What is a druid?

5ekyu · Feb 6, 2019

Warpiglet said:
For the first time, I find myself interested in playing a druid. I have mostly played warlocks in 5e with only one exception. Somewhere recently I thought it would be interesting to play a druid.

full disclosure: I want to play a character that has a lot of creepy witch-like potential. I dislike circle of the moon and plan to play with weapons and spells. I am taking one level (likely hexblade for sword prof and flavor) and some feats to do this. When
i wild shape, I am looking for spiders and snakes and the like, almost exclusively.

but my main thought is that I have never seen the druid description seem so wide open.

are they wandering mages, sage like magic users? Are they priests focused on the divine? The intro text says sort of Yes to all of these things.

i am interested in hearing how others have attempted to make druids part of the game world. I feel I am going off label...planning to play an angry and rebellious gray
elf now who has renounced corellon and makes the woods or perhaps swamps his new kingdom.

but is he priestly or just freelance like a mage that adventures?

how do you define the role of druids?

(edit for typos)

They are what the players takes them to be

lall · Feb 6, 2019

A hippie.

200orcs · Feb 7, 2019

I feel like this specific post expanded my mental horizons about druids. http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html?m=1

It's an interesting perspective.

In a campaign I run I had a side arc with "evil" druids. They were essentially a cult that was trying to create the optimum fighting monsters. Basically they would take animals and try to enhance them, breed only the most violent and biggest of the species. They would try to mix different animals to make new species.

Eventually the PCs found out about them because they would steal house pets for experiments. This lead them to the Blood Grove, which was an underground cavern.

In the end they found out that instead of taking monsters and making them more and more violent and then try to train them, they instead decided to take obedient pets, like dogs and then try to make them aggressive.

I hope this and the link gives to some ideas.

You can use your Warlock patron idea as a part of the approach.

Swarmkeeper · Feb 7, 2019

Warpiglet said:
how do you define the role of druids?

In ancient times,
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock, of Stonehenge

Mouseferatu · Feb 7, 2019

DM Dave1 said:
In ancient times,
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock, of Stonehenge

Coming up next, on BBC One. Then, tune in at 9:53 for Escape to the Country.

Azzy · Feb 7, 2019

I pretty much se them as shamanic types that draw power from spirits and the primal essence of nature.

jgsugden · Feb 7, 2019

Highly prized by powerful giants. They turn into animals. Then you can eat them until they turn back into humanoids and you put them back in their cage until tomorrow.

Draegn · Feb 7, 2019

I have druids following the Old Gods who are powerful nature spirits with generic names. The man in the wood, the river maiden, so forth. Priests follow the new gods which amount to any published pantheon.

An illustrative difference is from Game of Thrones, where the children of the forest would be like druids and the faith of the seven priests.

AkaKageWarrior · Feb 7, 2019

Radagast in the recent Hobbit movies.

Nature was the word that was strangely missing in your original post.
That should be the core-word to build around, with many directions to go (alignment, goals, traits, ...).

Kurotowa · Feb 7, 2019

AkaKageWarrior said:
Nature was the word that was strangely missing in your original post.
That should be the core-word to build around, with many directions to go (alignment, goals, traits, ...).

That's the key point, many directions. Nature has predators with such strong hunting instincts they'll kill even when their bellies are full, and it has farmer arts who peacefully tend their herds of aphids and milk them for honey. It has gentle spring rains that nourish flowers and it has frigid ice storms that topple trees. It has social animals who live in cooperative groups, symbiotic relationships that cross species, and ruthless cannibalism when resources are low enough. Nature is both endlessly nurturing to life in general and completely callous to the fate of individual lives.

Druids can be all these things and more. A few try to contain the whole world at once, others change as the seasons do, but most specialize. One Druid decides she's the warden of tooth and claw that hunts aberrations and undead. Another Druid decides he's the patron of lowland farmers, who help them with crop rotations and plow techniques so their families are well fed without having to expand their farms into the highland forests. Another Druid sets himself up in a city as the master of rats and pigeons and people who survive by scavenging off the land, even if that land is brick and stone and timber. All of these and more are part of nature. It's just a matter of where you find your niche and how well you survive in it.