthand for psionic handbook is to do this either, in core without it they're all still SLAs.

[veekie]

Actually, why keep pacts at all? You have a package of at-will powers, some minor resistances  and a laser. Any kind of  Outsider emulation should do the trick.

[Arz]

Yuan-ti have tons of sp and a tendancy for mutations. So you are [cyclops] with a little more versatility. Maybe you have to sacrifice to your god to change invocations. If you are usign the psionic variants just change the invocations over to psionic equivalents if they seem legit.

[wotmaniac]

Y'all did so well the last time (i.e., hit the nail right on the head -- THANKS!) -- so I'm gonna try to go back to the well again ....

This time, though, it's gonna be a little more in depth.
Frankly, I'm horrible at the specific details when it comes to re-fluffing classes.  I know what it looks like in my head; but I just have no skill at articulating it to other people.
The PrC in question is War Weaver.

First, some obligatory exposition:

(click to show/hide)

One of the group members is putting together the beginnings of a campaign, which will happen some time in the ambiguous future.  His only real "mandate" is that no character can be of Good alignment.
This guy, when he runs a game, primarily storytells WOD; but is gonna try his hand at D&D this time ..... I tell you this so as to give some insight of what kind of game this is likely to be.
He has a HUGE hard-on for fluff and story (as opposed to generic hack-n-slash); and has a very hard-coded idea of setting/thematic appropriateness.
Seems fine, right?

I pitched an idea for a bard/war weaver ..... and it got poo-poo'd.  His reasoning was that such selfless behavior is more befitting a "good" character.  For a non-good character, I would have to find something a little more selfish.
I feel like that if I can fluff things well enough, he'll give it a second look and allow it in.

So, here's kinda the concept I'm going for:

I'm thinking a kind of a Ferengi-styled "mastermind" type, who really enjoys the income potential of adventuring, but doesn't actually want to get his own hands dirty ..... so he views and uses the rest of the party as his tools for his own edification (of course, this is a "mutually beneficial" relationship).  Now, of course, in order for this type of arrangement to actually work out, I have to bring something to the table -- so I just focus my efforts on making everyone else better at their jobs.

Party Role would be that of face + buffer

For a "build", I want bard/war weaver.
I really like the abilities of the war weaver, and need some custom refluff so as to get past his bias.

Thanks.

[sirpercival]

An emotional/magical symbiote, who grants abilities to others and feeds off their positive emotions (particularly gratitude and loyalty). The tapestry is the mechanism by which the exchange is carried out.