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asqwasqw
2007-05-30, 09:47 PM
I am planning to make an evil druid for an upcoming campaign. However, I am curious as to how to make him evil.

Campaign world: Desert on the east, Forest on the North, Jungle on the south, Plains on the west, a small dormant volcano in the center. All races (possibly human only) co-exist with nature. No gods are alive, but everybody worships nature. Everybody is a druid of varying power, with a high council holding peace across the land. However, a darkness is spreading from the volcano. The cause of it is a druid, killing strong animals and re animating them for his own purposes, as well as charming people for followers. I have trouble thinking of how the druid acheives this goal. Possibilities I have come up with:

Demon controls druid, warps druid's mind, causes druid to reck havok.
Problem: No idea what demon I should use, how it grants the druid and the druid's followers' the ability to animate dead.

Druid is part of the high council, is crazy of his own accord, banished. Druid is banished because druid wants to end all struggle between animals. Making them all skeletons seems like a good idea to the druid's twisted mind. Problem: again, no idea how to grant the animate dead ability.

Druid is controlled by a god, does what he/she does because of blind faith.
Problem: No idea how the god comes to be, why the god picks this druid, motivations for the god.

Any suggestions, ideas would be helpful.

MeklorIlavator
2007-05-30, 09:55 PM
I think there is a prestige class that would help you with this, in the complete Divine. It is called the Defiler, and it is effectively an anti druid, with un-dead themed traits, plus it destroys nature to cast spells.

Daedo daShoegod
2007-05-30, 10:10 PM
Actually it's called the Blighter, in Comp. Divine. Undead wild shape, animate dead, speak w/dead animals, the works...

asqwasqw
2007-05-30, 10:16 PM
Thanks, but I don't have complete divine. :smallannoyed: Any other ideas?

aaron_the_cow
2007-05-30, 10:16 PM
this is in the 2nd ed. druids hand book, make them suport servivel of the fittest, but in a more chotic/evil aproch. they would suport orcs (or in your case, very strong, evil, humans) because they have many trates to help with serval, like more than animal inteligence so they can think on there feet but don't relie on it to much.they are fin with things llike forests being distroyed because change happens normaly and it extends the strong races land.
This is opposed to the "I must protect all nature" POV, along with "all humans are fine as long as they respect nature.

Jasdoif
2007-05-30, 10:24 PM
The first thing that comes to mind is a plant fanatic. Transformed by some odd effect of a long dead plant deity, this druid believes that animal life is an abomination in the world's order, and seeks to replace all animal life with plant life.

The Yellow Musk Creeper in Fiend Folio comes to mind as potential inspiration. Basically it lures creatures to it, then implants a seed in their brains to turn them into "zombies" that serve it. These "zombies" have the plant type, and their own template (the Yellow Musk Zombie template, naturally). Work up something of the sort for these "reanimated" animals.

PinkysBrain
2007-05-30, 10:29 PM
A druid who ceases to revere nature loses all spells and druid abilities. By RAW this simply won't work. You seem to want to play by RAW ... so lets make him an ex-druid.

How the god comes to be? Ancient evil present since the beginning of time, locking the planet in a struggle between unlife and life ... neither can ever be defeated only be rendered dormant for a time until the struggle flares up again. Standard fantasy fare ... there's a million ways to explain his existence, just pick one.

Lets suppose the god has the nature and the death domains, letting his clerics at least pretend to still be good little druids. So druid 1/cleric X ... problem solved?

asqwasqw
2007-05-30, 10:33 PM
Thanks to all who replied! Keep em coming!

@ aaron_the_cow:
I was thinking more of a druid (insane) that loves nature so much, that can't bear to see it harmed, that he/she kills all animals and makes them skeletons. No more fighting, no more death, no more pain, it is perfect! So kinda the opposite of yours. I like your idea, just find it hard to tie in with the zombification idea.

@ Jasdoif:
Hmm, maybe. Again, no dieties in my world, hard to tie in. It's a new angle anyways, although I don't really want to involve too many plants... Gives me an idea for an another campaign though.

@PinkysBrain:
I think the druid still reveres nature, in his own twisted way. Again, no gods, there is really no way to reinforce that... And I kinda want to keep the druid powers. Thanks for the idea for having a god though. Can anybody come up with any motivations for the god? Why is it coming awake now, why does it pick that druid, etc etc etc.

PinkysBrain
2007-05-30, 10:40 PM
Ignoring homebrewed campaign settings D&D usually isn't about subjective truth, witness Miko's fall ... she thought she was being LG in her own twisted way too. From that perspective what he thinks he is doing is quite irrelevant, what he is doing is not being a druid.

Your campaign setting, your rules of course.

kellandros
2007-05-31, 12:45 AM
I thought I remembered a thread somewhere on this board about a world controlled by druids. Part of the idea that came out of there was regions controlled by the different alignments. The evil druids were seen as trying to improve nature- make things tougher and more magical rather than coexisting.

The easiest way to be evil is to not care about anyone else. Put nature ahead of the general good. Have a druid try to wipe civilization off the map- any settlement or town should be razed, domesticated animals set free to survive or die on their own, and wizards and artifacters hunted down for particularly grusome deaths.

Tellah
2007-05-31, 12:58 AM
Demon controls druid, warps druid's mind, causes druid to reck havok.
Problem: No idea what demon I should use, how it grants the druid and the druid's followers' the ability to animate dead.


You can use the Harvester Devil (Falxugon) from Fiend Folio II, if you like. He's an NPC, so there's no reason you should have to justify him casting animate dead. He sold his soul for the power. He stepped into a shaft of pure Eldritch power that warped his mind and allowed him to use necromantic powers. There's no need to go nuts trying to find a rule to justify it. In fact, all you really need to do is put a bunch of undead things around him that don't attack him--no need for him to ever cast the spell in front of the PCs. Heck, maybe the devil does it and commands the undead to protect the Druid.



Druid is part of the high council, is crazy of his own accord, banished. Druid is banished because druid wants to end all struggle between animals. Making them all skeletons seems like a good idea to the druid's twisted mind. Problem: again, no idea how to grant the animate dead ability.


See above.



Druid is controlled by a god, does what he/she does because of blind faith.
Problem: No idea how the god comes to be, why the god picks this druid, motivations for the god.


The god was created when the titan Kronalus vomited him into the void, then shunned him and favored the other, prettier gods. Gharthos, god of ugliness, despises all that is beautiful, and murdered his more favored siblings. He chooses a hideously deformed Druid as his avatar on earth, and commands the Druid to destroy all of nature's splendor, which mocks Gharthos with every flowering meadow and crystal clear lake he lays his foul eyes on.

Koji
2007-05-31, 01:28 AM
He could easily be a fanatic who believes that humans can't be harmonious with nature because they have free will. Maybe he was involved in some tragedy when he was young where he was the victim of some wartime atrocity and grew up hating people. He retreats into the wild and some demon (Pazuzu is a good one) starts twisting him towards becoming violent.

He could also be a gestalt cleric/druid with the ability to control undead. The players probably won't be able to figure him out (wtf, he has wild shape and command undead?).

LordLocke
2007-05-31, 01:53 AM
The easiest path to an Evil Druid is simply make him one who's beliefs are firmly rooted in the wild- survival of the fittest and natural selection. He feels that as long as he's strong enough to do what he wants, it's entirely justified. And whoever gets wrecked in the process obviously isn't fit enough to warrant sympathy anyways.

If someone has something he wants, he just takes it. If someone tries to stop him, they'd better be strong enough to survive what's about to happen, or they're just being foolish, and he'll take it AND decimate them.

Someone who thinks about that long enough can be brought to unfathomable thresholds of rottenness, simply because nobody has yet been strong enough to even make consider stopping. Anything that's given him pause has been seen fit to be reanimated and added to his forces, giving him a 'master of the wild' complex.

You don't need a terribly complex reason to make a Druid BBEG, you just need to figure out the right mindset for one to reach such a path naturally- after all, nature comes with it's own dark side.

asqwasqw
2007-05-31, 12:58 PM
Thanks for the help everybody. I think I won't have an outside motive for my druid, and just have him/her be corrupted internally. I think I have good enough fluff reasons for what he/she does and how she does it. Maybe I will be on the other side of the spectrum, though. Too much compassion and all that...

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-05-31, 03:04 PM
He could love nature to the point where he is basically a ruthless eco-terrorist...perhaps even favoring one kind of land ( Dessert, forests, ect) at the expense of others?

Fourth Tempter
2007-05-31, 03:05 PM
He could love nature to the point where he is basically a ruthless eco-terrorist...perhaps even favoring one kind of land ( Dessert, forests, ect) at the expense of others?

"Eco-terrorist" for evil druids is, in my humble many-eyed opinion, rather overdone.

TheOOB
2007-05-31, 06:36 PM
Well lets take a quick look at what an evil druid is.

Evil = Someone who harms others for personal gain
Druid = Someone who revears nature and can call upon it's power.

Evil + Druid = Somewho who revears nature and can call upon it's power to harm others for personal gain.

An evil druid can have the same motives that any other evil person can have, money, power, revenge, ect. The only difference is that they happen to be able to morph into animals and summon natures wrath to help them along the way. You have to remember that nature, unlike gods, doesn't really care about the motives and objectives of it's follows, as long as a druid continues to worship and protect nature, nature doesn't care what the druid does. Sure the arctypical evil druid is a cold heartered darwinist or eco-terrorist, but the fact is that a druid could be anyone.

"Who knew that evil baron was a druid, I thought he just really liked his garden"

I guess my point is, don't let the fact that a villan is a druid restrict how you design them. Druids are strange animals, and following some common mold doesn't give them justice.

kjones
2007-05-31, 06:53 PM
The classic module for first-level parties, The Sunless Citadel, has an evil druid named Belak the Outcast as its main villain. He combines an obsession with plants, in a mad-scientist sort of way, with a subterranean theme. Thus, all his caverns are lit with phosphorescent fungus, he's created these horrible mutant tree monsters called Twig Blights, he uses the bodies of his foes as compost, etc. He basically tries to recreate above-ground ecosystems underground using his own twisted variations of surface plants. Not exactly what you're going for, but maybe there's something to use there.


For more on the druid hierarchy, see if you can snag a 2nd edition PHB. There's archdruids, the Grand druid, hierophant druids... It's been awhile, but I can PM you details if you're interested and don't have the books.

asqwasqw
2007-05-31, 10:18 PM
hmm, am sort of toying with the idea of making the druid True Neutral... but alignment doesn't really matter, what I want are reasons why this druid is creating these undead creatures. I don't really want to go the plant route, and so either the druid is corrupted or crazy. I don't want to make the druid corrupted, so I will just make the druid insane. I think I have a way for the druid to create these creatures without the whole cliche "I created them to destroy humans that don't revere nature" thing. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Draz74
2007-05-31, 10:26 PM
For the Undead thing ... you could always make an evil Cleric with the Plant and Animal Domains, who thinks he's a druid. Or a Druid/Blackguard.