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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 7598708" data-attributes="member: 6796661">For me it depends on the campaign. In prior 5e campaigns, alignment had not mechanical effect. Druids were just generic nature worshipers that could be corrupt and villainous (like the Druids in Curse of Strahd), pro-civilization but wanted to shephard it into being better stewards of nature, or the classic 1e true neutrals. Players could play their druid's alignment and relationship to nature however they wanted. In my current campaign, alignment matters. Alignment is associated with philosophical stances with allies an enemies. Even for non-clerics, acting for or against your alignment has mechanical ramifications as well as narrative repercussions. I use a boon and bane system on top of the reputation variant rule.  In this campaign, Druids can be any alignment. Nature is unaligned. Druids are drawing on an ancient magic power that may have been the original source of magic before divine and arcane magic. Nature doesn't care what Druids use their power for. But if nature is destroyed, Druid may lose their power. I say "may" because what does "nature" mean?  I am inclined that it at least involves life. But this may be something Druids and scholars debate, along with whether nature is "the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations" or whether it includes humans.  Read "humans" to include any "civilized" "peoples."  *MOST* NPC druids in my campaign value life, diversity, and balance. But that can lead many of them to be "evil" as alignment works in my campaign because they may release plagues on a city to cut down the population. Or decimate populations with violent and organized attacks, à la Thanos. They have emotions. Drusilla, and important Druid NPC in the Rappan Athuk campaign, is stated as true neutral in the book. Yet because some humans killed her original animal companion 20 years ago, she is vengeful. Based on an add-on encounter with her in the Zelkor's Ferry booklet and how things played out in my game, I play her as lawful neutral. She will make and keep agreements with nearby settlements and groups in order to protect areas important to her, but is unlikely to be either merciful or cruel if those agreements are broken. CE seems the most opposed to traditional Druidic philosophy, but I can see someone who chaff's at society and rules being attracted to the wild and that same person growing to hate and to seek to destroy everyone who represents the society he rejected.</blockquote>

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