What is the origin of the warlock class?

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

I can't seem to find it in any of the older DND manuals.

[Darsithis]

It’s based off of the original warlocks from the original Warcraft game as far as I know. Where they’re based off of is the common use of the word “warlock” to refer to a male practitioner of magical arts.

[Myradin]

In earlier D&D a warlock would just be a wizard or arguably a cleric serving a dark master.

From 3.5 on there has been a Warlock class, but it shares little with the WoW equivalent other than 'guy who wields dark magic'. It has a particular fondness for a spell called "Eldritch Blast" and usually involves having a pact with a patron from which you get your spells. Oh and it has curses to.

These 'evil wizards' made their way into WC1 and built their own identity from there.

[Kersey]

It’s based off of the original warlocks from the original Warcraft game as far as I know. Where they’re based off of is the common use of the word “warlock” to refer to a male practitioner of magical arts.

Yep, in Warcraft 2 Horde had warlocks and Alliance had mages. Acid Rain vs Blizzard.

[Belloc]

[Yunzi]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/warlock

Warlocks are "truce-breakers" - so people are happy with their peaceful lives, and a "liar to war", "speaker to war", or "spell-caster to war" brings war and destruction, probably for personal ends. So we can consider a warlock a political version of a wizard - wizards are associated with removal from politics, sitting in their towers away from population centers, hoping to be left alone to their studies, while warlocks exploit humanity for their own ends.

[Seezer]

Warlocks were where you would vigorously pump your hog and get spells in exchange

[DrIvoRobotnik]

After many years of playing a warlock, and reading many quest texts, my general assessment is this: A maverick mage that makes deals with with demonic and void beings for mutual benefit. Orc warlocks learned such magics directly from demons when they worked on behalf of the Burning Legion,(I can't remember of this next part was retcon'd or not) in turn, human mages then studied the Orcish warlock magics so that they may better understand them and counter them. (Obviously some decided to use them for their own means.)

[Julmara]

a mage looked at the succubus and knew what had to be done

[enigma77]

In WoW? A warlock is just someone who uses Fel Magic.

The oldest Warlocks are the demons themselves. The spellcasting ones.

[Wyshbonez]

In wow lore..... warlocks are old shamans, that got turned by Gul'dan and fel magic, i guess i should add, that's how orcs got warlocks

[Raidoser]

In earlier D&D a warlock would just be a wizard or arguably a cleric serving a dark master.

From 3.5 on there has been a Warlock class, but it shares little with the WoW equivalent other than 'guy who wields dark magic'. It has a particular fondness for a spell called "Eldritch Blast" and usually involves having a pact with a patron from which you get your spells. Oh and it has curses to.

These 'evil wizards' made their way into WC1 and built their own identity from there.

It's true that wow warlock (the mmo one) evolved differently from the 3.5 DND warlock but i think they still used it as inspiration.
They changed it at launch but normally warlock wore leather instead of cloth (you can check that if you still have the old manual from wow vanilla) like how DND warlock wore light armor instead of just cloth, theoretically they both have unlimited ressource : DND warlock could use eldritch blast with no limit and Wow warlock had life tap, they both are more tough physically and can regenerate their wounds because of the demonic/fel energy in their body and i think (not sure on this one) that metamorphosis was given to wow demo warlock because DND warlock were able to transform themselves into demon at high level.

[Elfezen]

sometimes warlock is used as the male equivalent term to witches, referring mainly to the dark magic side of those two, it was used like that in vampire diaries as well, but generally warlock is a mage that practices demonic magic and summons demons

[AlmightyGerkin]

In wow lore..... warlocks are old shamans, that got turned by Gul'dan and fel magic, i guess i should add, that's how orcs got warlocks

Don't think they went into fel magic but abandoned nature way they went and went for Shadow magic.

[cocomen2]

That no one remembers most famous Warlock of all times.