Environmentalism in D&D

[I'm A Banana]

I thought this might mesh up well with the Common Commoner thread I had a while back, and it came up in a thread recently as a "modern" encroachment on a "medieval" D&D setting.

Druids. Rangers. Perhaps clerics of nature deities. To a lesser extent, Barbarians All of them gain at least a fraction of their power from "Nature."

But what does that mean? And how do they serve the source of their powers?

Is Nature like a deity that can be offended and must be propriated? What is the Code of Nature, as derived from the D&D rules, and with your own little spin? I mean, obviously Nature has *some* problem with metal armor, right? Or are Druids and Rangers worshiping different sides of Nature?

To defend Nature, do druids encourage sensible mining and farming procedures? Are they anti-technology? Anti-dwarf? Or are mining and farming perfectly acceptable uses of Nature's bounty? Are they vegetarians, or are cows just fruits of the earth that can moo? Does it depend on their alignment? (Good druids never eat meat, neutral druids won't allow organized farming (but hunting's okay), evil druids only eat veal raised on grass fertilized by the sacrifice of virgins) Can they have an antagonistic faith (it's humans vs. nature, and humans must win, so druids fight against nature with it's own power)? Are they Arbor Day Terrorists who preserve plant and animal life by slaughtering the animals with opposable thumbs?

Tell me tell me tell me!

 

[jgbrowning]

All of the above. And more.

joe b.

 

[Crothian]

And none of them as well. It really depends on the god, the group, and other factors. You could easily have organizations that have the same basic goals but handle getting there entirely different.

 

[VirgilCaine]

To defend Nature, do druids encourage sensible mining and farming procedures? Are they anti-technology? Anti-dwarf? Or are mining and farming perfectly acceptable uses of Nature's bounty? Are they vegetarians, or are cows just fruits of the earth that can moo?

Does it depend on their alignment? (Good druids never eat meat, neutral druids won't allow organized farming (but hunting's okay), evil druids only eat veal raised on grass fertilized by the sacrifice of virgins)

Can they have an antagonistic faith (it's humans vs. nature, and humans must win, so druids fight against nature with it's own power)? Are they Arbor Day Terrorists who preserve plant and animal life by slaughtering the animals with opposable thumbs?

Tell me tell me tell me!

IMC, NG, TN, and LN druids revere nature--but they recognize that humans need farms and such also. And that monsters aren't really part of the "natural" balance usually, so they are commonly "adventurers" out killing monsters.
CN druids don't really care, usually.
NE druids are the "archetypal" enviroterrorist, squish-the-loggers-with-trees-and-collapse-the-mines-on-the-dwarves types.

 

[Storminator]

My campaign is defined by the recent apocalypse, which was caused by the avatars of Good and Evil openly battling across the face of the earth.


The "druids" seek to prevent either god from ever returning. They are building a matrix of power, an alternate source of divine energy, in order to lock the avatars out. They don't revere nature. They use willing human sacrifice to put souls into trees, rivers, etc. Eventually, they will have a classic nature god.
PS

 

[Gez]

Everything I say here is IMC.

Is Nature like a deity that can be offended and must be propriated?

Not really. "Nature" is one step of conceptual abstraction above deities. Even more powerful, even less personnified, even less sentient. It doesn't really have a will of its own. It does loath (most) undead and (most) outsiders (especially independant fiends, for they are the ones that are unmaking the world in order to build their own planes).

Nature usually does not care about whatever the sentient creatures do, as long as it doesn't affect natural cycle. So, if you burn a whole region and salt it to prevent anything to grow, you'll get angry natural spirits that will want to deal with you. Likewise if you open a portal to some hellish plane from which continually spill noxious fumes, or if you create a massive cloud that block all sunlight in a whole region, or if you disintegrate a whole mountain with an epic spell, or if you toy with antigenesis...

What is the Code of Nature, as derived from the D&D rules, and with your own little spin? I mean, obviously Nature has *some* problem with metal armor, right? Or are Druids and Rangers worshiping different sides of Nature?

About as much as, say, Acoraë, goddess of arts and crafts, insists on her clerics carrying owl guano. Owl guano is a material components necessary for casting owl's wisdom, which is a spell those clerics can cast.

In other words, it's all part of the class' quirks, not about real wishes of Nature.

The truth is that metals are more opaque to ley fluctuations (which is why thin layers of metals can block divinations), and thus wearing a metal armor isolates you from the ambiant ley, hampering your capacity to use telluric magic. Theurgic magic (that of clerics and paladins) use ley channeled from a deity through a holy symbol, so rather than a constant immersion in ambiant, diluted ley; they recharge their personal spell energy through a very powerful direct connection -- something that is not going to be blocked, except by the most impressive materials.
Arcane magic, also known as esoterism, is internal. Wizards, sorcerers, and bards transmute a part of their own lifeforce into spell ley, and then let it grows organically through special techniques, which depends on the magical tradition (usually involving formulaes, mystic patterns, glyphs and runes, words of power, and/or magical chords).

So, it's just a question of class abilities and the kind of magic you practice.

To defend Nature, do druids encourage sensible mining and farming procedures? Are they anti-technology? Anti-dwarf? Or are mining and farming perfectly acceptable uses of Nature's bounty? Are they vegetarians, or are cows just fruits of the earth that can moo? Does it depend on their alignment? (Good druids never eat meat, neutral druids won't allow organized farming (but hunting's okay), evil druids only eat veal raised on grass fertilized by the sacrifice of virgins) Can they have an antagonistic faith (it's humans vs. nature, and humans must win, so druids fight against nature with it's own power)? Are they Arbor Day Terrorists who preserve plant and animal life by slaughtering the animals with opposable thumbs?

Druids are mainly concerned with things being The Way They Should Be (tm). Which means that humanoids should behave like humanoids, and animals should behave like animals. A few exceptions are allowed -- druids among the humanoids, awakened animals among the animals -- because you need to be outside something to watch over it.

If a druid creates too much awakened animals, he may become an ex-druid, because he's creating an imbalance. If cities and farmlands grow too much, it creates an imbalance. If cities and farmland are abandonned it creates an imbalance.

Druids (and rangers) do not consider civilisation to be outside of nature. Indeed, if some citizen is thinking that, because he lives under a roof and between walls, he's cut off of nature; then he's a barmy clueless. Oops, wrong cant. He's a foolish idiot full of hubris.

Nature is the balance of everything. Civilisations are natural, just as wildlife is. War and peace, compassion and cruelty, death and birth, nature is everything. Thinking it's only one thing -- like only wilderness, or only predation, or only healing, or only vegetal growth -- is the greatest error one can make about what the universe is.

And every aspect of nature, in its countless contrasts and opposition, has its own wardens. Even if they don't acknowledge it, thinking they act in the name of Justice or Civilisation; paladins are defenders of nature. Of one small part of nature. Wizards of another.

Druids are the defenders of a larger part. Their task is the greatest, for they are the only ones who fully grasp what nature is. Not only do they oversee the wilderlands, they must also monitor the acts of the society. Druids often act thus as advisors and councilors, rewarding those leaders wise enough to heed their words with spells of bounty for the peasants of the country. A king foolish enough to disrespect the wills of the druids will face famine and pestilence, as the druids will no longer protect the peasants, their livestock, and their fields for harsh weather, wild predators, and other natural calamities.

 

[Tonguez]

The World and all it manifestations (that which we call nature and in modern terms the Biosphere) is a sentient (though perhaps not sapient) living entity with a soul. Plants and Animals (including Humanoids) are fruits of the earth with the difference that plants tap in directly to the World-Soul as manifestations of it, whereas animals are inhabitants not manifestations.
This World-Soul is True Neutral and thus favour apparent neutrality - in other words good and evil, law and chaos, growth and decay are irrelavent in that matters is that Nature survives - it is only things that threaten the survival of Nature that will earn its ire.

So Technology is fine, mines and farms are fine, eating meat and cutting down forest is fine provided they do not threaten the very survival of Nature or its manifestations.
Druids rever this and exist to maintain that balance.

Nuclear Bombs (or magical equivalents), mass damming of rivers, Sauron cutting down the entire forest - these are things which threaten the survival of the living 'biosphere'/World-Soul and is what Nature and Druids abhor

well at least IMC...

 

[Tonguez]

Okay Gez said it better

 

[Gez]

Yours was much less wordy.

 

[DaveStebbins]

I see elves as being more eco-aware, and more likely to be eco-terrorists. Their habitat (forests, generally) are more likely to be endangered by others (perhaps unintentionally), so they are more likely to be "protectors" of nature.

I see druids as more like rural clerics, often living among their 'flock' and advising people to live wisely and not abuse the land, lest the land strike back in some form.