Good, Evil, Nature, and Druids

Umbran said:

It takes a little bit of effort to be a particularly evil (or good) druid in my worlds, largely because having an alignment typically requires actions taken specifically to have good or evil outcomes - and since nature does not make that distinction, but the character is making that distinction, we have a case where the character's goals are not in alignment with their patron power's goals, and that's a recipe of having your powers taken away.

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In this case, do you imagine that "nature" is personified as a patron? So it can strip a druid of her powers if she strays from the path? Or is it more mystical, where a druid who is out of balance is unable to channel the power of nature due to their own imbalanced chi (or whatever)?

"Look, you were assigned to protect this forest from harm, excesses and abuse. You chose to implement this by systematically destroying every village within a day's ride of the border. That's... excessive, and not needed for your charge. We asked you to keep them from clear-cutting the trees, and instead you clear-cut them? That's not what we are about here in the Druid's Conclave..."

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This implies that the druid hierarchy can strip members of their powers, like being excommunicated.

It can be managed if you have druids representing specific aspects of nature, rather than *all* of nature at once. A druid focused on storms can rip the crap out of human towns, so long as they are being all stormy about it. If they do it by poison... well, again, they are going out of their bailiwick.

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This is an interesting idea, similar to what [MENTION=1125]Tonguez[/MENTION] added a few posts further on:

Tonguez said:

A Shark Druid might be a fierce and blood-frenzied eater of humanoids, a Rot Druid might have a mission of encouraging disease and decay, they would be antagonistic to humanoids but in their own minds they arent evil.

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I'm intrigued by the idea that any given druid might specialize in a particular aspect of nature. That could create fun options in the game world.

As a random aside, I've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender with my kids and, serendipitously, we just saw "The Swamp" (S2:E4) which features a water bending tribe in a swamp that had some druidic aspects.

Umbran said:

This brings up a good point.

For one thing, a great many vile people out there don't consider themselves to be evil. But, in several editions of D&D, what you consider yourself to be is irrelevant - the Multiverse stands as an absolute judge, and that judgement has implications about how some magics interact with you.

5e? Not so much. Alignment has no mechanical implications, and is only a quick guideline for the GM when playing NPCs.

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Back in AD&D 2nd I had a cleric who was convinced that there was an absolute morality because no matter the position of the deity, spells like Know Alignment and Detect Evil would always return the same.

In 5e, as you say, not so much. Even spells like Detect Evil and Good are just about their type, and will not be able to tell anything about two humans be one a saint and another a heretic.

uzirath said:

If you have some sort of druid-type characters in your campaign (i.e., some sort of magic user who channels the forces of the natural world), how do they fit into your cosmology and metaphysics?

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Druids are the keepers, guardians, watchers, and advocates of the Natural world, its knowledge, power, and secrets. They are the setting's first priests...an ages-long series of initiates of a singular order originating from descendants of the Green Tribe of Men, one of original Five Tribes of [the first] Men who befriended elfkind and learned/were taught the first mysteries and secrets of "nature" magic.

Druid, as such, do not figure into the cosmology or metaphysics. They are beings that serve the forces and interest of the natural world. Nature/the natural world does not, s such fit into metaphysics or cosmology either. Thy are the forces and energies of physical world/material plane/campaign setting. The magic that stems and flows from it is akin to radiation, an e-m field, naturally occurring upon throughout the material world.

uzirath said:

Is Nature aligned with gods of Good or Evil?

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No. While there are gods who claim stewardship and command of various facets of Nature, "Nature" is not aligned with anything but a stt of perpetua "Balance" that the druids are bound to monitor, protect, and maintain.

uzirath said:

Does it have a moral component?

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True Neutrality is the "alignment" of Nature in game terms. So it is at once encompassing of all alignments while allowing supremacy of none.

uzirath said:

Could you have an evil druid?

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No.

uzirath said:

Would Nature care about that?

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You keep asking bout Nature like it has its own sentience..rather than being the conglomeration of the energies and materials of the physical setting: life, death, the elements, the sun/moon/stars, the trees/stone/streams, animals, plants, weather. No, Nature would not "care." Though as mentioned, a druid could not be [a.k.a. pursue/promote/advocate for] "evil" and remain a druid/retain their druidic powers. Nature does not "care." Nature simply "is."

uzirath said:

Or a druid of death (since death is a part of life)?

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Druid acknowledge and endeavor to encompass all elements of Nature. As such being a "druid of death" would never really be a thing. A druid would never single out one solitary element of all the wonder and power of the Balance/Nature and serve/promote JUST that.

uzirath said:

What about the trope of a tainted wilderness?

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What about it? That's the kind of thing the order of druids would be rallying, fighting, and dying to prevent.

uzirath said:

Might there be druids who have strayed so far from Nature's path that the animals they create are warped abominations?

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Nope. Stray that "far from Nature" and you wouldn't be a druid anymore...and in my setting the best you could hope for would be to lose your druidic powers and be evicted from the order...egregious divergences from druidic ways would result in your termination rather than simple ejection or "excommunication" (for lack of a better term).

uzirath said:

What's the fluff behind this? Could there be a druid who is partial to Lovecraftian horrors (or demons, elementals, undead creatures, etc.), drawing power from a different "Nature" entirely?

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Big ole nope, nada, no.

uzirath said:

In this case, do you imagine that "nature" is personified as a patron?

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I do not. One could do so, of course, but I don't know why you would. It isn't exactly thematically appropriate to do so.

So it can strip a druid of her powers if she strays from the path? Or is it more mystical, where a druid who is out of balance is unable to channel the power of nature due to their own imbalanced chi (or whatever)?

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In most of my games, the gods and powers that grant clerical spells don't show up and talk to people. They don't do clear and direct messages to mortals. A druid that strays from the path is apt to lose their powers, but they won't have direct evidence that it was an act akin to human cognition and will, or if it is a matter of mystical balance. Nature wouldn't *tell* them why they lost their powers, it just happens.

This implies that the druid hierarchy can strip members of their powers, like being excommunicated.

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Don't read too much into descriptive text. In this case, it is more like, "We have stayed on a route and belief that sustains our power for {insert impressive time span here} years. And you are *off* that path. It isn't going to end well for you." The group is likely to shun such a druid. And that druid is likely to lose their powers. Some might think there's a causal link, others not.

I'm intrigued by the idea that any given druid might specialize in a particular aspect of nature. That could create fun options in the game world.

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Sure. I mean, in pretty much any human endeavor, there's specialization. You aren't just a carpenter - you do homes, or furniture, or whatever. You focus on things you like, or are good at. You have a personal style and focus. Clerics and druids should be the same, no? Even if there's no *mechanical* differentiation, you have the spells you pick, the powers you choose to use and when and how.

Note that in the core rules of 3e and beyond, there are specific notes that a cleric doesn't *need* to have a god. That's just how most folks play it. So, why can't a druid be similar? One druid gets his power focusing on the forest, the other on the sea, or on new growth, or what have you.

Blue said:

Back in AD&D 2nd I had a cleric who was convinced that there was an absolute morality because no matter the position of the deity, spells like Know Alignment and Detect Evil would always return the same.

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Back in the day, I remember bashing my head against the alignment system on so many occasions, both as player and DM. We used to rename Detect Evil "Permission to Murder." Moral ambiguity is at the heart of so much drama. It was a radical day when we realized at some point in high school that we could dump the whole thing without breaking the game.

steeldragons said:

You keep asking bout Nature like it has its own sentience..rather than being the conglomeration of the energies and materials of the physical setting: life, death, the elements, the sun/moon/stars, the trees/stone/streams, animals, plants, weather.

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Well, yes, that's one way of imagining nature. I didn't want to preclude the possibility of a personified nature, which is relatively common in mythology, folklore, and RPG settings (the Greek Gaia comes immediately to mind). As early as the mid-1980s, I played in an AD&D campaign where Nature was conscious and had a specific agenda; druids were its agents. (That, in fact, was one of the first campaigns where we dumped the alignment system.)

It could be fun to imagine a world like that of NK Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy (not much of a spoiler here, but I'm adding the tags to be extra careful):[sblock]In her universe, Father Earth, the conscious, living spirit of the planet, is actually opposed to life.[/sblock]

steeldragons said:

You keep asking bout Nature like it has its own sentience..rather than being the conglomeration of the energies and materials of the physical setting: life, death, the elements, the sun/moon/stars, the trees/stone/streams, animals, plants, weather. No, Nature would not "care." Though as mentioned, a druid could not be [a.k.a. pursue/promote/advocate for] "evil" and remain a druid/retain their druidic powers. Nature does not "care." Nature simply "is."

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If nature does not care, then why does alignment enter into it? Why does an "evil" druid lose their powers? Are not "good" and "evil" just two more parts of the Grand Scheme of Things?

Why does nature differentiate if it does not care?

In a game where there's no mechanical impact of alignment (so, you cannot magically detect good or evil) *how* does Nature differentiate those who have gone astray if there is no sentience of any kind to it to judge?

uzirath said:

Back in the day, I remember bashing my head against the alignment system on so many occasions, both as player and DM. We used to rename Detect Evil "Permission to Murder." Moral ambiguity is at the heart of so much drama.

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Let me relate a story from my own campaign to address this.

The party was investigating a murder mystery. Chasing rumors, one NPC revealed to the party that one of the town's leading citizen's maintained a secret temple outside of the town to an evil deity - Karophet, a deity associated with the misuse of knowledge, art, and technology. The party cast detect evil from concealment on the man and discovers he is evil. So now they have their leading suspect and they decide to go raid the temple to see if they can get more clues. After a couple of near death encounters with devious traps, they flee the temple with a book, which turns out to be a profane text sacred to Karophet. So they get arrested and charged tresspassing with grand theft for stealing a valuable book. The Mayor explains to him that as the temple is on man's property and outside the boundaries of the town, he's breaking none of the town's laws. A mob of townsfolk show up to lynch the PC's, because the man that they are threatening is their employer who has brought a lot of wealth to the town, and while everyone agrees he's a hard man, he's "hard but fair", and has the respect of his employees and the townsfolk. The PC's have to do a lot of talking, pass a bunch of social skill checks, and pay fines, and pay restitution to their "leading suspect" just to avoid getting hung. Moreover, the more they investigate, the less motive they can find for this guy to be the murderer, the better his alibi, and the more the clues start pointing elsewhere.

They eventually figure out that the NPC that told him about the man's "secret temple" in the first place is in the employ of the murderer. Detect Evil wouldn't have helped, because the 'informant' was Chaotic Neutral.

And that's just one example. If I wanted to be more devious, I could muck them up much further. Generally speaking, I find that if Detect Evil ruins your plans and lets you find out who the villain is, chances are your setting doesn't have a lot of moral ambiguity in the first place.

Moral ambiguity is when reasonable people can disagree over which response to the problem of evil and injustice is justice and correct. Detect Evil cannot help with that, or to the extent that it can, by the point that it can, you're already far down the wrong road.

uzirath said:

ICould there be a druid who is partial to Lovecraftian horrors (or demons, elementals, undead creatures, etc.), drawing power from a different "Nature" entirely?

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This is one of the reasons why I've kicked Druids to the curb and replaced the class entirely with Shaman (the Green Ronin one specifically).

Druid is the closest core D&D comes to having an animist spell-caster, and therefore typically gets roped into duty as the animist spellcaster regardless of its suitability for the job. Aside from the fact that in 3.5 it was one of the worst balanced classes in the game, the problems with Druid that just have to do with fluff rather than crunch are manifold. First, it isn't a generic animist spell-caster at all, but thematically tied just to a certain Northern European culture. Secondly, since the Romans wiped out the Druidic religion to the man in essentially pre-history, there is absolutely no record of what the Druidic religion was like. Everything we think we know about it was invented in one of the later romantic periods when much later cultures tried to reinvent them as a symbol for their own (totally invented) enlightened past, first in the 16th century and then again in the 19th century. Finally, the Druid has become almost entirely self-referential, with the D&D class now basically being the trope definer on what it means to be a Druid.

Almost all the problems people are having in this thread go away if you replace this notion of "druid" with a generic animistic spellcaster. Using a generic animistic spellcaster, and a suitable toolbox class, you can have the same class represent a nature worshipping shaman or a person that dabbles in the esoteric mysteries of beings from beyond space and time. You can have witches, witch doctors, shamans, voodoo priests, oracles, diabolists, and yes druids all be represented by different variants of the same class, just as clerics can worship a variety of different deific powers with different portfolios.

Umbran said:

In a game where there's no mechanical impact of alignment (so, you cannot magically detect good or evil) *how* does Nature differentiate those who have gone astray if there is no sentience of any kind to it to judge?

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In the same way that karma works, in some conceptions of it: there is a natural law which precludes those who act selfishly and destroy beauty from wielding the power of nature.

pemerton said:

In the same way that karma works, in some conceptions of it: there is a natural law which precludes those who act selfishly and destroy beauty from wielding the power of nature.

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If your game includes mechanical alignment, sure - you build up too much Evil Residue, and the power just don't work any more.

But in a game without mechanical alignment, that's harder to justify. And if you stipulate that nature "doesn't care", but then have an element where it effectively does, that's an inconsistency. If it has no sentience, it has no concept of beauty (because it has no concepts at all), and can't know when you have destroyed it!

It is kind of like an office that tells its workers that the dress code is extremely casual, but then being given grief because you wear sneakers to work.

This is one of those places where it is probably best to invoke the idea of the varelse* - sentient, but so alien in form or thought process that no communication can happen. As an example, trees do not have a nervous system. But, information can and is passed from tree to tree, in the form of chemical signals (so, when one tree suffers an infestation of a fungus, say, the other trees in the forest may well increase production of anti-fungal agents to prevent getting the disease. Writ large in a fantasy setting, this kind of thing can amount to a "sentience" - a thought process you can't hope to comprehend, but allowing for the thing to make observations and come to conclusions of its own.

So, it has a concept of beauty - but recall that its beauty will include, say, the otyugh as beautifully adapted to its environment, and killing one for no reason is a bad idea, and so on.




*I have problems with Card, but I allow that the Hierarchy of Foreignness has its uses as a concept.