Party's backstory help

[Hollysword]

So this is the party I'm in now. My male drow cleric (nature), a female human barbarian (berserk), a female dwarf druid (land) and a male gnome wizard (necromancy).

The cleric, barbarian and druid already has something in common, following nature, to work together... but how can we explain the necromancer joining the nature team? We're kind of stumped. Anyone have any ideas?

[Koren]

if your game is more story driven, try finding a common goal that draws the necromancer to them. maybe a common enemy or they know something the necromancer wants to know.

depending on alignment and the characters, it could be as simple as the necromancer helping the Nature Buddies fight off some enemies and deciding "you're interesting, I'mma follow you"

if individual back story is flexible and the Nature bit is important somehow you could say he is studying death occurring in Nature.

in my opinion it overall depends less on the nature of their class (zing) and more on their actual causes and goals.

[Naanomi]

What are their backgrounds? One can forge links that way as well

[Hollysword]

if your game is more story driven, try finding a common goal that draws the necromancer to them. maybe a common enemy or they know something the necromancer wants to know.

depending on alignment and the characters, it could be as simple as the necromancer helping the Nature Buddies fight off some enemies and deciding "you're interesting, I'mma follow you"

if individual back story is flexible and the Nature bit is important somehow you could say he is studying death occurring in Nature.

in my opinion it overall depends less on the nature of their class (zing) and more on their actual causes and goals.

That could work. My cleric is chaotic good, not sure what the others are, no evil though.


What are their backgrounds? One can forge links that way as well

My cleric was a hermit, and if I remember right, the barbarian was a folk hero, the druid was a hermit too (not related to my cleric) and the wizard was a cloistered sage (SCAG)

[Thrudd]

The cloistered wizard is trying to expand his horizons by learning about nature?
Or he likes having you all as guides/protectors so he can travel around to find spells and such (now that he's obviously learned as much magic as can be learned from his cloister), which otherwise would be dangerous/inconvenient for someone used to spending most of their life in a library.

[smcmike]

Nature is full of death.

[Naanomi]

Cloistered character plus two hermits makes me start to connect the dots religious orders

[furby076]

In previous campaigns our good party allied with a necromancer. We were trying to stop the world from being taken over by aberrations from xoriat. To the neccy, being destroyed by aberrations was not away to progress hid skills.

For a while, my LG paladin was riding on top of a nightmare

[Hollysword]

Would it make sense for the necromancer to use undead to protect nature, given undead is pretty much going against the laws of nature in the first place?

From what I heard from the player, if I get it right... the necromancer was exiled from his group for trying to practice necromancy and raising undead, although his intentions is to use them for good to do menial tasks and to fight other undead, fight fire with fire so to speak. Servants that don't require payment, never tire and always follows orders are pretty hard to come by.

But because undead goes against nature, wouldn't the druid and barbarian be put off? My cleric, given his history in the underdark, wouldn't be too fussed, but would still feel undead goes against his new beliefs.

So yeah, my cleric is fine-ish with the necromancer, I'm just curious about how a druid would accept undead in the party.

[Thrudd]

Would it make sense for the necromancer to use undead to protect nature, given undead is pretty much going against the laws of nature in the first place?

From what I heard from the player, if I get it right... the necromancer was exiled from his group for trying to practice necromancy and raising undead, although his intentions is to use them for good to do menial tasks and to fight other undead, fight fire with fire so to speak. Servants that don't require payment, never tire and always follows orders are pretty hard to come by.

But because undead goes against nature, wouldn't the druid and barbarian be put off? My cleric, given his history in the underdark, wouldn't be too fussed, but would still feel undead goes against his new beliefs.

So yeah, my cleric is fine-ish with the necromancer, I'm just curious about how a druid would accept undead in the party.

It sounds like the setting has a conventional view of necromancy, so I'd say the druid would likely have a problem with undead. The barbarian may or may not depending on the character, it depends on how you view that character's beliefs and superstitions and alignment.

My guess is the necromancer would try/need to hide his specialty or at least avoid having undead minions around, or use them very sparingly and temporarily. He'd be using the rest of the party as guides/bodyguards on his quest for greater power.
Or, he has a close personal relationship with one or all of the others already, and they tolerate his minions because they trust him, although they are put off and don't want the undead near them as much as possible.