D&D General How do you make your nature-aligned characters more compelling than “Radagast, but with a bow?”

[Fauchard1520]

I've got a longer write up about my difficulties with nature-themed characters over here, but this has been a struggle with me for some time. Nature tends to be portrayed as "gray-side," meaning that there's no easy good/evil or law/chaos dichotomy to fuel conflict. That in turns means that it's hard for me to roll up a nature-themed protagonist: What exactly am I supposed to be struggling against?

So help me out here. How do you go about making a ranger or a druid with meaty plot hooks? And from the GM's side, how do you allow such a character to become central to a campaign's conflict?

 

[Beleriphon]

There is a law/chaos dichotomy, or there can be. For example if a druid thinks nature needs management, including cities and towns being part of the natural order, you're going to get a conflict with a druid that think "red in tooth and claw" is the way to go, or a druid that thinks towns/cities are unnatural and need to be destroyed.

 

[Undrave]

I've got a longer write up about my difficulties with nature-themed characters over here, but this has been a struggle with me for some time. Nature tends to be portrayed as "gray-side," meaning that there's no easy good/evil or law/chaos dichotomy to fuel conflict. That in turns means that it's hard for me to roll up a nature-themed protagonist: What exactly am I supposed to be struggling against?

So help me out here. How do you go about making a ranger or a druid with meaty plot hooks? And from the GM's side, how do you allow such a character to become central to a campaign's conflict?

Personally I was a big fan of the 4e fluff for the Primal Power Source.

In the 4e Cosmology, the Prime Material plane began when Primordials from the Elemental Chaos began to chuck raw basic elements together and created the more stable World. After a while they got bored and retreated. That's when the Gods of the Astral Sea took notice and began to imbue the World with Souls, creating all the mortal life forms (willingly or accidentally). After a while the Primordials got mad the Gods were playing with their discarded toys and began a war to retake the world, presumable to reduce it back to its elemental components. During this struggle the Primal Spirits awoke: essentially the Souls of the World itself! The Primal Spirits were a blend of Elemental and Divine power and they threw everybody out of their plane.

Like a child growing to adulthood and kicking his abusive parents out of their lives and making sure their messy divorce doesn't ruin what they built for themselves.

So a major aspect of Primal characters was to keep interlopers the heck out of the Material Plane. Wether they be Demons trying to destroy, Gods trying to manipulate and conquer or the abominations of the Far Realm corrupting reality.

 

[Salthorae]

There can easily be Good/Evil conflicts as well depending on the gods of a setting, the world around, and the character's history etc.

Nature doesn't have to be grey-side. I've never really seen that except back in 2e days where you had to be NN to be a druid. But even that is rife with conflict potential as NN wants to maintain the balance, so they will side against the dominant side in a situation to keep that. That has tons of potential conflict built into it.

I would never think of nature-themed characters as "middle ground and conflict avoidance" personally.

Forgotten Realms has good nature deities that embody the nurture, bounty, life, growth aspects of nature and evil nature deities that embody the brutality, death, survival of the fittest aspect.

Depending on how those play out in your setting/game/world it could easily drive things.

There are Summer and Winter fey courts, which not explicitly "nature" are very often tied to nature/natural world/themes in most settings. I have druids that fight against dark fey encroachments because they are NG.

I have nature-themed characters that struggle against any kind of "supernatural" incursions into the wildlands whether that be fey or elementals, or fiends or celestials.

I have nature-themed characters who enjoy the struggle of survival itself and who are just rugged huntsmen who hire into groups as guides and whose uncivilized ways often come into conflict with the gameworld they get dragged into by the plot or other characters.

I have wizards who view magic as a natural part of the world, who are acolytes of nature deities, espousing what is kind of a heretical stance on nature and magic in most game worlds relative to the gods.

There are tons of ways to get conflict from a nature-oriented character IMO, but a lot of it depends on your setting and your world, the campaign conceit and the other players to a degree as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That in turns means that it's hard for me to roll up a nature-themed protagonist: What exactly am I supposed to be struggling against?

Please not post-modern save-the-environment stuff!

Seriously, though, in a mostly-good campaign, PCs may well be struggling against some greater Evil - maybe the same one the whole campaign, maybe a variety, maybe just an overwhelming darkness surrounding their 'Points of Light' (yeah, or not, whatever). Point is, it's likely, for the heroes to be really heroic, that said Evil very much as the upper hand. The old-school protect-the-balance True Neutral types shouldn't stand for Evil Ascendant. For now - like, the whole campaign - siding with good will restore the balance.

 

[Salthorae]

I would also be remiss if I did not point you to one of the best Druid's ever played or written about in my experience or reading...

Nwm the Perceptor from @Sepulchrave II 's amazing Tales of Wyre

It's 3.5, it's HIGH (to the nth degree) EPIC, but it is also amazing, and I think Nwm paints a great picture of a Druid who is almost a priest of the natural world and his struggles against the incursions of the supernatural into his world.

If you haven't read it... you're welcome and I'm sorry for your lost time as you dive into the story. If you have... well this is just a friendly reminder

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

Keep in mind that a character's story doesn't necessarily have to be tied to their class. The last druid I played I took the hermit background and my discovery was "Something in the dark is out to get me." While often druids are hermits that backstory is generic enough that it could really belong to a character of just about any class. I find I actually tend to lean more on my race for backstory plot potential than my class when building characters.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I always liked the druids (and you could fit totem barbarians, oath of ancient paladins, and some rangers if you want) as champions of the "gods of old" as opposed to those newfangled gods of cities and farms. That storylines gives you a couple of options:

1) The "gods of old" are still in ascendance but new god stuff is creeping in. Is your druid a conservative or open to religious tolerance?
2) The mortal forces of the "gods of old" and new gods are roughly equal and in competition (if not outright conflict). Being "neutral" in this competition/conflict is likely to draw problems to you (no one likes a fence sitter), but taking a side will bring obligations (no one likes a mooch either).
3) The prominent mortal worshippers of both sets of gods have come an arrangement (or maybe the sets of gods have come to an arrangement and they are one pantheon now). Sadly you discover that "Peace is hell" too (and that life was easier when you could just drop a sandstorm on people you don't like).
4) (I suspect the most popular option): The dirty, polluting followers of the new gods have pushed the followers of the "gods of old" into a minority position. Can you leverage your resources to keep what is most sacred to you? Can you get enough power to move 4) to 2) or 3)? And if you do, will you be honored for doing it, or will you be an embarrassment to your newly respectable allies?

Also keep in mind that the "gods of old"'s enemies might be temporarily aligned with the new gods. Yugoloths as embodiments of greed and devils as imperialists fit that pretty well. Vice versa also holds; demons seem more likely to burn down cities than help them expand, so you might find yourself in a precarious partnership with some demons (with friends like them, who needs enemies?).

 

[Doug McCrae]

In Tolkien, nature = good, and evil beings such as orcs, the Nazgul and Saruman are enemies of nature, destroyed by purifying water. So nature vs Dark Lord can work. Another alternative is that nature-aligned characters oppose the fantasy world's equivalent of mega-corporations. In Eberron, these would be the Dragonmarked Houses. Such a conflict is central in Werewolf: the Apocalypse.

As to background NPCs, how about other nature-aligned beings such as elves, gnomes, fey, werewolves, and other druids and rangers?

 

[Uller]

Ive always resisted the "nature is our friend" take on these sorts of characters. Nature is a force to be feared and people need protection from it....at least in the eyes of ancient peoples.

I am listening to Niel Gaiman's American Gods and during one of his interludes he imagines a tribe making the crossing into N. America and bringing their god with them. Their god warns them they must move east to new lands or be destroyed. Their shaman is doubtful they will survive the journey because there is not enough food. The god proclaims she will not live to see the new lands because of her lack of faith but her death will be the sacrifce needed to get the rest of the tribe to safety.

The tribes left behind are destroyed by a meteor on the Siberian steppes.

Radaghast with a bow, she is not.