Patronage

It's all about who you know.

Patronage is a powerful pact, signed between mages and the powerful beings from the Beyond. Where Pacts are short term and to the point, Patronage is more like a long-term business relationship, where mage and monster become more closely bound together. The witch invites the devil to be part of her life, and the devil accepts. Such patrons can become a near-constant presence in a mage's life, for both good and bad - offering insight and power unavailable to mortals, but demanding tribute in turn. While Pacts are a common part of everyday life for mages, Patronage is a rare and potent thing.

Signing the Dotted Line

If it seems too good to be true, it's time to renegotiate.

Sealing a Patronage follows all the rules of any other Pact, but where it differs is scale and intimacy. Pacts are short-term, signed and done. A wizard might never encounter the monster it once dealt with, and probably doesn't want to. Patronage is a relationship between the Patron and its beneficiaries, as intimiate or distant as the nature of the Patron dictates. Some monsters become intimiately involved with the lives of their proteges, acting almost like parents or mentors. Others are like gods of old, depending worship and obedience in return for its continued good graces.

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While many monsters are willing and able to sign a Pact, trading power or service for something only a mortal can offer, only beings of great power and influence can become a Patron. Of those, only some are interested enough in the crawling, hairless primates on the Prime to extend them anything but destruction or perhaps ejection from their realm.

And make no mistake - in any pact is signed with such a being, the mortals will always be the lesser.

As such, the creatures who are both capable of and interested in becoming Patrons to mages are limited and their attention usually on other matters.

Some of the disinterested or even hostile beings can be won over with time and effort - if nothing else, mages tend to be an interesting bunch of people. Tales are told across The Shadow of mages and gods joining together after some sort of disasterous misadventure.

Even when a such a creature exists, patronage lies at the end of a long and dangerous road of association. Most mages who sign deals of Patronage do so after knowing and dealing with those powerful entities for years. Like any relationship, Patronage is built on trust and at least a measure of respect - the latter which can be particularly difficult for a mortal to get out of a creature from the Beyond. But as with anything involving the Beyond, there are few universal truths. Some monsters are quick, even eager, to become Patrons, and that should be your first warning sign.

Being approached by the monster to be your patron is either a sign of how far you've come, or how much trouble you might be in.

In the end, when the mage has found her monster, made her mark in history or magic, all that's left are the details.

The Fine Print

Only a fool forgets that no matter how friendly their Patron might be, they are not human and never was.

Every Patronage has its own terms and conditions, but they tend to follow a similar structure, and be more fluid than a Pact. Payments aren't necessarily strict or material, but relate to behavior, ritual, and a way of being. In general, the more a mage provides for its Patron, the more it grants them in turn. Some want simple things, like blood or magic, secrets or sacrifice, even worship and the latest episode of One Punch Man, while other have more... Esoteric requirements.

In addition to that, all Patrons require their beneficiaries to live by certain mystical requirements and conditions. These are called a Geas and are mystic sort of link, dictated by the nature of the Patron and necessary for it to maintain its connection to the mages. Some people flatter themselves, thinking that re-enacting these mystical trait on earth somehow empower their Patrons in the Beyond, but that remains hubris and speculation.
A Geas might take the shape of avoiding the sun and only being active at night, keeping and helping any crow the mage comes across, avoiding certain foods or behaviors. Others are more conditional - never leave a home without leaving a gift - or put them in opposition with a being opposite to their patron. Whatever it is, they tend to make a mage's life interesting.

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On the other hand, a Patron's link to their beneficiaries are built on willing consent. A mage forced to break a Geas at gunpoint or trickery won't be unduly punished by their Patron, most of the time. The geas is powered by will and intent, and there's not much of that while staring down the barrel.

Creatures in the beyond don't experience or understand time in the same way as mortals do, so a Geas that must be regularly fulfilled tend to be centered around some event or personal condition.

While the immortal beings on the beyond are bound by rules of magic to uphold their end of the bargain, mortals are more fallible. If they can't, or won't, do their part, a patronage can fall apart and what was once a powerful ally becomes an relentless enemy, like any spurned lover.

End of the Line

In exchange for all that effort and unconventional rules of living, what's in it for a mage?
Even the weakest Patron is a being of immense magical power. Although the barrier between worlds keep them away from earth, they can lend makes a spark of this power to fuel their spells and rituals, giving them access to more power than they would otherwise have.

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Others offer knowledge, of the worlds beyond, of arcane secrets, of the hidden histories of the world. As long as a mage remembers that their Patron's perspective will always be bound by their nature, there is a wealth of knowledge to draw from there. Entire schools of magic have been crafted from lore that a Patron has shared, then fueled.
Then there are things only Patron's can offer. Called Boons, these are powerful abilities or Aspect unique to that Patron, like being able to navigate hazardous realms in the Beyond, or removing their hearts for safe-keeping, to strength and martial ability. Few Boons are straight-forward and simple, usually burdened by some mystic condition, but all are useful and potent, allowing a wizard to do something beyond mortal ken.

Familiars are often part of a Patronage, with the mages recieving either the patron's favorite servant as a reward, or perhaps an unruly spirit in need of being humbled.

Although their ability to do so is usually limited, a few Patrons even offer purely material boons. Enchanted relics with their sign, luck at lottery, maps to ancient shrines... Every patron has its own gifts to give those who please them. For Mages, having a Patron can be demanding, but there's comfort in having someone in your corner when the going gets tough.

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Pacts

Pacts are a fact of life for witches and warlocks. The world's a complicated place, with enemies that become friends, secrets that taunt from the shadows, magic that calls from their very being, and just trying to find a paycheck big enough to pay rent every month. There's always something a mage need, and Pacts are one way to get them.
Unlike Patronage, Pacts are relatively simple and direct. Something for something. That isn't to say there isn't a great deal of effort made in negotiations or acquiring the promised payments, but Pacts are one and done.

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From the Beyond

The Beyond is a realm of monsters and magic, of wonder and horror, far from the mortal world. Here, spirits, gods, and demons dwell among impossible, myth-shrouded lands. Getting there is difficult, and getting out can be even worse.
Almost all entities of power worth sealing a pact with lives in the Beyond, in castles made out of dreams and nightmares, in fear-shadowed forests of primordial glories, or among a thousand different hells.

Group Deal

Near unique among pacts, Patrons can extend their boons to an entire group of mages, from coven of witches to whispering cults inside military projects. As a result, there's often a reason such groups have pretty intricate initiation rituals.

The Unnamable God is an exception from most rules around Patrons. No one has found its realm or seen its true form, but it approaches mages in their dreams with offers of Patronage and glory, sometimes for a cost that almost certainly seems to good to be true.
Whatever it's up to, and it's up to something, no one's sure yet.

Aspects

Aspects are like friction between the mundane and the magical, manifestations of a mage's inner glory against everyday life. From small physical quirks to myth-making, milk-spoiling type of things, Aspects are marks of magic. They're part of who the mage is, often becoming part of their True Names.
While Pacts sometimes mark a mage with Aspect, Patronage always does. Such Aspects aren't entirely the mage's own, but something borrowed from their Patron and filtered through their own essence. It's a bargain that change the core of who a mage is, and perhaps change the monster on the other end, too.

Rumors insist that Amelia Korp has signed such a pact of Patronage with the Countess of Cages and Chains, but she insists they are "just friends".
Yeah, right.