Bring the majesty back to Druids

[Herobizkit]

Hey all,
I remember reading the old Shannara series of books and, while the name escapes me, the main Druid in the story was really cool. He invoked both a feeling of hope (if he liked you) and dread (if he didn't). As written, the mere mention of the word "Druid" made people's skin crawl and their hearts turn to ice.

The question is:
How would you re-create Druids in your campaign world to make them more "dreaded" and less like woodsy Celtic pagan-types?

 

[Crothian]

Oddly enough, I use the Shannarra Druid class that was posted in one of the Dragon magazines back in 2001 or so.

 

[Hammerhead]

Those characters really are more wizard or sorcerer than druid.

 

[Sejs]

Essentially, through fluff. You don't need to change anything mechanically from what it is now in order for druids to be very, very formidable figures.

At later levels a single druid can kill the population of an entire city with appaling ease. Control Weather, Contagion, Control Winds, Earthquake, Firestorm, etc. All done while either flying about as a bird, scampering around as a rat, or looking like absolutly anyone thanks to Thousand Faces.

Add on to that, the fact that old druids never go away. Get a circle of elders going, people that are all in pretty tight with one another and are capable of casting Reincarnation. If they have the Timeless Body ability, all the better. When one of the circle gets old and they feel that their time is approaching an end, they get their affairs in order, throw a bit of a party, call a friend, and commit suicide. Their fellow circle elder then Reincarnates them, and they come back in a brand-spanking-new young adult body, ready to spend another lifetime manipulating the world, or whatever.

They can curl the world around their finger. If they want a certain nation or group to prosper, they can see to it easily that they prosper. Their harvests are always bountiful, their livestock is always hale and of exceptional quality, they always seem to know where to find ore veins they need, the woodlands they harvest for lumber spring back ridiculously fast, etc. And it's just as easy to turn that favor against someone as well.

And besides, do you really want to screw with someone who, at any time, can turn themselves into an 15-foot-tall bear and rip you clean in half?

 

[The Human Target]

In my homebrew there sort of like Doctor Who mixed with Allanon. And scary as all get out as Sejs brilliantly noted.

 

[MirrorMask]

Essentially, through fluff. You don't need to change anything mechanically from what it is now in order for druids to be very, very formidable figures.

At later levels a single druid can kill the population of an entire city with appaling ease. Control Weather, Contagion, Control Winds, Earthquake, Firestorm, etc. All done while either flying about as a bird, scampering around as a rat, or looking like absolutly anyone thanks to Thousand Faces.

Add on to that, the fact that old druids never go away. Get a circle of elders going, people that are all in pretty tight with one another and are capable of casting Reincarnation. If they have the Timeless Body ability, all the better. When one of the circle gets old and they feel that their time is approaching an end, they get their affairs in order, throw a bit of a party, call a friend, and commit suicide. Their fellow circle elder then Reincarnates them, and they come back in a brand-spanking-new young adult body, ready to spend another lifetime manipulating the world, or whatever.

They can curl the world around their finger. If they want a certain nation or group to prosper, they can see to it easily that they prosper. Their harvests are always bountiful, their livestock is always hale and of exceptional quality, they always seem to know where to find ore veins they need, the woodlands they harvest for lumber spring back ridiculously fast, etc. And it's just as easy to turn that favor against someone as well.

And besides, do you really want to screw with someone who, at any time, can turn themselves into an 15-foot-tall bear and rip you clean in half?

EXACTLY.

 

[Herobizkit]

Good job, Sejs. That's a great example of what I'm trying to accomplish. But.. high-level Clerics and high-level Wizards can do just about everything in your example, too.

I guess what I'm more interested in is how to incorporate this fluff into my current campaign. Myself included, my group sees Druids exactly as I've stated earlier... woodsy Celtic pagan types. I am looking for specific examples of how I can get across the idea that Druids are a force to be reckoned with rather than "another kind of Cleric that can shapechange"... short of eliminating Clerics and Wizards altogether.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Call sorcerers druids and make them wear big black hooded robes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I guess what I'm more interested in is how to incorporate this fluff into my current campaign. Myself included, my group sees Druids exactly as I've stated earlier... woodsy Celtic pagan types. I am looking for specific examples of how I can get across the idea that Druids are a force to be reckoned with rather than "another kind of Cleric that can shapechange"

I always saw the Druids of Shannara as 1pt Druid, 1pt Wizard, 1pt Scientist...but onto your question.

Blood Sacrifices- not neccessarily killing, just demanding blood and other bodily fluids for the annual fertility rites...

The cold stare of the Druid that sees another human being as no more than another animal...possibly one that has to be culled from the herd.

Introduction of plotline involving an NPC Druid who does something to somebody in the community...like feeding the wolfpack from Farmer Zed's herd of cattle while other Druids do nothing because they do not aknowledge the act as evil (since the townfolk have overhunted the wolf's usual prey).

 

[Li Shenron]

I'd enforce the idea of druids as a secret society.