toucanbuzz
No rule is inviolate
My group's 12th level druid routinely uses Commune with Nature, the capstone divination for his class. The information obtained strongly depends on the question asked. Ultimately, it cannot provide knowledge that nature wouldn't know. I like to provide information to players from the perspective of the elements or creatures therein, not just flat data. I also use the term "prevalent" to mean widespread/common, and the term "peoples" to common sense D&D purpose (e.g. player races, the type that use tools, speak common languages, live in communities).If you focus the spell around the village, the 'prevalent people' would be halfling?
If the Druid Leader of the tribe needs to locate a lost halfling child who has wandered out into the jungle, can you use commune with nature to find them or is it just going to tell me, "yeah, there are halflings in the area."
Or if the halfling has been kidnapped by humans, way out, away from the village of halflings, if the Druid were to cast the spell within range of the humans(some of the only 'peoples' in the area), will the spell only say, "the prevalent people's are human" or can I specify halflings?
Also, I watch for compound questions. The spell grants 3 facts, unlike other spells which grant a certain # of questions. One single question may exhaust the spell.
Jungle village of halflings. If you ask "what is the prevalent people" you might get a DM reply of: "The wind whips around you and a sweet smell of tabac smoke fills your nostrils reminding you of the Hin (halflings)." The DM does this because halflings are the most numerous folk in the range of the spell.
If you then ask "where do the Hin live" the DM might reply: "You are overwhelmed as for a moment you are simultaneously seeing through the eyes and ears of birds, crocodiles, snakes, and other creatures that have seen the Hin." The DM answered this way because the Hin forage and hunt, and thus they "live" everywhere for purposes of the spell. If the PC had asked "in what direction is the nearest Hin" you'd get a response for that current, exact moment in time.
If you instead asked "where is the nearest building to me with Hin" the DM should decide if this is a compound question. He knows the Hin are the prevalent people and the spell can give facts about them. He then might answer: "from the sky you swoop over the trees and spot a tiny plume of smoke from a massive tree with many branches. You bank on a slight wind and see the sun setting. Tabac smoke summoning the feeling of the Hin briefly fills your senses and the connection is broken. The wind shifts around you and pushes you to the north and west." The DM counts this as 2 facts because he's given a location + the Hin are the prevalent race. If the Hin were not the prevalent race, the spell might only give a building but the animal outside cannot tell anything about what made it. Also, the DM would have to determine if the building is something like a hunter's cabin (spell can give facts about) or an area replaced by construction such as a village (the spell fizzles and no fact is gained).
Specific creature. If a missing Hin child is captured by humans, the spell won't find a specific Hin because one "people" isn't at all common or widespread. However, this could be different if asking about powerful undead in the area as those register differently in the spell because of their unnatural nature, not their commonality to the region.