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The neutrality of druids

They way I figure the druid/neutrality issue is sort of like so:

- Nature is, in and of itself, Neutral.

- Druids are granted their abilities through their reverence to Nature in some form or another. They worship and respect it, though the form that takes varies from druid to druid.

- The required Neutral alignment component is what signifies their connection to Nature and its ways, similar to the relationship between a cleric and the alignment of their deity.
 

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Li Shenron said:
Interesting note! I have now to ask a few players in my group if they have 2ed manuals ;)

I think the true neutral as balance was more from the 1e alignment definitions than the 2e ones.
 

In the past, my various PC and NPC Druids have:

-Threatened the party archmage with retaliation if he launched his "thermonuclear fireball" at a party of high-level undead riding through the forest since it would entail unneccessary destruction of the woods. The archmage stopped, considered, then launched a different attack spell (good news, too- that fireball would have been ineffective).

-Turned a dispassionate eye towards strangers pleading for help merely because someone was bullying them- the bully was, after all, acting in his best interest and in accord with "survival of the fittest" - not unlike a nature photographer watching a cheetah pull down an antelope.

-Helped a wolfpack stay alive by helping them take kills from certain local livestock herds, or helped a river "live" by destroying portions of a dam.

These acts might be considered evil by some, but they're really not.

However, NONE of my Druids has ever actively aided evil.
 

Li Shenron said:
I suppose most gaming groups have no problems with druids' neutrality, but what exactly is your view of it?

Generally speaking we always assumed that druids are "somewhat neutral" because nature is itself neutral: nature is a mix of laws and chaos, without being either good or evil.

There's something however that bothers me about some druids I've seen played. Some players seem to take their neutrality as meaning that sometimes they have to help good and sometimes they have to help evil... but I don't really get it fully. The rationale is along the lines of "keeping balance in the universe", but then there are NG, NE, LN and CN druids which aren't balanced themselves.

That's part of the 2e alignment system which has influenced my current distaste of alignment rules. Contrary to what I saw above, that was in the 2e Player's Handbook.

Players actually hated druid PCs more than paladins because at least paladins were stupid and predictable. I never got to play a druid in 2e until Mielikki was introduced.

As for "unbalanced" druids, that's all right. Unlike rangers, druids have to respect and venerate nature. However, they can use their powers to their own ends and with their own morality in mind. So, if a druid thinks killing the local lord is a great way of keeping a tract of wilderness untouched, they might be committing an evil act, but still protecting nature. Or, in addtion to protecting nature, a druid might sell their services, cheaply, to increasing the yield of farms and healing people. (Increasing farm yields keeps people from spreading their farms. Tell them to keep their farms the same size or you'll withdraw your services.) Any aligned druid can find reasons to adventure - so long as they venerate and protect nature on their way, they have no reason to stick to a single sacred grove.
 

Li Shenron said:
I suppose most gaming groups have no problems with druids' neutrality, but what exactly is your view of it?
My view is that alignments don't exist, therefore neither does balance. ;-)

A druid is just a druid. If he (or she) prevents farmers from cutting down trees, the farmers will see him as evil, but an elven ranger will see him as good. Sometimes morality is difficult to judge, just like in the real world.

A warrior might discover a dungeon, slay some kobolds, and find some treasure. But from the point of view of the kobolds, he has invaded their home, slaughtered its valiant defenders, and stolen their rightful belongings.

That's my feeling anyway.

ironregime.
 

Druids have to be somewhat neutral in order to have proper attunement to nature. Nature is beyond morality. Druids must exercise some degree of indifference or balance in themselves if they are to have a suitable affinity with nature. Just as clerics need to conform at least somewhat to their deity's principles, a druid must share at least some of nature's indifference towards morality, or sense of balance via cycles, in order to tap into nature's power.

Druids do not have to be all the same in mindset, and don't need to serve all sides in the alignment clash. Balance is not their prime concern. Nature is. Any one side of the alignment axes gaining superiority would almost certainly result in the exploitation, ruination, or disruption of nature, and that is the only reason druids give a nod to universal balance. Law would harvest and exploit nature for maximum persistant gain, heedless of disrupting natural habitats, and would seek domination of nature to build cities and machines and other unnatural junk. Chaos would just destroy random chunks of nature as individuals did whatever was best for themselves or their families. Good would 'tame' and convert nature to make farms, cities, fruit groves, and so on, and would try to beautify unsightly parts of nature, to the detriment of marsh and desert ecologies for instance. Evil would destroy, despoil, or exploit nature for fun and profit. So druids would rather see the conflict of alignments remain in relative balance so as not to let such forces focus their attentions on harvesting nature. As long as nature is everyone's ally and nobody's friend, it can likely maintain its cycles in relative peace.

Druids do not have to be immoral or indifferent, but they do have to share some of nature's philosophy at least. Druids are individuals too, just like paladins, and bards, and rogues. Some will truly revere nature and serve it, others will just respect and use it, and still others will think they revere and serve it even though they really just revere a certain part of it or a certain view of it.

True neutral druids would be the sort that care most for nature's philosophy, having the strongest likelyhood of being indifferent, immoral, balanced, and extreme in mindset; they would be the preservers of balance, ensuring that nature survives by keeping the alignment conflict from resolution, and siding with whoever will best serve nature's survival and health at any given time, but generally ignoring the activities of civilization and alignments except where it impacts nature; they probably don't care too much about the rise, fall, lifestyle, laws, and day-to-day actions of civilizations, but will deal with them and intercede on nature's behalf when it seems necessary or important for nature's continued well-being, and only insofar as it serves that purpose; they probably don't care about the construction of homes and cities and such, so long as it isn't too rapid or too disruptive to nature's ecologies and resources, but they can be pretty vengeful and terrifying when they do decide that people have exceeded the reasonable tolerances of nature's serenity; they won't often interfere in worldly affairs, or they might only interfere when, where, and to-whatever-extent is necessary to maintain nature's health, or when it is important to the survival and health of fey, plant creatures, animals, and such; or the true neutral druid might only care about nature's preservation and purity, regardless of all else, doing anything to ensure nature's delicate balance and healthy cycles, even if it means reducing all intelligent races to living like primitives just so they can't muck up nature anymore with their infernal cities and machines and wars and farms; they won't want everyone dead, but they may want everyone to stop using up more of nature and stop ruining it, so they may do whatever seems necessary to put a halt to civilization's growth and advancement, such as inducing plagues or crop blights in areas to stem their growth and maybe set them back for a while.

Neutral good druids may be compassionate, but still understand the need for predators and survival of the fittest; they will serve nature's kinder, more beatific side, and seek amicable relations between civilization and nature; they will work to prevent excessive exploitation or conversion of nature, but they won't oppose natural exploitation in moderation or by sustainable ways; they might be smiters of those who exploit nature and those who carelessly destroy peoples or nature; people are part of nature too and deserve to live, even if it's alright for some to die as far as nature is concerned, but genocide of a race or civilization is excessive.

Neutral evil druids may be vindictive and predatory, but still see genocide of races or civilizations as excessive in most cases, and know that predators need plenty of prey to survive for future generations to feed on; they would not allow the extinction of useful or worthy prey, nor of important or useful predators, but they don't mind the destruction of particularly weak or useless races; they would not allow anyone to get too close to destroying the world or its life, so even neutral evil druids would oppose any attempts at world destruction or domination; they might test creatures or civilizations to see if they are worthy of life, or to see if they deserve to be preyed upon for the greater benefit and health of nature; they might be amoral avengers of nature, destroying anything and everything that messes with nature beyond what is needed to survive in good health, so they wouldn't oppose every new house, but they would oppose any continual expansion of towns, trying to kill off enough of the population to maintain a more static town size; or neutral evil druids might simply be people who use nature for their own gain, but in such a way as to still serve nature in some way, since nature needs predators and a certain degree of destruction to clear away unwanted chaff or to allow for new growth and adaptation.

Kinda drawing a blank on chaotic neutral and lawful neutral druids at the moment, as they're somewhere close to true neutral druids in mindset, but also have a few tendencies similar to neutral evil or neutral good druids...... CN druids obviously use nature for themselves or simply idealize nature's primal, destructive, reckless, opportunistic, and free aspects, with a decided hatred of civilization (or at least big or complex civilization), preferring solo, clannish, or tribal lifestyles for everyone. LN druids instead revere nature's order, persistance, inexorability, constant cycles, renewal, and dominance, or might utilize nature for the benefit of society at large so long as that utilization can be sustained indefinitely, even if it is to the detriment or demise of some people or civilizations or creatures or freedoms.
 

ironregime said:
My view is that alignments don't exist, therefore neither does balance. ;-)

A druid is just a druid. If he (or she) prevents farmers from cutting down trees, the farmers will see him as evil, but an elven ranger will see him as good. Sometimes morality is difficult to judge, just like in the real world.
ironregime.

I have to disagree with this one. Not all rangers are close to nature. Some just have the skills necessary to make it into the wild. A hunter who kills wolves for sport and throws the natural balance out of whack could be a N ranger. There are even evil rangers.
 

IMC, Good and Evil are warring for control of the world, and if the Avatars (not your standard Avatars, but pure raw energy of the Gods) are called, their fighting could destroy the entire planet. It almost happened last time. So the druid sects have tasked themselves with building a matrix of energy that will keep the Avatars out of the world. They do this by creating nature spirits. The souls of willing human sacrifices are "grafted" into rocks, streams, storms, trees, etc. The sum total of these souls is the matrix. These druids, in effect, are creating the classic Nature God that druids worship in most D&D games. These druids will have nothing to do with followers of either Good or Evil. Frex, no one can Turn Undead in their realm, because it requires calling on Good. These druids seek the balance by denying both sides.

There is another sect, an offshoot of the main sect, that seeks a more active engagement with the powers. It does both Good and Evil, seeking to maintain the opposite balance, one of envolving both sides. It is inevitably doomed to fail with tragic consequences.

I think of the two sects in terms of equilibriums. The first sect, by denying both sides, can easily monitor its own compliance with its terms. It is a stable equilibrium. Think of a bowling ball in a depression. It won't roll out, because any deviation creates a potential that pushes it back into the depression. The second sect, by active involvement, requires sharp and constant vigilance as well as perfect judgement. It is an unstable equilibrium. Think of a bowling ball on a hilltop. Any deviation from its balance point starts the ball rolling farther and farther away from that balance point, and only large, timely, and precisely calibrated effort will return it to equilibrium.

So those are my principles for my druids.

PS
 

I guess when I think of a Druids Neutrality and keeping the Balance I never think of it as keeping the balance between Good and Evil. I feel you need to remove the words Good and Evil from the statement “Keeping the Balance”,

So I play my druids as a person that keeps/maintains the balance of Nature. So when Kobold tribes swell I would help the local villages defend themselves from the Kobolds and help them hunt down bands of Kobolds killing them. However, I would not allow the same village to hunt the Kobolds to extinction.

At the same time, (much like a modern day Game Warden) I would monitor the hunters in the area, and would not let them kill a deer or bear population off. Not many hunters are going to listen to someone when you say they can not kill a deer when that is their lively hood.

That is the balance that I feel Druids try to keep. Basically they try to keep a healthy balance of predators (hunters, kobolds) and prey (deer, helpless villagers) in an area. So that the number of people, monsters living off an area do not swell to such proportions that the land can no longer support them.
 

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
Not all rangers are close to nature. Some just have the skills necessary to make it into the wild.
You're right. I stereotyped the "elven ranger" back there. My apologies. Please don't select me as a favoured enemy. ;)

ironregime
 

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