One of my characters in Curse of the Crimson throne is a Urban Druid and he was discussing with me how he wanted the fire domain and was planning for it, but then found that the fire domain was not on the list which makes no sense to me.
I allowed him to have it but does anyone have a legitimate reason why the domain wasn't added? I let him have it for a few simple reasons listed below.
Urban = Civilisation
Fire = Civilisation
or
Greek Mythology Promethious gave people fire which is sometimes seen as technoligy, ergo civilisation.
or
where is fire more likely to appear in civilised worlds (including laps, candles and so on) or in the wild with no help from mankind at all?
These were the reasons I decided to give him the fire domain because it made sense but I'm curious if anyone knows why they didn't give the fire domain to the urban druid?
As Frankie said, "Fire bad!"
Most urban areas are vulnerable to rampant use of fire.
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There's a pretty clear reason methinks. They chose the Urban Druid to not retain any of the element domains, since they wanted to make a distinction between a class devoted to natural forces and catastrophic events and a class that treats the urban sphere as a home. Sure, fire is the symbolic birth of civilization, but there's a Community domain for that cooking fire-hearth-protective flame imagery. You mentioned Greek mythology, think about Hera's position in the cosmology.
The Fire domain itself seems to be mostly about exploding things and setting large areas on fire, aka flames featured as an elemental force, which doesn't really run concurrent with the lorekeeper and negotiator aspects of the archetype. I could see Fire as a domain if there was an anti-urbanization archetype, but that's basically what the vanilla druid already is!
Edit: Think about it like this. Shouldn't we argue that Water domain could be added as well? Sewers, plumbing, waterfronts and the ever-present rain of coastal locales. Water too is a life-giving force. Especially if you are the druid of an oasis city. Same thing with the Weather domain. Total city material!
You see, I think you have two kinds of druids who may have dealings with a city or live there. There's your basic outdoorsy forest druids who have decided to serve and worship the aspects of nature that often feature in an urban scape. You know, the rain, the underground fauna, local vermin, etc. Then there's the urban druids who are caretakers of streets and buildings, of squares and markets. These aren't the guys the local fisheries have brutal fights with every spawning season, no. Urban druids are like diplomats between the city and it's inhabitants. The people living there are just as important as the locale is and the encroachment of the city into the wildlands might be a saddening fact, but it is not the end of all that is beautiful and natural. Rather, both humanoidkind and the nature will learn to accept each other if enough work is done.
Even if that means Charming your way into the good graces of a local magistrate or attending a ball in disguise to seed discontempt into a Lumber Consortium meeting.
Don't mess with the kindly gardener of the king. He might be an urban druid just about spontaneously cast Divine Favor and wreck an industrialist fundraiser.
Hmm- Good point.
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There's a pretty clear reason methinks. They chose the Urban Druid to not retain any of the element domains, since they wanted to make a distinction between a class devoted to natural forces and catastrophic events and a class that treats the urban sphere as a home. Sure, fire is the symbolic birth of civilization, but there's a Community domain for that cooking fire-hearth-protective flame imagery. You mentioned Greek mythology, think about Hera's position in the cosmology.
The Fire domain itself seems to be mostly about exploding things and setting large areas on fire, aka flames featured as an elemental force, which doesn't really run concurrent with the lorekeeper and negotiator aspects of the archetype. I could see Fire as a domain if there was an anti-urbanization archetype, but that's basically what the vanilla druid already is!
I think that Muser does make an excellent argument as to why the Fire domain isn't an option for Urban Druids.
Urban druid justification...
Fire...folk's need to be warm.
Water...folk's gotta drink.
Earth...city's gotta be built on something.
Air...people gotta breath.
I don't think you're going to break your campaing with the decision...though I wouldn't have done the same.
Urban druid justification...
Fire...folk's need to be warm.
Water...folk's gotta drink.
Earth...city's gotta be built on something.
Air...people gotta breath.I don't think you're going to break your campaing with the decision...though I wouldn't have done the same.
Guess I'm a bit of a soft touch, heh.
I see your point though, people could easily try to crowbar every element if fire was allowed.