D&D 5E Clerics vs Druids in an Animist Setting

[Alexemplar]

Would you say that the beings who are revered by Clerics would not be Warlock Patrons as well?

Again, speaking from how I manage to retroactively justify and portray things in my own campaign...

A Cleric gets their power directly from the deity/faith structure by legitimately proving to the deity or the faith that they're somehow worthy of it. The Cleric is a sanctioned wielder of power from a higher being, and as such gets a massive suite of spells and can openly call upon their patron deity/power of their faith to intervene.

Warlocks, by contrast, are thieves who steal their power in one way or another. Usually by finding an artifact of power, happening upon a tome related to it, or by capturing a lesser entity and coercing it into sharing that power with them. Because Warlocks are attaining the power through unofficial means, they get a narrower range of spells and can't call upon their patrons.

To bring the whole thing home: one can be a Cleric of Corellon - or one could happen upon an artifact gifted by Corellon/steal pages from a book written by his high hierophant/summon and then bind one of the sprites that lives in Corellon's domain and use that knowledge/connection to Corellon to steal some of Corellon's power and become a Warlock of the Archfey.

 

[Blue]

Love the concept, I'm currently running an animist setting myself. Borrowing from RL cultures I'm calling the spirits kami. There are mountain spirits that have awoken and decided to walk, becoming immense creatures. And in a war between the drow and the dwarves a spiritual poison/curse has tainted the underworld, and the very spirits of the land down there become twisted. Sometimes those spirits also awaken and tunnel towards the surface. In some places that taint is near the surface, twisting the living.

(And for anyone playing 13th Age, that's my in-game explanations for Koru Behemoths, Living Dungeons, Orcs, and the Iron Sea. We've really made the setting our own.)

For what you are describing, I see the difference between clerics and druids a bit like warlocks and sorcerers. Clerics beseech the spirits, whom perform miracles for them, much like warlocks are granted power by their patron. Druids however work with the spirits and they shift to their will, like a sorcerer instictively grabs the weave of magic and makes it do their bidding. The druid works along the lines of reality making subtle but important changes to the spirits and therefore the land and it's inhabitants.

So it comes down to how they realize their gifts. In some ways there may be antagonism against the druids from the clerics for not asking.

As a side note, have you ever read the Codex Alera books by Jim Butcher? They also have a take an an animist setting that's interesting. (Same Jim Butcher who did the Dresden Files, but a 5 book not-as-well-known series.)

 

[Xeviat]

As a side note, have you ever read the Codex Alera books by Jim Butcher? They also have a take an an animist setting that's interesting. (Same Jim Butcher who did the Dresden Files, but a 5 book not-as-well-known series.)

I have read "Codex Alera". His vision is definitely close to how I see some working, just with less spirit binding. Their magic users are somewhere between what I'd imagine druids and wizards to be.

 

[dco]

Clerics revere the spirits. They have one particular spirit or class of spirits they are especially close to, whether they are just aligned with them or they personally serve them. They are the intermediaries between mortals and the divine, and they typically serve people and seek to maintain some balance between the needs of people and the needs of the spirits. Their wisdom helps them to know what is needed to implore a spirit to aid them, and each spell cast is one such request.

A druids magic comes from the spirits, but where a cleric reveres one spirit, a druid respects them all. A druid's concern is more about the spirits and the balance of nature. Civilization is not specifically their concern, and often civilization is the enemy of nature. To a druid, the spirits are their allies and companions. Like a cleric, druidic magic is made up of requests of the spirits.

Thanks for sharing. It seems the cleric and the druid are already differentiated in your world, the cleric worships powerful spirits and interact with other mortals, the Druids protect the nature and the lower spirits they find, they also prefer isolation to civilization.

If what you wanted is suggestions I have one, add spice to the background. For example make the gods or high end spirits more involved in mortal affairs and consequently the clerics more radical in their beliefs, with sins, perhaps following orders of gods/spirits at war or being puppets of a mighty yihad, with concrete goals in the world. Perhaps the sun spirit wants to burn the world and destroy other spirits, each month heat increases, there are more natural catastrophes, the pope of the religion has started some holy wars persecuting minor religions as heretics and as the culprits of all the catastrophes, the players start at the wrong side and later they discover the are the ones threatening the world...

I've done something like that but with a scifi background behind fantasy, spirits, nature... all was created artificially by some beings who are plotting against each other, spells are formulas to control the nanomachines and elements, etc. I always liked the anime of "the scrapped princess" and the videogame "Might & Magic world of Xeen", so I used those elements for an alternate Rokugan in L5R, first the players were getting small details, for example in one adventure they had to find a mysterious orb from the past before other parties, it had a strange language but deciphering it was another adventure, later it exploded and when they could study the writtings they saw it was a bomb, it worked well when the players each adventure discovered a bit more of what was happening beyond the world they knew, machines that transformed people on demons/onis, a virus in a central computer of a region that tainted nature and people, etc.

 

[SheWantstheD&D]

I'd imagine clerics as being very similar to Shinto priests, as Shinto is animist/ancestral in origin. Druids could just be "raw" channelers, like they typically are described as being.

 

[Xeviat]

I'd imagine clerics as being very similar to Shinto priests, as Shinto is animist/ancestral in origin. Druids could just be "raw" channelers, like they typically are described as being.

I'm reading up on Shinto now actually. I need to read up on a few others too, so that my setting is an "inspired by" and not a "cruddy interpretation of".

 

[Xeviat]

Thanks for sharing. It seems the cleric and the druid are already differentiated in your world, the cleric worships powerful spirits and interact with other mortals, the Druids protect the nature and the lower spirits they find, they also prefer isolation to civilization.

What I had wrote in this thread was off the cuff, ideas shaped by people's opening questions in the beginning of the thread.

I'm not going for common religious wars in my setting. That's simply something I want to avoid. There are the dark spirits and those that follow them, but I prefer to cast evil as EVIL with a capitol EVIL. Humanoid conflicts are more political and nuanced.

 

[SheWantstheD&D]

I'm reading up on Shinto now actually. I need to read up on a few others too, so that my setting is an "inspired by" and not a "cruddy interpretation of".

I feel your pain!

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Clerics choose the spirit they follow; Warlocks are chosen by a particular spirit?
Most likely a (Fey) trickster type, mischievous more than wicked. Coyote for example.

 

[MechaPilot]

I have a homebrew setting called Wildwood (which I describe as a primeval setting, though the descriptor of animist also works to a certain extent) that is rather similar to what the OP describes here. In Wildwood, powerful fey and nature spirits (of places, animals, the sun, the moon, etc.) grant divine power to mortals. Typically, this grant of power is restricted to druids, rangers, and warlocks. Clerics in Wildwood generally represent organized religion, frequently in the nascent stages since Wildwood as a setting loathes civilization and occasionally purges it when it grows too large. Clerics also represent those who gain power from faith alone, either their own faith or from the faith of others. Clerics can also get their power from nature spirits, but this is more the purview of nature clerics, whose faith and tenents fall rather close in line to those of druids.