Hail Advnturers! I was once again working on my campaign, when the idea of the Druidic laws came to mind. *Where are the rules for Druids? *What do Druids do, that would be considered "evil" but to protect their forest(s)? *What purpose do the Druids have for campaigning?
Hail Advnturers! I was once again working on my campaign, when the idea of the Druidic laws came to mind. *Where are the rules for Druids? *What do Druids do, that would be considered "evil" but to protect their forest(s)? *What purpose do the Druids have for campaigning?
Whew - that's lot of questions. Could you be a wee bit more specific about the "rules for Druids?"
I think that Druids aligning themselves with a Deity, rather than the Spirit of Nature, generally behave as their deities would in situations where "protecting" of theforests needs to be done. I'm only versed in FR, but I know that the Emerald Enclave is quite militeristic in its approach to logging, while the Druids of Eldath are probably going to handle the situation with as little confrontation as possible. As for 'evil' that Druids can do - think about the absolute lawfulness of a specific religion. If a Druid visits your thorp and tells you that dispite the winter hunger that's bound to occur, the hunting of deer in the adjacent forest is off limits because of a magical disease that killed all the fawns last spring. A Druid of Eldath might move all the deer to a remote area away from the thorp where the hunters are unlikely to travel and help the village with her superior gathering skills to survive. A Druid of Silvanus in the EE might just give the same warning without the explaination or help and then killing anyone that defied their edict. Evil? - not to the Druid - but clearly apt to be misunderstood by the hunters families.
As for Campaigning: Lots of reasons. Druids should hate anything not of the natural order. Therefor a crusade to rid the area of deamons, devils, and undead is clearly justified. Even those that are 'good' or redeamed. Maybe they are trying to gather experience to take over the circle later in life, or they love being a druid, but hate the forests and find that the grass is greener over on the savanna. Perhaps they were stolen as a child and had to find their way back home - stolen by faeries and deposited on another plane for some transgression by the Circle - or on a rescue mission to find the stolen one. Chiche, probably, but the thinnest reason often allows for the best stories.
Just a thought.
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Not all Druids(even those antangonistic to 'civilized races') are that Nature loving, A Druid of Malar would only preserve a rainforest because not doing so diminish the animals meant for his hunting alone, to him. nautre exists as predator and prey,more a resource to plundered rather than protected.
Drake_Ranger,there was a recent article in Dragon detailing a example of a Druid organization and their guidelines if that helps.
Not all Druids(even those antangonistic to 'civilized races') are that Nature loving, A Druid of Malar would only preserve a rainforest because not doing so diminish the animals meant for his hunting alone, to him. nautre exists as predator and prey,more a resource to plundered rather than protected.
True, very true - but I was thinking that the deliberate hunting of people would be an evil act and not just a theoretical one. You raise a great point there though. There will be some in any area that interpret the teachings of their chosen deity differently. The People of the Black Blood, Malar-worshiping lycantropes of the Silver Marches region, would certainly embrace a much different stance on how to protect the wilderness areas and what exactly constitutes 'prey' than the High Priest of Malar in Cormyr did when he attempted to heal the wounds of King Azoun IV.
Druids are a funny lot.
Check out the following link on historical druids:
http://www.themystica.org/mystica/articles/d/druidism.html
While this is a real world example it does a lot to inspire an understanding on how other belief systems fall outside our "polar" categorization; i.e. good vs. evil, chaotic vs. lawful. If you can wrap your head around this grey area you can start to develop a vision for your own D&D system.
Personally, I like the D20 Modern idea of Allegiances instead of alignment. The Druid's allegiance is founded on a belief in a spiritual “life force” that is intricately tied to earthly vessels in a cycle of birth, death and reincarnation. As long as the natural context exists the opportunity for rebirth exists. This belief can distort the cut and dry definitions of good and evil. The atrocity of human sacrifice was practised by the historical druids but was not considered evil because they believed the victim would be reincarnated into a new vessel within the local natural context. I’m sure your average Roman citizen wouldn’t have seen it that way. On the other hand, the destruction of a forest would deny a soul of a home or place for rebirth and perhaps doom a soul to formlessness for decades to millennia. That, to a druid, would be evil. To a settler it’s just making a living.
I hope that helps in some way.
Cheers,
C.