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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8322344" data-attributes="member: 6796468">So... the way that Druids work is they choose a specific feature of Athas (A mountain, an oasis, a stretch of desert) and they call up a Primal Spirit. These spirits are incredibly powerful elementals of their type that inhabit that piece of land as essentially that feature's "Soul". They make a Bargain with the Primal Spirit and gain power in exchange for protecting that specific region of Athas. If the feature is ever destroyed (Essentially impossible for a mountain, much more likely for an oasis) the spirit dies and the druid loses all power 'til they can make a connection with a new Primal Spirit.Clerics, on the other hand, offer reverence to all the elementals of their chosen element and channel the power of their Elemental Plane into the world, not the power of any one specific elemental. Nor are they tied to a single feature of Athas.The similarity in the two is because 2e's Druids were a Priest class, rather than their own thing. Even when they were their own entire thing in 3e they still used Divine magic. It wasn't until 4e that Primal magic was a seriously expressed separate concept (One of the best things to come out of 4e, honestly). It took the 3e divide of Cleric and Druid no longer being Priests and went even further in creating distinction!And then they made the Dark Sun Setting and crapped all over that distinction. Essentially making them interchangeable in that aspect for the purposes of the setting. You walk into Kled and ask to see the Sun Priest and he could've been a Cleric or Druid... or literally anyone else who picked that specific theme. You could have a Warlord pick the Elemental Priest theme and it would be equally valid to have him be that, rather than an actual, y'know... Priest.[URL unfurl="true"]https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Character_theme#Dark_Sun_Specific[/URL]And the Theme itself? Is labeled PRIMAL even though the Elemental Priests of Dark Sun were Divine Casters.And that's not even getting -into- the way Tieflings were introduced into the setting as another "Our ancestors bargained with Devils" schtick right out of the FR design complete with unified appearance, Kalashtar of Eberron were humans that got -so trained- in Psionics they reached out to the Far Realm... Just so much. -so- much.4e's kitchen sink approach was very wrong for the setting...</blockquote>

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