Necromantic Druids
- Thread starter Vanuslux
- Start date
NecroDruid?
1) The arcane class I'd choose would be a Specialist Mage (Necro) and give up Illusion and Enchantment...largely for flavor reasons. If I had access to BoVD, I'd take the Metamagic feat that lets me create undead when I kill something with my magic.
2) Another take on it would be combining with an Artificer...kind of like a Voudoun priest, he'd mix a deep understanding of nature and chemistry to create potions to make his undead (if he does indeed create them).
3) I like the idea of the Yellow Musk zombie critters...possibly even as the NecroDruid's animal companion.
4) Necromancy isn't just about creating undead. Sometimes, its about shepherding things from life to death...especially those things have thwarted it for a while (IOW, thwarting the natural order).
1) The arcane class I'd choose would be a Specialist Mage (Necro) and give up Illusion and Enchantment...largely for flavor reasons. If I had access to BoVD, I'd take the Metamagic feat that lets me create undead when I kill something with my magic.
2) Another take on it would be combining with an Artificer...kind of like a Voudoun priest, he'd mix a deep understanding of nature and chemistry to create potions to make his undead (if he does indeed create them).
3) I like the idea of the Yellow Musk zombie critters...possibly even as the NecroDruid's animal companion.
4) Necromancy isn't just about creating undead. Sometimes, its about shepherding things from life to death...especially those things have thwarted it for a while (IOW, thwarting the natural order).
There's a druid that was turned into a vampire in my campaign, does he count?
Seriously, the idea of a necromantic druid is quite nasty. I'm thinking that the NE variety would be quite a troublesome opponent. I'm imagining some marshy area in a campaign that's sort of perpetually under cloudcover or fog, tucked away just far enough from the nearest civilization that it's mostly unmolested. But, at the outskirts of that town, on the bog-side, is a large cemetery, filled with opportunities for the misreant druid.
No spritely rays of sunshine bursting through the forest canopy here. Just dreariness and dread.
Dave
Seriously, the idea of a necromantic druid is quite nasty. I'm thinking that the NE variety would be quite a troublesome opponent. I'm imagining some marshy area in a campaign that's sort of perpetually under cloudcover or fog, tucked away just far enough from the nearest civilization that it's mostly unmolested. But, at the outskirts of that town, on the bog-side, is a large cemetery, filled with opportunities for the misreant druid.
No spritely rays of sunshine bursting through the forest canopy here. Just dreariness and dread.
Dave
gamecat
Explorer
To put a differing spin on the whole "druid makes undead" angle, in the Magic: The Gathering Ravnica block, there is a faction known as the Golgari Swarm, and its my understanding they animate the dead by infesting the corpses with all manner of fungus, which provides the body with motive power and whatnot.
Possible PrC/sets of spells? If I find the time.
Possible PrC/sets of spells? If I find the time.
Cheiromancer
Adventurer
I could see a druid cursing someone by cutting them off from the natural order of things; they cannot die, they cannot partake of natural pleasures, etc.. Basically someone so cursed would be undead.
They might be given the opportunity to make amends for whatever crime they were guilty of. Protecting a sacred glade that they desecrated. Protecting the grave of a unicorn they killed. Stuff like that. The druid who created them should be able to command them.
Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of? I'm not sure the best way of making this work mechanically. Probably by exchanging druid abilities for the ability to create and command undead.
LN would work for alignment- a rather punitive order of druids. NE would also be obvious; they might delight just a little too much in giving out this punishment, and give it for quite mild infractions.
They might be given the opportunity to make amends for whatever crime they were guilty of. Protecting a sacred glade that they desecrated. Protecting the grave of a unicorn they killed. Stuff like that. The druid who created them should be able to command them.
Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of? I'm not sure the best way of making this work mechanically. Probably by exchanging druid abilities for the ability to create and command undead.
LN would work for alignment- a rather punitive order of druids. NE would also be obvious; they might delight just a little too much in giving out this punishment, and give it for quite mild infractions.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Weren't the Ur-Flan a necromantic-like ex- or alternate-Druidic group? There's a PrC in one of the Complete books, IIRC.
Particle_Man
Explorer
VirgilCaine said:
I already knew that. I said "why not?" as a "go for it!" not as a "house rule it" kinda thing.
Sejs
First Post
gamecat said:
Yeah, see now that I could see working. Basically a druid who really digs Yellow Musk Creepers and the like.
You get your nigh-zombies, but none of the "in your FACE, natural order!" of making real, honest to god undead.
Yeah, but that's the thing - normal death and decay are perfectly natural occurances. Part of the great cycle of life is at some point it's not all flowers and sunshine anymore, it's graveyards and corpse flies. That's cool. Totally supposed to happen.HunterinDarkness said:
The rub being that afterwards you're not supposed to come back. You return to the earth and nourish new life that arises to replace the old. Undead don't just ignore that obligation, they walk up and piss all over it. Shameful, I tell ya.
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