Please make my Druid interesting

the only city druid i ever played had the following backstory:

he was a prince of a city state who had recieved druid and ranger training as an adolescent (he was i think the 12th son of the king, so the throne was never giong to be his). he loved his city and wanted to see it thrive so he decided that the citizens of his city would become productive, or they would be eliminated from the city, those who would/could not contribute would be killed or exiled.

he was responsible for eliminating beggars, organized crime and stopped an attempt to take over the city by foriegn wizards. he was made high protector of the city and answered only to the king. he opened trade schools and attendance by children became manditory, eventually the city conformed to his vision and became a center of art and philosophy in the world. then a cataclysm destroyed huge chunks of the homebrew world, including the city that my druid called his grove.

Hmm. If I were you, I wouldn't want to overplay the "I want to be unique, I want to be special, I want to be something no one else has ever been before" scenario. There's plenty of possibilities with the "by-the-book" druid. Firstly, I wouldn't go for the whole "raised-by-wolves" situation. Wouldn't leave much room to explain how he came to believe in his/her diety and the power of nature. Something raised by wolves seems more like a barbarian as opposed to a druid. Most druids are wary of cities, they see them as a place of corruption (the true neutral ones, at least for the most part). Hencec why most druids tend to congrogate around Druidic groves and small villages, not massive cities. To make him interesting? It's all what you think is interesting my friend. I personally would work on the background, thats the key factor of your character and his/her personality. So is the alignment (Yea, it varies as long as neutrality is involved). Perhaps throw in something that would lead to your character wanting to adventure. Say if his master or fellow druid friend had been slain by something the individual had not noticed, and in his blind rage he went off, seeking vengance. Or you could go by the "I wish to bring neutrality to the land, evil is abroad, and must be withered". That is a typical belief among most druids, and one of the main reasons most of them become adventurers. How you play your druid will also depend upon the setting, due to diety variation.

You may want to talk with your DM also about choice of "diety"; druids with powers given by a diety just seem wrong to me. It makes you just a cleric in funny clothes that may or may not eat meat. Push to have your druids powers come from a more holistic/natural source, that will identify him as unique from Clerics/Paladins.

Things that make a druid interesting are just the same as things that make any character/class interesting - personal quirks and beliefs.

My Druid/Sorceror (don't ask, long, campaign-specific story, sometimes it sucks real bad) started out as a naive hopeful 'believes every tale the wandering Bards have told him' type. The key points about him were optimism (to foolish extent on occaisions), and a NG alignment. The alignment meant he wanted to improve the world, believe good things about people, not hurt or kill unless it was absolutely necessary etc. The exception to this, which provided a couple of good rp moments, was his vendetta against all forms of banditry, inherited from his father, a Ranger/Woodsman type who made his living as a trail guide. The Druid who would argue against attacking the orcs without talking to them first would argue for no mercy for captured bandits who had surrendered. It was one of the few things that stopped the rest of the party (True Neutral/CN) from simply assuming that I was a happy clappy wuss.

Having the odd 'irrational' thing your character feels very strongly about can make them much more real. The other thing to do is to respond to events, and have your worldview change and develop.

The above Druid got a rude introduction to the fact that the world does not work like Bard's tales, when he did something noble, self-sacrificing (and fairly stupid) for a fellow party member, who took huge advantage of the fact, and never said thankyou. It cost the Druid, who was at a serious disadvantage for quite a while. After that, he wised up a bit, and even became a bit cynical. A perpetual optomist would have got on everybody's nerves eventually.

One final possibility for making your character interesting - detail the people he cares deeply about and the ones he hates. If your group and DM can handle it, having your character develop an infatuation with another party member can do wonders to help you roleplay. You don't need the DM's attention, the two of you can interact in character, and trying to impress someone else will give you a better feel for what qualities your character posseses. Equally, (although more difficult) jealousy can be a very powerful motivation.

I think what I'm suggesting (in a random and slightly preaching tone for which I apologise) is make him an interesting person, then he will be an interesting Druid.

Two ideas:

1. Have him develop a strong allergy to pollen in flowers and trees.

2. Have him become a drug-user (stoner). He could walk the forest looking for hallucenegenic mushroom and maurijuana plants. Have him speak like Spiccolli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You could develop rules for the effects of the drugs.

Disclaimer: The latter suggestion is for mature games only and isn't supposed to insinuate that drug use is fun or appropriate to use in real life.

I'm running a druid character right now who's backstory involves him having been more-or-less raised through infancy and early childhood by bears. Although "rescued" and fostered to a human family, he left them in his early teens and returned to his "true" ursine parents, eventually encountering a human druid who trained him to his current calling.

The upshot of all this is that the character, now in his mid-30s, is often fairly sure that he is in fact a bear (I was raised by bears + I've spent most of my life with bears = I'm a bear!). It's given him a very simplistic outlook on life (eat, sleep, **** in the woods, kill annoying things).

Anyway, this is the first druid I've ever played in any edition of D&D, and, like Methinkus, I was a little puzzled about how to make him interesting. The above was what I came up with, and it's been a blast to play so far.

Personally, I think an unusual animal companion might help. Having a wolf means you are an ordinary druid, but a cheetah might mean cat lover or values dexterity, a bird might mean you value flight, a bison(Or maybe something like it with less HD, I don't know it's HD) means you like things sturdy, and so on. An animal companion can tell a lot about the druid.