Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3729764" data-attributes="member: 4937">The origin of the D&amp;D cleric is clearly the Song of Roland (for example, the original rule that clerics couldn't use edged weapons is discussed therein).&nbsp; It would be very very hard to Roland and the rest of the Peers were not Paladins, but clearly there are fighting clerics in the Song of Roland that aren't Paladins.&nbsp; So what you are expressing is an opinion, and one that isn't really grounded in the source material.*sigh* The distinction between shamans and priests is almost entirely arbitrary.&nbsp; A shaman in colloquial usage is a priest of an animistic nature religion.&nbsp;&nbsp; From what little we know of druidism, and that's almost nothing, druidism was an animistic nature relgion similar to those found in other stone age cultures the world over.&nbsp; Druidic worship almost certainly involved spirits, although to be frank, sense the Romans slaughtered every single Druid and all thier family members, we don't really know anything about thier worship that isn't conjectural.&nbsp; Most of what you may think you know about Druidism is the product of 15th and 16th century occult imagination, and historical revisionism by reinnasance scholars in Northern Europe.&nbsp; But it would be extremely unlikely that ancient European religions were fundamentally different than anyone elses and besides even the imagined stuff is pretty typical of animism, and hense druids are best represented as a particular option in a base shaman class.&nbsp; There mythical set of powers is almost identical to those attributed to other shamans.&nbsp; The class limitations of having particular taboos is typical of shamanism.&nbsp; The particular emphasis on shapeshifting that they've come to have in game settings is a modern anchronism, and one best expressed with a particular talent tree.If they are not shamans, then the question arises of why we don't fold them into the cleric class.&nbsp; Either way, the druid base class should go away.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3729764, member: 4937"] The origin of the D&D cleric is clearly the Song of Roland (for example, the original rule that clerics couldn't use edged weapons is discussed therein). It would be very very hard to Roland and the rest of the Peers were not Paladins, but clearly there are fighting clerics in the Song of Roland that aren't Paladins. So what you are expressing is an opinion, and one that isn't really grounded in the source material. *sigh* The distinction between shamans and priests is almost entirely arbitrary. A shaman in colloquial usage is a priest of an animistic nature religion. From what little we know of druidism, and that's almost nothing, druidism was an animistic nature relgion similar to those found in other stone age cultures the world over. Druidic worship almost certainly involved spirits, although to be frank, sense the Romans slaughtered every single Druid and all thier family members, we don't really know anything about thier worship that isn't conjectural. Most of what you may think you know about Druidism is the product of 15th and 16th century occult imagination, and historical revisionism by reinnasance scholars in Northern Europe. But it would be extremely unlikely that ancient European religions were fundamentally different than anyone elses and besides even the imagined stuff is pretty typical of animism, and hense druids are best represented as a particular option in a base shaman class. There mythical set of powers is almost identical to those attributed to other shamans. The class limitations of having particular taboos is typical of shamanism. The particular emphasis on shapeshifting that they've come to have in game settings is a modern anchronism, and one best expressed with a particular talent tree. If they are not shamans, then the question arises of why we don't fold them into the cleric class. Either way, the druid base class should go away. [/QUOTE]

Verification