Undead plants and druids

[Zaydos]

Is it acceptable for a druid to re-animate trees into a form of undead? Just hypothetically, if there are undead plants in the game would it be acceptable for a druid to make them? This is mainly intended for D&D druid (no edition), but it could be fun to explore other similar nature priest concepts and their views towards creating undead trees.

[LibraryOgre]

Without what D&D would consider a very odd cosmology, I would say no. Undead, in and of themselves, are anathema to druids, regardless of whether they are plant or animal.

[hamishspence]

Except maybe when those druids are undead themselves - like that lich druid in Champions of Ruin.

[Inevitability]

Libris Mortis had feats specifically intended for undead druids, and the Nightbringer Initiate feat grants a druid the ability to create undead. That implies at least some druids can make use of undead beings without losing their powers. I see no reason why they can't animate plants.

[Geddy2112]

It would depend on the druid, scenario, and reason behind the reanimation. Most druids would not even consider it, but some might use it as a last ditch effort to save or protect nature. If a forest is burned, a particularly vengeful and spiteful druid might reanimate the charred corpses of the trees to enact the revenge against those who caused the fire. Making an undead forest or plants can be used as a warning to not destroy nature. I think most druids would destroy these creations if they had to create them.

However, I think even an evil druid would prefer to have new life bloom from the dead than to reanimate it. Nature has aspects of taking life, but it is a cycle of life/death, not cheating it.

[M Placeholder]

In the Dark Sun 3.5 setting, they had undead plants - flora that had been drained of life by a Wizard and then came to unlife. It was a template that could be applied to the flesh eating plants, of which there was a lot in the setting.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think it depends on how undead work. Hijacking a plant momentarily to shove the soul of your departed druid buddy into it doesn't sound great, but I could see some druids needing to muck about with things like that in very urgent situations. Such as the situations where they have animals and plants act under their control anyway.

Shoving the essence of death into the plant? That...Might not be the world's best idea. Doesn't sound druid-y enough.

Through I could see the argument that if the plants are dead, it is alright to halt or to warp the process of rotting because something really bad came up. I think that might be better represented with rotting elementals or some sort of mushroom monster.

[LibraryOgre]

Except maybe when those druids are undead themselves - like that lich druid in Champions of Ruin.

I would not regard such as a druid anymore; they would have to find a new deity who was cool with their undead nature, and become clerics; 3.5 may allow it, but I wouldn't.

[Temperjoke]

I honestly think a druid would be more inclined to grow new life from the dead, rather than creating undead. Maybe an temporarily insane druid might attempt it, but yeah, I'd say the minute they did it they would cease being an actual druid.

[Zaydos]

In the Dark Sun 3.5 setting, they had undead plants - flora that had been drained of life by a Wizard and then came to unlife. It was a template that could be applied to the flesh eating plants, of which there was a lot in the setting.

But could druids make them?

I think it depends on how undead work. Hijacking a plant momentarily to shove the soul of your departed druid buddy into it doesn't sound great, but I could see some druids needing to muck about with things like that in very urgent situations. Such as the situations where they have animals and plants act under their control anyway.

Shoving the essence of death into the plant? That...Might not be the world's best idea. Doesn't sound druid-y enough.

Through I could see the argument that if the plants are dead, it is alright to halt or to warp the process of rotting because something really bad came up. I think that might be better represented with rotting elementals or some sort of mushroom monster.

I like that first idea, seems like a fun form of deathless maybe, maybe plant creature, definitely not undead type in D&D.

I would not regard such as a druid anymore; they would have to find a new deity who was cool with their undead nature, and become clerics; 3.5 may allow it, but I wouldn't.

And in a way that is the question. I mean the rules allow for a vampire druid, and in theory being a lich doesn't disallow you from being a druid. Eberron has a certain druidic tradition which gets the ability to make shadows. I can see a druidic order that accepts aberrations are part of nature, actually some aberrations are less freaky than deep sea creatures and real world extremophiles but ignoring that, because they do naturally occur in the world. I can see one that sees undeath as a natural facet of the world, because of creatures such as ghosts and other undead which do form naturally and the negative energy plane creating others by natural means, but does that really mean there should be one? Would such a necromantic order still be druids or just something similar?

[Thrudd]

I'm just trying to picture what undead plants look like and what use they'd be.
"Behold! My forest army of undead trees!"
"Uhhh, these just look like dead trees."
"But they LIVE! And if you bump into one and get scratched by a branch, you will be drained of a level!"
"Oh, man. That sounds rough." -starts a small fire and walks away-
"Nooo! The one weakness of undead plants: a careless camper!"

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'm sure there are options, and with an interesting character concept I'd probably allow it as a DM. But I would consider it a weird exception. Druids are champions of life, using undead for that cause or seeing undead as part of life would not be something every druid just does on a regular day of the week. If a paladin went that far off mission they'd fall, but druids are a bit more flexible.

[Temperjoke]

Wouldn't it be more effective to use druidic magic to summon fungus monsters, using the dead plants as a medium for them? Or like, summon a vine monster that wears the dead tree like it was armor for better protection?

[veti]

I think (a) evil druids are a thing, and (b) a druid is someone who draws their power "from nature" (whatever that means), ergo if they can create something undead, it follows that that "undeath" is in some way a natural state, even if that may not mesh with other people's prejudices and preconceptions.

I also don't think that a druid is necessarily a "champion of nature", any more than a wizard is a "champion of magic". There's scope for a lot of roleplaying/interpretation in what individual goals and ground rules a druid chooses to adhere to.

[Meepo_]

I had no idea undead plants could possibly be a thing...

I wonder, if some undead are intelligent, could there be intelligent plant-undead?

And would some undead com back as just reanimated bark and leaves? What about incorporeal undead? Could a ghost shrub fly? Would a lily turned lich die if you said "Lilium candidum", or would it suddenly have to choose a name? Could a plant lich have a phylactery if plants had no souls to begin with? Would there be different types of undead specific to plants?

[Thrudd]

I had no idea undead plants could possibly be a thing...

I wonder, if some undead are intelligent, could there be intelligent plant-undead?

And would some undead com back as just reanimated bark and leaves? What about incorporeal undead? Could a ghost shrub fly? Would a lily turned lich die if you said "Lilium candidum", or would it suddenly have to choose a name? Could a plant lich have a phylactery if plants had no souls to begin with? Would there be different types of undead specific to plants?

They live by consuming the sap of living plants. Vampire trees stretch their pale roots and branches to pierce the bark of living trees, and slowly drain them until they die and turn into vampire trees themselves. Eventually, the whole forest is vampire trees, which to a person looks like a bunch of normal trees with exceptionally pale bark and rather pointy branches. They regenerate if you try to chop them down unless you use a silver axe. They produce terrible tasting maple sugar products.

Ghost shrubs possess living shrubs and force them to carry out the unfinished tasks they were obsessed with in life: which is pretty much absorbing nutrients and growing. Which incidentally is what the living shrub was already doing. Except now it's alignment is evil.

A shadow hedge appears as a dark mass of leaves and prickly branches that lurks around old houses at nightime and, while normally invisible, inexplicably pops up to impede you and rustles loudly when you are trying to sneak in or out of the house. They lose all their power in daylight and appear ordinary hedges.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I also don't think that a druid is necessarily a "champion of nature", any more than a wizard is a "champion of magic". There's scope for a lot of roleplaying/interpretation in what individual goals and ground rules a druid chooses to adhere to.

I think the RAW of most editions have something about how a druid has to "revere nature", serve it as a cause the way a paladin serves good and law and a cleric serves a god. If they stop doing that they lose their alignment. A druid is allowed to be evil, and the DM opinions of what exactly constitutes revering nature probably vary wildly (is it enough to state the forest is really great and it's a shame you must burn it down now to smoke out your enemies before doing so?), but there is definitely a connection there that wizards do not have. They use magic, they do not by design consider magic a cause worth living, working and fighting for.

[Rockphed]

Wouldn't it be more effective to use druidic magic to summon fungus monsters, using the dead plants as a medium for them? Or like, summon a vine monster that wears the dead tree like it was armor for better protection?

I was thinking that a druid would create undead by having plants or fungus wear a corpse like a suit of armor. They would probably ping as undead for most uses, and druids would probably frown on having large standing armies of such, but for "some rampaging monster has killed all the deer in the forest and left them to rot? I will have these creeper vines animate the corpses and go forth to hunt down the fiend!" I could see it working.

[Regitnui]

I was thinking that a druid would create undead by having plants or fungus wear a corpse like a suit of armor. They would probably ping as undead for most uses, and druids would probably frown on having large standing armies of such, but for "some rampaging monster has killed all the deer in the forest and left them to rot? I will have these creeper vines animate the corpses and go forth to hunt down the fiend!" I could see it working.

Technically, that's more a plant monster incorporating a dead thing than an undead plant. The creeper vines ( or other animating plant) is still very much alive, even though it's wearing a corpse. Think of if this way; a paladin isn't a construct, even if they do wear a full-body suit of magical armour. The spore servants in the MM are a specific example of what you're proposing; a corpse animated by fungal threads created by a Myconid.

An undead plant would be a different thing; a Myconid could conceivably leave a zombie, being a sentient plant.

[Grek]

What if you had a region where undead had become part of the ecosystem? Wouldn't undead be part of nature there?

[Regitnui]

What if you had a region where undead had become part of the ecosystem? Wouldn't undead be part of nature there?

A manifest zone (plane leak) to the Negative Energy Plane/Shadowfell/Mabar/Zombie Town could reanimate creatures that die within/nearby naturally, but the area would already be pretty desolate, since positive energy supports what most of us (and therefore druids) consider nature anyway. The environment in the area would already be more the dying feeding off the dead, so most druids would see if as something to fix rather than nurture. Those few druids who did favour that environment would also very likely be a few branches short of a tree anyway.

[Millstone85]

What about a druid living in the Shadowfell proper?
It is an entire world with a "necrosystem".
It is also an expected part of most souls' journey across the planes.

[Regitnui]

What about a druid living in the Shadowfell proper?
It is an entire world with a "necrosystem".
It is also an expected part of most souls' journey across the planes.

In the Shadowfell, negative energy takes the place of positive. The beings there aren't undead, just a different kind of alive. They get damaged by heal and healed by harm, but otherwise are normal. Undead were previously living creatures that became animated by negative energy upon death. Compare a shadow dragon (living, if strange) to a dracolich (reanimated bones). A denizen of the shadowfell who dies and is reanimated by positive energy (into a deathless?) is just as abhorrent and disgusting to the Shadowfell beings as a zombie to us. Or at least, that's how I'd play it.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think (a) evil druids are a thing, and (b) a druid is someone who draws their power "from nature" (whatever that means), ergo if they can create something undead, it follows that that "undeath" is in some way a natural state, even if that may not mesh with other people's prejudices and preconceptions.

I also don't think that a druid is necessarily a "champion of nature", any more than a wizard is a "champion of magic". There's scope for a lot of roleplaying/interpretation in what individual goals and ground rules a druid chooses to adhere to.

I think the DMG sorta supports the whole 'Champion of Nature' business, what with the weird druid oaths regarding metal armor and stuff. However, I must admit, I think wizards tend to revere magic as the source of their power, so technically, a druid who does the same is revering it. Not to mention settings are best (in my opinion) when they play around with ideas.

...That, and the druid lich makes no setting sense unless he does something like drawing power without revering it. He's a bit of an oddball case for that setting.

I also admit, I am very amused by the idea of a whole bunch of druids who think they are champions of nature, but simply draw power from it. So they all come together and have vastly different ideas of what to do. There's the guy who wants forests everywhere for instance. And then the druid who thinks nature should remain pure gets into a fistfight with the farming druid. Some guy's dire wolf eats a beloved horse mount. Someone wants to keep the forests as they are, another wants them to be subject to environmental pressures.

And then the guy championing 'differently alive' plants comes in and everyone avoids eye contact. Admittedly, I like the idea of the Shadowfell, where things are alive in a different way.

[Psykenthrope]

Wouldn't it be more effective to use druidic magic to summon fungus monsters, using the dead plants as a medium for them? Or like, summon a vine monster that wears the dead tree like it was armor for better protection?

This. This might be the best option I've seen on this thread so far, for a non-necromantic druid.

EDIT: That being said, I really, really like the idea of the negative energy based "necrosystem" in the shadowfell, and having a druid who is attuned to that form of nature, rather than the positive energy based ecosystem that the rest of us are used to.

[Regitnui]

EDIT: That being said, I really, really like the idea of the negative energy based "necrosystem" in the shadowfell, and having a druid who is attuned to that form of nature, rather than the positive energy based ecosystem that the rest of us are used to.

That's probably your best option for sympathetic negative energy druids. Perhaps even flavour them with one of those old races from 3.5; Shadar-Kai (fey trapped in the Shadowfell) or those hoofed humanoid Dark Stalkers. There could be more normal humanoids in their ranks so that the sect can interact with the 'bright world' (material plane), but the majority are the shadowfell-natives. Perhaps even a good shadow dragon or two...

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I also admit, I am very amused by the idea of a whole bunch of druids who think they are champions of nature, but simply draw power from it. So they all come together and have vastly different ideas of what to do. There's the guy who wants forests everywhere for instance. And then the druid who thinks nature should remain pure gets into a fistfight with the farming druid. Some guy's dire wolf eats a beloved horse mount. Someone wants to keep the forests as they are, another wants them to be subject to environmental pressures.

And then the guy championing 'differently alive' plants comes in and everyone avoids eye contact. Admittedly, I like the idea of the Shadowfell, where things are alive in a different way.

Okay, yeah, that is pretty funny.

[LibraryOgre]

I also admit, I am very amused by the idea of a whole bunch of druids who think they are champions of nature, but simply draw power from it. So they all come together and have vastly different ideas of what to do. There's the guy who wants forests everywhere for instance. And then the druid who thinks nature should remain pure gets into a fistfight with the farming druid. Some guy's dire wolf eats a beloved horse mount. Someone wants to keep the forests as they are, another wants them to be subject to environmental pressures.

And then the guy championing 'differently alive' plants comes in and everyone avoids eye contact. Admittedly, I like the idea of the Shadowfell, where things are alive in a different way.

In some ways, that's what happens in the Forgotten Realms, with the different druid orders, especially post 2nd edition, when Malar, Talos, and Umberlee started getting proper druids. You'd have Eldathian peace druids, Chauntean farming druids, Silvanian wilderness druids, and Mielikkian managed forestry druids all interacting around central ideas. Once made a campaign about it, in fact, focusing on the Vast Swamp in Cormyr (IIRC on the name of the swamp), and a desire to drain it for agriculture.

As for the druid of the Shadowfell? Yeah, I could see that being a thing. But I wouldn't consider it the same way a druid from the Prime would be considered... a druid from the prime would essentially be a necromancer in the Shadowfell, and vice versa.

[Eugoraton Feiht]

Yes this can be done. Yellow musk creeper from 3rd edition was a good example of this. I almost killed a party when they didn't take it seriously. I killed the orc barbarian and he came back in a couple rounds and took out one of their clerics.

Full party:
Human female Cleric
Human female Cleric
Half-Orc male Barbarian
Human male wizard
human female rogue

Encounter:

Advanced Yellow Musk Creeper
Two yellow musk creeper bulettes

Rogue ran in fear

Half-orc died to a bulette, spore popped and infested his corpse, he rose and almost took out one of the clerics.

Fungal pollen in the air was explosive. Wizard used fire spells to almost blow up the whole chamber. Ended up taking out the one cleric. Almost ended with a fight between cleric and wizard.

[Regitnui]

Even then, that's a fungus making 'undead' or wearing corpses. It isn't undead fungus/plants.