Good, Evil, Nature, and Druids

In general I find D&D alignment to be nonsensical and druids are just another manifestation of that. D&D never had a particularly well-constructed theology. It wasn't until 4e that primal spirits were mentioned as the source of druid powers, and they seem to have been largely forgotten as of 5e.

If I had to make sense of things, then I'd use a model based on reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology and Moorcock's law/chaos theology. These are the primary inspirations for D&D anyway, so it makes the most sense to go back to the basics.

A number of Indo-European religions posit a series of wars between the gods, such as titans versus primordials, gods versus titans, giants versus gods, jotun versus aesir, aesir versus vanir, tuatha de dannan versus fomorians, tuatha de dannan versus firbolg, and asura versus daeva. Sometimes there are multiple wars in sequence between different generations of gods.

Moorcock's law/chaos mythos mentions that there are beast lords, elemental lords and plant lords, but these were rarely detailed. IIRC, the RPG explained they were nominally aligned with neutrality (which is essentially a form of law but that's a discussion for another time).

It would be easy enough to equate Moorcock's nature lords with the deposed or assimilated nature deities from some strands of Indo-European mythology, like the aesir and the firbolg. The easiest way to slot in "druids" as a distinct concept from "clerics" is to make them the remaining followers of the old gods and nature gods that were left abandoned when the new gods took over. The Scarred Lands campaign setting took this route.

BoxCrayonTales said:

D&D never had a particularly well-constructed theology. It wasn't until 4e that primal spirits were mentioned as the source of druid powers, and they seem to have been largely forgotten as of 5e.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the primal spirits felt a trifle forced or out of left field, maybe the decision to include a Shaman class had something to do with it? Druids as a remnant of 'old religion' always appealed to me, in 4e, Druids gaining power from ancient pacts with Primordials would have been more evocative, IMHO, making them natural underdog rivals to the divine classes, and being consistent with their close ties to elemental powers in prior eds, especially fire.

On the subject of Druid power source, since it's never been particularly explicit, it was always sort of up to the DM.

In my game worlds, the power source of Druids is pacts with spirits which are of greater than mortal power, but inferior to Deific power. These spirits either directly aid the Druid or who persuade or command their less spirits to act on their behalf. So a druid might have an agreement with the Spirit of Beech Trees, and this gives them a relationship with lesser plants and ability to control them because these spirits would certainly obey the Spirit of Beech Trees. The same sort of agreement might be maintained with the Prince of Cats, the Lord of All Fire Elementals, or even say a Planatar, Primus of the Modrons, or a Slaad Lord.

Tony Vargas said:

Yeah, the primal spirits felt a trifle forced or out of left field, maybe the decision to include a Shaman class had something to do with it? Druids as a remnant of 'old religion' always appealed to me, in 4e, Druids gaining power from ancient pacts with Primordials would have been more evocative, IMHO, making them natural underdog rivals to the divine classes, and being consistent with their close ties to elemental powers in prior eds, especially fire.

Click to expand...

Scarred Lands did this well in the 3e era with clerics worshiping gods and druids venerating titans with the one PC friendly earth mother titan (being a classic PC druid tradition template) having sided with the gods in the Gods-Titans war while leaving room for wierd NPC druid traditions who follow the bad guy titans of vulcanism or hunting or venom.

Tony Vargas said:

in 4e, Druids gaining power from ancient pacts with Primordials would have been more evocative, IMHO, making them natural underdog rivals to the divine classes, and being consistent with their close ties to elemental powers in prior eds, especially fire.

Click to expand...

But also making them enemies of the living world and its continued existence. Because of the way they framed the Primordials (not as beings of nature and passion but as beings of elemental chaos) I can see why they didn't go down this path.

pemerton said:

But also making them enemies of the living world and its continued existence. Because of the way they framed the Primordials (not as beings of nature and passion but as beings of elemental chaos) I can see why they didn't go down this path.

Click to expand...

Seemed like the Dawn War ended a long time ago, like all of time. And while the Gods generally expect you to toe some line they've made up, elemental powers just are. Yes, it would mean gaining power from and appeasing in abstract, ancient ritualized ways, powers of a terrible, inhuman scale - but, no, it would not mean subscribing to there war-at-the-beginning-of-time agenda. OTOH, it probably would mean the followers of the Gods assume they /are/. Old religion, oppressed by the new. Fits the image of the Druid better than the hippie nature worshipper stereotype.

In particular, the whole "protecting nature" thing is just whack - an iron-age society has far more to fear from nature than nature has to fear from it.

uzirath said:

This gets me thinking. The sentences I bolded above could apply pretty well to most humans, right? But, maybe most humans are neutral? Could be.

Click to expand...

D&D has always seemed to lean that way. Although I think officially they were listed as 'Alignment: Any' in 3e, I think they could reasonably be listed as 'Alignment: Often Neutral' in contrast to the 'Often Lawful Good' of dwarves or the 'Often Chaotic Good' of elves.

From a demographic perspective I generally assume 60-80% of human NPCs in a community will be neutral, depending on how philosophical the culture is as a whole. The remainder are divided amongst the other 8 alignments, skewed toward the dominate philosophy of the community.

And, of course, in a game world, one might define all animals (and plants, even) as sapient. In that scheme, would alignment apply primarily to how you treat your own species?

Click to expand...

Alignment gets weird when you start talking about a material being (as opposed to a spirit with alignment by definition) with a very different biology than humanity. There are several different ways to look at the problem.

a) Alignment is specific to the species: Each species has some sort of rules built into it by its creator that it ought to follow, typically according to the dictates of his creator for the health of the species and the ecosystem as a whole. So for example, Rudyard Kipling presents sentient animals in the jungle books following a code that they are aware of, and departing from that code indicates immorality. One of the laws of their code is, "Seven times, seven: never hunt man.", which could conceivably justified in several ways. Presumably predators in an ecosystem would know that their role is to hunt the weak and the aged for the health of the prey, and prey animals would understand that they are part of some natural cycle and though they have a right to resist the hunter, neither hunter nor prey would judge the other for following their own code.
b) Alignment transcends species: In this scenario, which isn't necessarily incompatible with the former, there is a sense in which alignment is larger than any particular species. In this perspective, an obligate carnivore or parasitic species might have been created or be inherently evil, and there is some sense in which the species is 'wrong' and the created universe is flawed by the presence of the species. Things are not as they ought to be. As with any universe that isn't in a state of perfection, the big question is what to do about it. One possible explanation is that evil and good are just parts of some cosmic balance, and while you might be tempted to prefer one over the other, this is short sighted. The evil creatures are as necessary as the good ones, provided that things stay in proportion and balance. This perspective returns us close to the status in 'a' alone, save that now a carnivore is _supposed_ to be evil and fulfilling its purpose while evil, has a larger purpose. Another perspective is that the universe requires redemption or transformation, and that could come about by wiping out the evil parts of it, or by some how transforming the rules of the universe so that the evil aspects of it are no longer necessities - the lion could lie down with the lamb. A third perspective is that sense the universe is inherently flawed, the best thing to do is wipe the whole thing out and start over from scratch, or possibly as a fourth perspective wipe everything out and not start over from scratch since nothing good could come of it anyway. Turn the lights out on the universe eternally. And the same sort of perspective could apply to individual species. Some of them might be unredeemable and need to be wiped out (Mind Flayers, for example). Others might be redeemable and are destined for some sort of transformation or transcendence.