Druids in Starfinder

[moosher12]

This is more of a future-proofing question. But I remember in Galaxy Guide, it was mentioned that the language of Druidic/Wildsong was lost during the Gap, and that Druids no longer exist. During one of the Paizo Con panels, an encouraged example of cross play was being a druid.

I am a GM, and I want to brace for the potential of a player asking to be a druid. In a game that might allow Pathfinder entries, if lore was being followed, most every class with the exception of the Druid would be able to exist in the Starfinder timezone in some capacity.

Should GMs encourage a player to be a druid if they want to be one? Should they deny it? Could druids exist, but they simply cannot use Wildsong as a language, or is the Wildsong Language key to all druid powers. Of course, Rule 0 will let us homebrew as we wish, but the point still stands, that to allow a druid, we'd have to willfully ignore a principle well established to the 2E version of Starfinder by the Galaxy Guide. And I want to be prepared with how I should go about the request for a druid in Starfinder.

What's weirder to me is Starfinder 1E seems to make no mention of the Druidic language being lost to the gap, at least in the core books, and even includes advice for attempting to convert a druid to Starfinder 1E from Pathfinder 1E. I don't know if an adventure or adventure path established this. But assuming it was not mentioned, this seems to be a decision made for 2E, which feels odd as it imposes a pretty notable compatibility restriction by forbidding an entire class that seems to have been soft-allowed even in 1E.

[Dragonchess Player]

Druids as a specific class may not exist in Starfinder.

However, the Xenowardens organization and the Xenodruid connection (or Elemental connection in the SF2 playtest) for the mystic class fill a similar "nature-focused caster" niche.

For SF2, note that the rules are almost identical to PF2 so you can just port over PF2 druids into Starfinder with minimal tweaks (mainly skills and skill feats, along with available weapons and armor).

[Justnobodyfqwl]

I think that was honestly just a little flavorful blurb, and you don't have to worry about "canon" or anything like that.

Even if you want to stick to it, then you can just do what fantasy games always do: say something is extinct, and reveal a shocking and unexpected sole survivor of the lost art.

If you're allowing Pathfinder Classes, then there's no reason to not allow a druid

[HolyFlamingo!]

I think you made a bit of a mistake with your lore interpretation, moosher12: something being mysteriously lost isn't supposed to be a hard ban, but a hook. What happened to Wildsong and the druidic orders that spoke it? What if someone (say, one of the player characters) was working on restoring this lost language? What are the challenges to re-establishing a druidic tradition when so much knowledge about the practice has been forgotten? Questions like this are great for background flavor and adventure creation. Have fun with it!

[Perpdepog]

I can't imagine that Wildsong not existing would be a reason to ban the druid class. For one thing, how often has anyone even spoken Wildsong in their games? That's a genuine question, because it's happened in my games a grand total of zero times. I've always seen the language as more of a flavor ribbon than anything else.

There's also the fact that classes aren't really diegetic in the setting, at least not normally. Someone could have the cleric class, for example, but be referred to as a priest, rabbi, friar, magus, or whatever religious title you'd care to use. Same goes for the other classes, like druid. I'm sure someone can practice prepared primal magic but not consider themselves a druid, even if they do many of the same things.

[moosher12]

HolyFlamingo! wrote:

I think you made a bit of a mistake with your lore interpretation, moosher12: something being mysteriously lost isn't supposed to be a hard ban, but a hook. What happened to Wildsong and the druidic orders that spoke it? What if someone (say, one of the player characters) was working on restoring this lost language? What are the challenges to re-establishing a druidic tradition when so much knowledge about the practice has been forgotten? Questions like this are great for background flavor and adventure creation. Have fun with it!

To answer your question:

Galaxy Guide pg. 121 wrote:

Xenowardens began as a conservation society on Castrovel founded at the advent of space travel. Hundreds of displaced druids joined after the Gap, when the Wildsong language was erased (the Green Faith survived through silent ritual).

Basically the lore says that the Wildsong language was altogether erased, and that druids were displaced from being druids.

But I do like your approach overall, and I'll definitely consider your way if I get posed the question. I should say that I don't want to ban druid in a Starfinder game. But it definitely feels like this is their intention, which is frankly not a decision that I like.

perpdedog wrote:

I can't imagine that Wildsong not existing would be a reason to ban the druid class. For one thing, how often has anyone even spoken Wildsong in their games? That's a genuine question, because it's happened in my games a grand total of zero times. I've always seen the language as more of a flavor ribbon than anything else.

I was asking myself the question on whether druids need Wildsong. And it raises the question. Is Wildsong just an extra thing for druids, or is Wildsong what druids hedge their powers off of? Like a prerequisite. As the blurb above says, the loss of wildsong displaced druids, where only the Green Faith survived. And they had to find a new source of power in being a mystic or some other form.

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

If you're allowing Pathfinder Classes, then there's no reason to not allow a druid

perpdedog wrote:

There's also the fact that classes aren't really diegetic in the setting, at least not normally. Someone could have the cleric class, for example, but be referred to as a priest, rabbi, friar, magus, or whatever religious title you'd care to use. Same goes for the other classes, like druid. I'm sure someone can practice prepared primal magic but not consider themselves a druid, even if they do many of the same things.

Perpdedog makes a good point. But that was thing thing for me. a Cleric can be a cleric. an investigator can be an investigator. The Esotericist archetype in 1E established that traditional practitioners like wizards and witches would still be a thing, though more rare and niche in their distribution among more modern needs. A fighter might exist as a cqc expert or Starfinder's equivalent of a HEMA practitioner, and a ranged fighter would have some thematic overlap with an operator. A ranger could remain a hunter, a rogue has overlap with the sneakier operators, alongside a focus on using poisons, a monk remains a monk, etc, etc. All the other classes can retain all of their thematic implication even in the Starfinder timeline with zero need for reflavoring. All the modern tools of Starfinder are just additional options for these classes. Druid becomes the odd one out because they are the only one implied to no longer be allowed to exist altogether. Not a niche and little used art, but one who is simply no longer able to work. Toward Justnobodyfqwl, if it was not for that blurb of information, the druid would be fine alongside all the rest, as it was fine until that blurb.

[HolyFlamingo!]

Those "hundreds of displaced druids" were likely from Golarion.

From Player Core: "The Wildsong is a melodic and tonal language sounding more like animal calls than a spoken tongue, and its alphabet involves fractals and spirals, like the arrangement of a seashell's chambers, a snowflake's crystals, or a fern's fronds."

These calls and markings come from living things and natural features of Golarion specifically. Thus, we can infer that speaking it was more than a way for druids to secretly communicate with each other; it was how they sang with the planet itself. Now, that planet is gone, and whatever caused it to vanish also severed each druid's connection to it.

So, it's not that the SF2 authors don't want you to be a druid. Rather, they want you to know that losing Golarion was devastating for its druidic orders in particular. They forgot the sound of calling blackbirds, the shape of a willow tree brach, the color of ripe raspberries, the smell of the sea air... All of these things were woven into the Wildsong, and memories of them were devoured by the Gap. A druid of Castrovel or Akiton would not have suffered such a loss, and would likely speak a different secret language based on the ecosphere of their own homeworlds.

[moosher12]

I hope you're right.

[Dargoth876]

I don't see where on your citation of the Galaxy Guide that don't exist anymore, only that displaced druids from Golarion joined the Xenowarden's.

The point would be to know if druids existed on Castrovel, Akiton or elsewhere in the Galaxy or only on Golarion in PF2? What happen when a druid leaves Golarion to go on another planet?

It may be that a druid is more tied to it's planet, but it would be more for beast/plant based druids.

[moosher12]

Dargoth876 wrote:

I don't see where on your citation of the Galaxy Guide that don't exist anymore, only that displaced druids from Golarion joined the Xenowarden's.

The point would be to know if druids existed on Castrovel, Akiton or elsewhere in the Galaxy or only on Golarion in PF2? What happen when a druid leaves Golarion to go on another planet?

It may be that a druid is more tied to it's planet, but it would be more for beast/plant based druids.

Unless it is an error in the writer's writing, the sentence does not say the loss of Golarion has anything to do with the displacement of druids.

Galaxy Guide pg. 121 wrote:

Hundreds of displaced druids joined after the Gap, when the Wildsong language was erased (the Green Faith survived through silent ritual).

The displacement is "when the Wildsong language was erased", not "when Golarion was lost." Which is to say that the loss of the Wildsong language displaced druids.

A definition of displaced: remove (someone) from a job or position of authority against their will.

Therefore, the lack of Wildsong makes it to where former druids are no longer able to act the job of a druid using this definition.

Further, it goes on to say that the Green Faith survived. The Green faith being a philosophy often worshiped by druids, but did not itself make for a druid as you did not need to be a druid to adhere to the Green Faith. There was enough room on the page to say "the green faith also survived" to make it inclusive, but the writer did not use it. This results in the connotation that "unlike druidic practices, the green faith survived."

The reading is clear to me. That's why I hope HolyFlamingo is right, because I actually really want to be wrong in this case.

[Driftbourne]

Advice on mixing character options between SF2e and PF2e will be in the GM Core. The Galaxy Guide seems to be setting up the lore changes for playing a druid in Starfinder. There's a big diffrence between playing a PF2e druid character in SF2e, and using the druid class to make a SF2e character.

[Dargoth876]

I agree that could be an interpretation. I'd say that the traveling Golarion druid would be displaced, as much as many humans were displaced and some made a new living on Triaxux (per SF1 Pact World).

Still, you have in the Galaxy Guide p85, for the Absalom Campaing Starters : "Their communities are always a place to return to during downtime for folks to seek gigs, craft at the community center or a friend’s workshop, or subsist off of dumpster diving or the food forests created by the park druids." Could be xenodruids but not necessarily.

Now, I expect someone will tell us that everything about how the Wildsong language was lost is described in details in last year lorebook "The Gap". :)

[QuidEst]

Just searching "druid" in Galaxy Guide turns up present-time druids elsewhere (park druids and urban druids), so I can very confidently say that "hundreds of displaced druids" does NOT mean "there are no more druids".