Druid Fluff Help

[RoboEmperor]

I want to play a druid because they seem fun, but I have trouble with the fluff.

1. I am anti-nature, so naturally my character will always be anti-nature.
2. I worship no one, so naturally my character will also worship no one.
3. I am power hungry, so naturally my character will also be power hungry. In the end, I want my druid to be virtually a god, probably through epic spellcasting.

Anyways, I love elementals, so can I fluff a druid that reveres elementals instead of nature and instead just burns forests down and whatnot?

Best Case Scenario: Druid worships nothing, but loves elementals so he uses them and their planes to fuel his magic to become the most powerful spellcaster in the world and conquer the world. Must burn down forests because he hates nature.
Worst Cast Scenario: Druid worships some elemental deity, but still becomes the most powerful spellcaster in the world and conquers the world and burns down forests because he hates nature.

Could you guys somehow help me get a druid fluff that I can love and prove to my DM that it is a legit, official 3.5 druid fluff and not some homebrew thingy that requires me to beg the DM for leeway?

If nature and druids are truly inseparable, then I will never play a druid. (if Elementals and their planes are considered Nature, I could work with that, but my guy must be able to burn down forests with no repercussions.)

[Crake]

Druids are required to "revere nature". That's a very loose term, and druids are not required to revere any kind of deity if they don't want to. Whether the elemental planes are considered a part of "nature" or not, is entirely setting dependant, but considering how closely tied to elementals druids are (SNA for example can summon elementals earlier than summon monster can, and druids can eventually even wild shape into elementals), it is easily argued that elemental planes ARE a part of nature, and of course, lets not forget the planar shepherd prc, which basically implies that all the planes themselves are a part of nature.

[eggynack]

Well, you're basically describing a blighter, from complete divine, except you have to add some elemental stuff somewhere. Very much anti-nature, power hungry, and burning down forest land is a spell source. And, of course, it demands a druid base, or, rather, an ex-druid base. The more typical path to blighter recommendations is your more standard evil druid, but your description is just straight up blighter, assuming you can accommodate some undead stuff.

Except blighter sucks. You could run around saying, "I'm the most powerful caster in the world," and act like the deforestation is driving your power to new heights, but it'll be a lie, because you're ditching all the awesome druid stuff for a bunch of crappy blighter stuff. You can do it, if you want, and it'll match a lot of what you want from this character, but you're ditching a lot of the spell versatility, and that includes SNA, which means no speedy elemental summoning.

The choice, then, is a classic one between flavor and power (except here maybe the power is flavor). You can go that route, one which actually does your crazy specific deforestation as power source thing thing, or you can pull together a bunch of stuff to get a built themed around elementals and evil. For that, you probably want a level or two of talontar blightlord from unapproachable east to start with. It gets some of that evil druid infecting nature vibe that you're after. Less burn it down, more cast it into a state of endless blight and sickness, which is close. As a class, it reads kinda like a more expensive holt warden with some decent bonuses. You do technically have to worship Talona, the Mother of All Plagues, but I figure that could be waived or incorporated into your plan. It's a pretty cool requirement in my book.That covers some of the nature destruction, I think. I'm honestly not sure if forest burning is similar enough to forest blighting to be allowed, but I figure it's pretty close either way.

For elementals, we can pull together a number of different things. You have your rashemi elemental summoning, from the same book, augment elemental, a mostly prerequisiteless augment summoning for elementals from magic of eberron, elemental companion from complete mage, the summon elemental reserve feat also from complete mage, and, if you want to go really deep, goliath druid substitution levels from races of stone. I would personally tend more towards aberration theming than elemental theming on an anti-nature druid, which would largely consist of aberration wild shape and gatekeeper initiate, but that's just my feeling on it.

[RoboEmperor]

@eggynack
It has to be a druid. Elemental Wildshape is one of the main reasons I want to druid, along with elemental animal companion. I am still building him but I will be grabbing rashemi elemental summoning along with the elemental summon reserve feat, augment elemental, etc.

I think I was a bit unclear in my first post. It's not that my character will go out of his way to burn forests down, but more like I want him to be able to burn forests down and kill every animal in it without repercussions. Wizards can do that, I want my druid to be able to do so too. Protecting animals from harm... bleh. I don't want my character to waste his time or effort on such things. If enslaved animals are running a farm, my character doesn't really give a !@#$ but a standard normal druid would probably drop everything he is doing to free them.

[eggynack]

Does talontar blightlord work then? I mean, you're slowing wild shape by a level, but you probably want to be using some variety of wild shape booster like the skin of kaletor anyways. One cool thing about blightlord for this is that you can spontaneously convert your domain spells into extra elementals. I tend to like using contemplative with that too, cause it's always nice to put nice domain spells in the place of crap domain spells, but delaying a second level might be excessive for your already kinda far flung elemental wild shape plan. Does help with thematic customization though.

[RoboEmperor]

@Crake
Your logic is sound. If I have to take a planar shepherd dip to justify my fluff for this DM, I will. The problem still lies in the fact that can I revere only parts of nature, and not other parts? Like, I don't want my character to go out of his way to protect a forest from being chopped down, but I don't mind him saving the elemental plane of earth from an invasion because it is the source of his power.

@eggynack
I looked into all of the prestige classes you suggested, but they're all evil, and have to do with rotting the world (blight). I don't want to be evil, I gotta be neutral or good, and neutral or chaotic. I also hate rot (one of the reasons I hate nature). I never play necromancers for that reason too.

Hmm... If I had to choose between druid or a blighter... I guess it depends. If I HAVE to blight nature regularly, then I'll prefer druid. If I can blight whenever I want, and use it as a tool for my objectives, then I might prefer blighter, but the evil requirement does bother me quite a bit.

[Vogie]

I think you should be able to do so, as "nature" is kind of abstract as a term, and they do have Urban Druids using the refluff that the "nature" they care about is a view that cities & villages are macro-organisms and their own version of ecology. It's not exactly the same, but in the same vein.

Maybe some racial past or divine reason to want to spread a different ecosystem - whether that be the elemental planes of fire or water.

[Nifft]

I want to play a druid because they seem fun, but I have trouble with the fluff.

1. I am anti-nature, so naturally my character will always be anti-nature.
2. I worship no one, so naturally my character will also worship no one.
3. I am power hungry, so naturally my character will also be power hungry.

If you're limited to playing characters exactly like yourself, then you should avoid all types of spellcasters.

Also:

Since you're anti-nature, then anything following "so naturally..." should be the OPPOSITE of how you behave, and therefore you should have no difficulty playing things which are unnatural for you to play.

[Hiro Quester]

With the right fluff and attitude, you could play a chaotic neutral druid, and do what you describe (sort of) by fully embracing and embodying the "survival of the fittest", "the strong exploit the weak", aspects of nature.

It depends on what you take "nature" to be, and where you think "nature" is to be found.

Nature is not only cute bunnies, pretty bunnies, and fruitful trees. Nature is ultimately a principle of expliotation, the survival of the fittest.

Nature is the strong killing and eating the weak. Nature is cruel, ruthless, and uncaring (a mother lion wounding a gazelle and giving it to her cubs to practice catching, and releasing, and catching again).

Nature is also the weak ganging up to exploit the strong (ant swarms devouring a lion; disease organisms infecting a series of hosts and spreading a plague).

Nature is not at all nice. Nature is chaos, freedom, and exploitation.

The strong MUST exploit the weak. That's now nature works. And your druid is the ultimate expression and embodiment of that principle.

A chaotic neutral druid, then, can be easily fluffed as the Ultimate exploiter; as something like Nietzsche's Will to Power incarnate, the apex predator, the one with enough power to force others to his will, to set the rules that others must follow. Everything, humans and nonhumans, animals and plants, even the weather and the earth and the elements themselves will bend to his will.

A good summary of the "Will to Power" in Nietzsche's thought is here: http://philosophy.about.com/od/Philosophical-Theories-Ideas/fl/Nietzsches-Concept-Of-The-Will-To-Power.htm

Nietzsche uses it mostly as a way to understand human psychology (ethical norms are an attempt to get others to follow rules that are to the norm-giver's advantage.) The ultimate aim of life is to be free from being exploited or manipulated by anyone else; a man should become a "law unto himself", be the one who has enough power and freedom to tell others what to do, and manipulate others to your will.

And he saw at least some inspiration for this in the biological principle of Darwin's "Survival of the fittest". Example:


The will to power as a biological principle

At times Nietzsche seems to posit the will to power as more than just a principle that yields insight into the deep psychological motivations of human beings. For instance, he has Zarathustra say: “Wherever I found a living thing, I found there the will to power.” Here the will to power is applied to the biological realm. And in a fairly straightforward sense, one might understand a simple event such as a big fish eating a little fish as a form of the will to power; the big fish is assimilating part of its environment to itself.

Your Druid should embrace this principle of the big eating the small. And embrace the chaos and freedom of the random generate-and test methodology at the heart of the evolutionary process. He is the "fittest", the Ubermensch, the ultimate exploiter. Humanoid and other "natural" ecosystems will have to adapt to his influence (as is natural).

Your druid is the apex predator; in humanoid and in "natural" systems. Humanoid cities can also be "natural" places; plants and animals and live there, vermin and rot and mold flourish too, and the people all must breathe, and eat, and drink, and poop. A city is just a humanoid-focussed ecosystem, in which the humanoids have learned how to exploit the surrounding natural forces to their own ends. The exploitation in human farms and forestry, hunting and fishing, is just as natural as a lion killing a gazelle, or a beaver damming a river, or an ant colony "farming" aphids as a food source.

Your druid can become master of such a humanoid-focussed ecosystem as much as any weaker treehugger druid can be "protector" of a forest. "Nature" is bigger and more exploitive than that treehugger mistakenly believes it to be.

Your druid is no "protector" of nature like that. A treehugger druid who protects trees and animals from humans is literally an embodiment of "failing to see the forest for the trees"; focussing on the small-scale life and death of individual creatures.

His true focus should be on the whole ecosystem, and on maintaining the systems of exploitation that constitute the ecosystem. And on being part of that system, the ultimate exploiter to which the rest of the ecosystem must adapt.

Your druid literally is a force of nature himself. He becomes a large predator at will (wildshape). He even distills his essence into pure elements of which Nature is constituted (elemental wildshape).
He commands the plants and creatures of the forest (dominate animal; command plants; animate plants, Summon Nature's Ally) and is master of the very elements that comprise nature (elemental summoning). He commands the very earth and wind; the lightning and the hurricane bend to his will.

Forest fires even have their place, clearing the way for new growth. Sometimes forests must burn. Sometimes he must burn them (firestorm, fire elemental summons), if it is his will and suits his purposes. The ecosystem will adapt, as is natural.

All ecosystems will eventually, as he gains in power and influence, adapt to his will and his actions. As is natural.

He knows that one day he will himself be the food of worms, or fire, or monsters. As is natural.

But he will fight his whole life to avoid that, being exploited, and to instead become and remain as long as possible the exploiter, the powerful, the ultimate, the Alpha, the Force of Nature to which all must adapt or die. As is natural for him.

[John Longarrow]

Hiro Quester does provide one very good view for how your druid can see himself, one that is very well reasoned and he's done his homework.

As an opposing but equally valid perspective your Druid can see himself as a creator who removes that which is to allow a new and dynamic environment to emerge. Your druid seems himself not as the organic life that clings to nature but as the primordial forces that drive change. He isn't the trees or animals, he is the volcano. He is the earthquake that changes the land, the river that carves the valley or the storm that scours away old growth to allow for new. Endlessly removing that which is to allow that which could be would be his motto.

Instead of being bound to mortal views your druid could embrace the destructive forces of nature as the natural driver for change. His respect for nature is based off of futures that could be rather than the stagnant existence that is.

Destroying a forest would be simply to allow the new forest to emerge.

[RoboEmperor]

@Hiro Quester
You sir, solved my problem. Thanks! Seriously. I was gonna ditch this thread like i ditched all my other druid threads, and was angry at myself for once again going in circles.

My druid will view nature as survival of the strongest, exploitation of the weak, and when he sees enslaved animals, he will simply say it is their fault for being weak and that they deserve slavery, and my Druid would probably create some elemental slaves of his own. If he meets a druid that tries to free those animals he'll downright condemn that druid's actions.

This sounds downright evil though (promoting slavery!), but since my druid won't do any evil act for the lulz and would actually help people if he has nothing better to do (he does have a conscious), I think i can make him neutral. I think cruelty will be his trigger. Enslaved animals/people/elementals/anything = way of life, but cruelty to animals/people/elementals/anything would trigger him.

I think I can include some kind of tragedy in his backstory to explain his warped view in life.

@Nifft
It's all about what you like to play. I like playing characters that think similarly to me.

If you were forced to play a wife beating child murdering bastard that tortures people everyday for fun, and in fact always travels with a tied up skewered but alive victim as a hobby during down-time, would you enjoy playing d&d? The answer is no.

edit:I just wanted to point out that you can't get too deep into d&d lore. I mean, humans are part of nature, and us building skyscrapers is no different than beavers creating dams, and by this logic civilization is part of nature and then there would be no druids against civilization and accept deforestation, destruction of wetlands, etc. is all part of nature and blah blah blah. XD

[Vogie]

Hiro Quester does provide one very good view for how your druid can see himself, one that is very well reasoned and he's done his homework.

As an opposing but equally valid perspective your Druid can see himself as a creator who removes that which is to allow a new and dynamic environment to emerge. Your druid seems himself not as the organic life that clings to nature but as the primordial forces that drive change. He isn't the trees or animals, he is the volcano. He is the earthquake that changes the land, the river that carves the valley or the storm that scours away old growth to allow for new. Endlessly removing that which is to allow that which could be would be his motto.

Instead of being bound to mortal views your druid could embrace the destructive forces of nature as the natural driver for change. His respect for nature is based off of futures that could be rather than the stagnant existence that is.

Destroying a forest would be simply to allow the new forest to emerge.

Exactly. I like the allusion to a volcano or a wildfire.

If your DM absolutely requires you to have a deity, you could focus on that aspect. K. J. Parker's Scavenger Trilogy has the god Poldarn that is this to a T. The local volcano in the second book is called "Poldarn's Forge" and the devotees to that deity and heads of families are blacksmiths, revered as they also produce "transformation through fire", as an extension of the divine.

[Bronk]

I think I can include some kind of tragedy in his backstory to explain his warped view in life.



You could just be a NE follower Malar and... done. At least for your views on animals. He's all about senseless slaughter.

You might be able to explain away burning the forests by actually playing an awakened tree native to the Plane of Fire, and consider yourself as hunting the weak Prime Material Plane forests.

[Hiro Quester]

@Hiro Quester
You sir, solved my problem. Thanks! Seriously. I was gonna ditch this thread like i ditched all my other druid threads, and was angry at myself for once again going in circles.

My druid will view nature as survival of the strongest, exploitation of the weak, and when he sees enslaved animals, he will simply say it is their fault for being weak and that they deserve slavery, and my Druid would probably create some elemental slaves of his own. If he meets a druid that tries to free those animals he'll downright condemn that druid's actions.

This sounds downright evil though (promoting slavery!), but since my druid won't do any evil act for the lulz and would actually help people if he has nothing better to do (he does have a conscious), I think i can make him neutral. I think cruelty will be his trigger. Enslaved animals/people/elementals/anything = way of life, but cruelty to animals/people/elementals/anything would trigger him.

I think I can include some kind of tragedy in his backstory to explain his warped view in life.



Glad to be of some help. I'm a philosophy professor IRL, so I can't write anything brief.

Or leave a half-explained point alone: So professionally, I should point out that some of that is a questionable (but common) interpretation of Nietzsche.

A druid like that could also be played Neutral evil, it seems to me. The balance between law (of the jungle) and chaos (freedom and random variation in evolution) in nature is to be respected, but personal power being his ultimate aim. If that suits you better. But it sounds like it wouldn't.

However, a chaotic neutral druid might be okay with some cruelty (as a means to an end). Nature is often cruel. A Druid needs to be somewhat indifferent to the suffering of individuals, if it serves a larger purpose.

Someone who wants to be powerful would need to be ruthless, when needed. But could also help people (if there was some benefit to it, like earning their loyalty or cooperation).

Unnecessary cruelty, though, for its own sake. or for the lulz. That would be a different matter.

[Crake]

@Crake
Your logic is sound. If I have to take a planar shepherd dip to justify my fluff for this DM, I will. The problem still lies in the fact that can I revere only parts of nature, and not other parts? Like, I don't want my character to go out of his way to protect a forest from being chopped down, but I don't mind him saving the elemental plane of earth from an invasion because it is the source of his power.

Just like some druids live in forests, others live in mountains, some live under the sea, and hell, even urban druids (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) are a thing, it's quite easy to justify a druid being fine with a forest being chopped down, as long as some kind of balance is being maintained, but it's the forest druid's duty to maintain his end of things, as an elemental druid, it's your duty to maintain the balance of the elements (or one element in particular, if that's your thing).

[Zanos]

1. I am anti-nature, so naturally my character will always be anti-nature.
I live in a house because sleeping outside is crappy, but I was a little confused by this point. Do you personally want to burn down forests?

[RoboEmperor]

I live in a house because sleeping outside is crappy, but I was a little confused by this point. Do you personally want to burn down forests?

Nature is designed around death. We have every single living species breeding en masse because the vast majority of their children will be killed and eaten. If we remove the killers (predators) then the non killers will overpopulate and end up killing themselves, but the nonkillers are also technically killing plants their entire life.

Nature kills everything in every way possible. From straight up mauling by a bear or being torn apart by a pack of wolves, to parasites laying eggs in your body and its larvae feeding off your brains, intestines, etc. There are flies that lay eggs in horses knees who hatch and eat them til the horse cannot walk anymore. A dog my mother rescued had such a larvae eating its leg muscles and required surgery to remove it along with months of some metal thing nailed inside her leg to ensure her legs are folded for the entire duration. And lets not forget about diseases. Transmitted by air, food, water, swimming in lakes, insects, and even sex.

And then there's aging. There is no reason why anything dies of old age. If we can grow from a baby to an adult, and produce a ton of babies, we are perfectly capable of maintaining our bodies forever except we are designed to die. Our bodies just keep slowing down until something fails and that's it. You have to die so nature can go on, you know, by decomposing your corpse, letting microbes feed off your flesh, etc

Ultimately what does nature accomplish? Nothing. We all just suffer endlessly with all the pain death brings over and over and over. Look at animals, millenniums of living and no advances in anything be it culture, science, technology, theology, etc. Evolution does exist but its to adapt to changing climates exclusively. I do think evolution and death is connected.

Technology is the cure. With technology we can defy nature. Achieve immortality, cure all diseases, eliminate nature from our environment. Hell we could even trash the bodies we are born in and live in new bodies meticulously designed to our liking. No more do we have to worry about diseases festering in squirrel and pigeon poop that exists in our backyards. With technology we should be able find ways to sustain ourselves without killing for meat or even plant life. Technology can cure death.

So will I go out of my way to burn forests down? No.

If technology advances enough, will I destroy all nature on earth and keep nature alive only in research biomes, or in the homes of people who actually do like trees and animals? Yes. Those who mingle with nature should do so voluntarily exclusively. No one should live in an extremely humid, mosquito and disease infested hell hole that's covered in **** involuntarily.

Will I play a character that protects nature, stops civilization from destroying wetlands to expand their cities, and say a system that revolves around death, corpses, and **** is the greatest thing on earth and everyone should worship it and go out of his way to preserve this cycle of pain and suffering forever? Hell no.

I play wizards and sorcerers who create cities out of metal or crystals. I want to do so with druids too. Earth elemental druid should be able to make something amazing since metals and crystals is earth. Preferably something floating. A floating metal/crystal island with water flowing through it, creating several waterfalls. I do like crystalline palaces in fiction, and water makes it all more beautiful. There is not a chance in hell any infestation of moss, trees, dirt, or decomposing leaves covered in maggots would make it more beautiful.

This is all just a very brief rundown of my thoughts on nature. I can go on and on and on. There's probably a lot of grammar mistakes in this post.

[Crake]

Will I play a character that protects nature, stops civilization from destroying wetlands to expand their cities, and say a system that revolves around death, corpses, and **** is the greatest thing on earth and everyone should worship it and go out of his way to preserve this cycle of pain and suffering forever? Hell no.

See, the thing is though, in many settings if nature dies, life dies along with it, regardless of if you've built yourself a self-sustaining technology bubble to live in. There are many consequences beyond science to be had in a magical fantasy setting, where the balance of nature may very well be needed for life to exist at all. There may, for example, be only a limited amount of time a soul can live within a body before it begins to decay, or it may be that souls need to transition between the planes to keep energy flowing and maintain stability to the very fabric of reality, or that without souls moving to and from the planes, the system as a whole becomes stagnant and rot like still water, making death a necessity for new life to grow from, not just in a physical sense, but in a spiritual or metaphysical sesne.

All, one, or even none of these might exist in the settings you play in, but usually characters that preserve nature do so because it's necessary, for one reason or another.

[RoboEmperor]

All, one, or even none of these might exist in the settings you play in, but usually characters that preserve nature do so because it's necessary, for one reason or another.

I guess if the supernatural world of the setting requires death it could be a problem. I know for a fact in the d&d lore devils will try their best to stop anyone from eliminating death because no death = no evil people death = no souls go to hell = no magic extraction from souls in hell = asmodeus losing all power.

[Pleh]

Dunno if anyone mentioned this or not, but another way to do what you're describing is to take an evolutionary view of the cosmology in D&D. By this, I mean that before there was good and evil, which require some sentience to become meaningful, there was law and chaos. Limbo introduced the elaments and order dictated how they interact. From there, basic planetary and astronomical bodies formed in the tension between law and chaos, which created a perfect storm to create life. Thus living nature is a symptom of the balance of creative and destructive forces. Ergo, elementals are, in a sense, more natural than animals as they exist in a more primal state.

Moreover, chaotic nonexistence is more natural than life, which is a fluke product that just happened by chance or else by unnatural intervention by deities.

[Hiro Quester]

I play wizards and sorcerers who create cities out of metal or crystals. I want to do so with druids too. Earth elemental druid should be able to make something amazing since metals and crystals is earth. Preferably something floating. A floating metal/crystal island with water flowing through it, creating several waterfalls. I do like crystalline palaces in fiction, and water makes it all more beautiful. There is not a chance in hell any infestation of moss, trees, dirt, or decomposing leaves covered in maggots would make it more beautiful.

Or you could make the whole thing out of something more elemental and druidy, like ice.

There are plenty of Druid spells that make and move ice; especially in Frostburn: Conjure Ice Object, Move Snow and Ice, Raise Ice Columns, etc..