Are they all unbearable moralising downers?
Wait, you've met some that aren't laid-back hippies?
>>47779526
Because you play with Terrible players.
>>47779526
>>47779561
I thought all they cared about was shitting, sleeping, fucking, and eating you?
tell me more about that documentary on industrial farming
said no one ever
>>47779526
No. Next question.
If the opposite of a Paladin is a Blackguard or Antipaladin, what's the opposite of a Druid? Is there a class that wants to make as many species extinct as possible and replace their habitats with bustling cities? What abilities would they have?
>>47779526
Bunch of animal hugging, tree fucking, weirdos.
>>47779645
>what's the opposite of a Druid
>>47779526
Only if you somehow manage to talk to them.
>>47779645
necromancer
who is a really inspired city developer, and is building an undead city
>>47779645
>What abilities would they have?
Being Chinese?
>>47779661
But that's a Paladin who broke his Oath of the Acients.
>>47779526
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html
>>47779526
Nah. At least not me. I usually play druids that care for plants and animals that aren't dickbags but humans don't even ping on the radar that is their mind. If i gotta bulldoze a town to make a nice vegetable patch so be it, the orcs were making shit use of the land anyway but now they make nice fertilizer and i can see how many bushels of corn for the deer a single acre can make.
>>47779715
So druids are traitors to their people who want to destroy all traces of civilization and live like cavemen?
Sounds dumb.
>>47779715
Iron KIngdoms Circle of Orboros are very similar from this anon's link >>47779715
They maintain natural order so that a god they worship wouldn't have to put his boot down on human world. To do that they raze civilized cities when they get too big, keep settlements that are small enough to be tolerated in fear and under control, keep an order of warriors bonded to them, take mad children to train into their ranks as well as plot and backstab each other for power and influence.
>>47779821
They're avatars of the natural order who lament the fact that their birth right puts them firmly outside of it. So they self loathe and feel they need to make up for their original sin.
>>47779931
yes like how IRL these cunts talk about nature as if humans are somehow not a part of nature (you know except for them, some activist from the suburbs who has showered all weel)
Druids are often perceived as neutral arbiters of nature.... But other planes also have their untamed forests and wilds.
Can a druid come from say.... A forest in the Nine Hells?
>>47779645
A drune, perhaps.
>>47780657
how about "druin"?
Best druids are all like
>Civilization is shit
>I'mma be a mufuggin' wolf and eat the face of cocksuckers entering muh forest
>Bears are great for cuddles
>You ever fucked a dryad? Dick splinters are worth it
>My best friend? This duck I named Quackers. He is the best wingman ever.
>Questing is for faggots
>BBEG wants to/has destroyed muh forest, time to fuck him up
>You know why it rains? I looks so good I make mother nature wet.
>Mounted cavalry coming to put my head on a spike for killing a prince who shot a bear in muh forest? Looks like I got about 100 new horse friends.
>Drank a whole bunch of wine with a bullfrog named Jeremiah once. He was worried about his ol' lady cheating on him. Bros before hoes, man. Hope someone eats that cunt's legs.
>>47779526
Nature doesn't give a shit whether you live or die. Why should I?
If your players are playing druids as tree hugging flower power hippies they're doing it wrong. Nature isn't kind. A good aligned druid can still exist but they shouldn't advocate no killing.
By the same respect an evil druid shouldn't really advocate destroying civilization. People are part of the natural order and the distinction between the wild and the civilized is an arbitrary one made by simple folk who do not truly understand the world.
>>47779526
No. I play Crazy Hobo Sewer Druids with Dire Rat animal companions because I value roleplaying over being a gamebreaker.
>>47779645
I believe the Druid's opposite is called a Blighter. They're more about destroying life and nature, though, and have nothing to do with cities. There is a Druid variant called an Urban Druid, though, but I'm not too familiar with them. I think they can only shapeshift into inanimate objects?
>>47781184
that was first character in 3.5 actually. Pretty fun.
>>47779561
> hippies
> laid back
> not unbearable moralising
What planet do you live on?
>>47779645
A Dwarf Engineer.
There are four main types of Druid people make:
1. Pacifistic hippie
2. Guardian of Nature
3. Pseudo-Darwinist asshole
4. Actual Darwinist
![panoramix[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ErzcwNf.jpg "panoramix[1].jpg")
I'm tired of the dumb hippy druids who care more about nature than people, it's time to go back to the original celtic druids druids.
They're supposed to be spiritual guides to their people, not some faggot who will put the lives of some squirrels and the trees over them.
>>47779526
Most druids i've met are actually pretty laid back people.
As they are fucking supossed to be.
>>47780001
>>47781138
The issue isn't that humans aren't part of nature but the things we do almost entirely go against it.
>>47781384
By definition everything animals do is natural and everything we do isn't.
It's not a philosophical matter, just how "natural" is defined.
>>47779526
One in my current group is a misanthropic monster who'd sooner protect seaweed then lift a finger to save her friends.
She started off attempting to provoke a Fire Goddess into errupting a volcano to destroy a civilisation and only when it didn't work did she start to play nice with the rest of us.
We're still half expecting her to kill us for some blood and bone fertiliser though.
Merlin the enchanter was a druid in the beggining. in a show based on the legends (Kaamelott) He's a crappy enchanter thats always talking about how he could go back to the forest and live happily (he dosent)
>>47781421
Personally i think its like entropy. Natural order demands chaos and "wild" where humans promote order and "tame".
No, sometimes they're just animal fuckers. Or well, ours is just an animal fucker.
>>47779526
Did you just want to bitch about Marisha Ray, OP?
>>47779526
My first character was a druid. I tried to convince my party not to wipe out the eggs of a nest of shitty kobold raiders. I was just arguing that they're a natural part of the area and that we were only here to eliminate the problematic ones that had been mislead by a shitty kobold sorcerer. They grappled me, tied me up, and destroyed the eggs.
![Weaver-Ants-Nest[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XOBfY6w.jpg "Weaver-Ants-Nest[1].jpg")
>>47781466
Plenty of animals shape their environment to their benefit.
We're just... better at it.
>>47781384
The Panther stalking it's prey, the stream feeding the forest, the young girl running through the streets to buy bread. To the uninitiated these are disconnected but to a druid these are all part of a greater whole. The beating heart of the world as pulses and moves with life. It is a druids duty to preserve life. Not an arbitrary definition of nature.
>>47779526
Not mine, he's unberable in a whole other way. Nihilistic and miserable. Believes nature is an ugly mess with no rhyme or reason, that life is a sensless and callous exercise in slavish submission to an instinctive drive to procreate for absolutely no higher purpose. But what are you gonna do about it?
>>47781618
Well shit. I guess i'm gonna have to go knocking birds nests down and pissing on anthills as well.
>>47781696
that could actually be great if roleplayed right
>>47781261
Third choice best choice
You see, a druid is a man who's decided to have sweet consensual intercourse with Nature instead of raping it or mind breaking it into submission (i.e. farming).
The most powerful of druids are said to even hold hands with Nature.
>>47781746
Is it rape if it's consensual hatefucking, hair pulling, skin gouging, possibly sodomitious, and more than frequently devolves into hardcore bloodletting style BDSM with no need for cuddling after?
What i'm asking is australian and african continent druids still consider druids by your definition?
>>47779715
If you're gonna post years-old OSR thoughts, don't forget the long-lost spirit guide:
https://joeskythedungeonbrawler.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/what-the-hell-druid-part-2/
I've always hate druids, or any nature focused things really.
They're all awful unless they don't really care about "druid things".
>>47781890
Define "druid things".
>>47781384
If humans are a part of nature, and are themselves natural, then it's almost rationally impossible for anything they do to go entirely against nature or even go against it in the least and slightest way.
If beavers and humans are both animals then tell me, how does a beaver damming up a river and causing the genocidal slaughter of a half dozen or more species of fish, bacteria water-loving animals downstream significantly differ from a human blowing up a nuclear reactor and killing the entire coastline of a continent? Last I checked both wood and uranium were natural resources.
I think the latest player handbook (5e) says it best. A druid is or aught to be "extensions of nature's indomitable will"
>>47779645
http://dndtools.pw/classes/blighter/
I hate 3.5, however
>>47779645
Anti paladin isn't really the opposite but the dark equivalent of a Paladin.
The opposite would be a dark sorcerer or a lich.
>>47782018
There's nothing unnatural about our behaviour. We're driven to expand, to use and exploit. All living things are. Locust swarms devour everything in their path because they can. Given the same abilities any animal will recklessly consume and expand until they can't anymore, and then they starve and die and that's how "balance" is restored. Truth is, druids don't have to do shit about it, they're entirely pintless in that regard.
>>47779526
>tfw everyone plays druids like stoners
I'm playing a LN Druid in a long-running 3.5 campaign, and that's about dead opposite. He still cares about nature, but realizes that there's a cycle of nature/"circle of life" sorta shit, so he doesn't go all Greenpeace on someone when they cut a tree down since people are a part of it, and need to live too. Excessive shit is still crossing the line, obviously, but it's only in extremes. I get to utterly hate Abberations and Undead, since they're perversions of the natural world/the cycle of life respectively.
I write my druids like mentally strained NEETs who live in the forest, reading the future in the starry skies, munching various questionable materials found on the forest floor, and detesting anyone that isn't friendly, welcoming, and the kind of person they want to talk to as the normie they are.
>>47781846
No, those are different. Those are Australians.
>ctrl+f
>"the knot"
>0 results
You're slipping, /tg/.
>>47782778
I'd say we're actually rising, you degenerate mongoloid.
>>47783006
Face it, you're just not cut out for this environment.
No. Some are unbearable rapist bear landslide firestorms who are all FUCK YOU, TORNADO COMING THROUGH.
>>47783044
>>47782778
Didn't you just yourself prove that you're the one who sticks out like a boil?
So am I the only person that plays druids like nature priests that bless fields, help livestock with problem births and health issues, knows when the best time for hunting and fishing, and are generally bro tier?
I think I kind of have a problem with druids and think that any druid class restrictions are dumb, because I personally believe literally everything, including metal fucking equipment, civilization, and sapients fucking with the environment are parts of nature.
It's just also however a part of nature to decide you personally have a problem with people fucking with the outdoors and rip them apart for, say, killing endangered animals, causing undue suffering to animals, wasting their corpses, wastefully cutting down trees, or just entering the goddamn territory that is yours until someone else is strong enough to take it from you.
That's just me, though.
>>47783234
Nah. I do the same but like i mentioned earlier if a village is sitting on prime vegetable patch land i will just bulldoze the place and let the bodies fertilize the soil. I don't mind you civilizationing it up, just don't do it where i want my shit to go or where theres better uses for the land you put it on.
Honestly that probably leaves frozen tundra's, deserts, and ocean for you to buils and live off of, but again, fuck you i think thats prime oak tree land or a nice orchard.
>>47783234
Yep. My current setting has druids banned for being a general nuisance, as older druids tend to pseudo-"evolve" into elementals with all that entails in terms of inhumanity.
>>47783350
Or if they kill your bear wife purely for a trophy. Sure your wolf wife says go fuck them up but then your deer wife and squirrel wife are all balling their eyes out saying its "too dangerous!" Bitch i won a bear wife in a deathmatch you knew what this was going into this!
They understand they're bigger than themselves.
How that actually manifests, is best left out of savoury discussion.
>>47783383
Does the storm weep when it sees the destruction it's wrought or does it cry from laughter? Neither, it's a fucking storm fuck you.
>>47779526
I play my druids as people with very "new age" beliefs who don't hate technology or development, but instead just have a thing for nature. I bit nuts really, but friendly enough.
This sort of goes against the mechanical portrayal of druids in pretty much every system and game, except maybe certain portrayals of druids from the warcraft universe.
The worse is when druids lose their power from touching metal. That doesn't make any sense! If they sit on a rock with a high iron content to their powers go away? How about the iron in blood? The iron in their OWN blood?
>>47783455
Isn't it usually only *worked* metal that counts?
>>47783455
>>47783484
It's only wearing metal armor that does it.
>>47783484
>>47783496
How does "worked metal" trigger the druid code but, say, working leather and stone doesn't?
I wouldn't really think that ripping an elk's skin off, spilling its brain over its hide, and then crafting the braintanned hide into clothing is less "unnatural" than heating up metal and working it into shape and tempering it.
>>47783547
And you'd be right, but its a thematic, not a consistent philosophy.
You're making the kinds of arguments a Hermetic wizard would make to a Druid, who would answer said arguments by taking a shit on his summoning circle before getting drunk under a tree.
>>47783547
It's a cultural thing. Just accept it. Like how some people will eat cats and dogs and others find the thought abhorrent. In theory there shouldn't be that much of a divide between dogs and pigs as food animals, and in practice it's bacon bacon bacon bacon.
>>47783614
Ackshewuhlee, its family member or bacon. There's a big divide there and while both are engineered by us singlehandedly one is vastly more so and much more specialized to be one than the other.
>>47783547
You see, druids liked craftsmanship before metals were invented and it became cool.
>>47779526
who is this semen demon
>>47783636
And here we see the druid mentality in action: only instead of "worked metal is terrible, worked leather is fine" it's "this quadruped is food, this quadruped is family". Yeah, tell it to the Koreans.
>>47783810
We did. Why do you think their culture is stagnating?
I like the idea of druids who see nature not as something that needs protecting but as a powerful force that mortals and civilization must understand and appease if they want to survive. Cutting down too many trees isn't a bad idea because you'll kill off the forest, your shitty pre-industrial woodcutting can't really do that, it's a bad idea because if you aren't careful you may get fucking wrecked by dryads or something.
>>47782018
Beaver dams are actually extremely healthy for their surrounding areas:
https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q
The bit about beavers is about two minutes in, but the whole video is pretty interesting.
The tricky thing about druids is that the natural preservation theme doesn't apply as much to a fantasy world that hasn't undergone industrial consumption the way the real world has. There's still a place for them, though, especially with the kind of destructive shenanigans mages get up to. It's not just about "nature", it's about having healthy and diverse ecosystems.
>>47781587Yes.
>>47779526
>Moralising downers
>Not eco-terrorist
>>47779645
>What abilities would they have?
>>47779677
>>47779645
Yea using industrial necromancy as a counterpoint to druidism is something I've always wanted to emphasize in a setting.
>>47779833
Don't forget that they ritualistically mutilate the tribesmen that revere them and turn them into mindslaved weremonster things.
And then there is the greatest crime of all - running eMorvahna.
>>47779526
They ought to be the opposite given how "it's nature" doesn't lend itself very well to moralizing at all, given its lack of, you know, morals.
>>47784179
Silly anon, a Druid already uses green magic.
>>47784179
Picrelated best druid.
>>47779715
That is stupid, why would druids hate language?
Animals have languages, hell killer whales even have dialects that other groups cannot understand.
>>47785346
>That is stupid, why would druids hate language?
Because druids are generaly stupid, anon.
>>47785361
That seems to be the opinion of OP and maybe, like, one other person. Everyone else thinks that's silly and druids are fine. Making up random bullshit like "druids hate language" isn't helping the case much.
>>47785361
No, most interpretations of druids are stupid. I guess that's what happens when people who never leave the city, or even their house, try to create nature-based characters.
>>47783864
>shitty pre-industrial woodcutting
Medieval people were more than capable of completely removing forests from the land, England now has more forest than it did in the late Middle Ages. The country was only 15% forest even before the Norman Conquest 1000 years ago.
>>47784179
Batman confirmed anti-druid.
>>47779526
I once played a Druid in Shadows of the Demon Lord. Kind of a tough old guy who really supported his local coven of druids, doing some light muscle work for them, giving out the healing spells, generally a really nice if kind of rude guy.
Unfortunately he was killed by a giant statue of an elf but that's just how life is.
>>47785346
>>47785361
>>47785380
It's explained in the post. It's abstract language what eventually might kill the world. Centerra,, the implied setting in that blog, is a world sprawling with memetic world-ending events waiting on people to activate them. Think about several King-In-Yellow-sort of texts that can become existential threats way beyond the reader. Think about LotFP's Summon Spell. Level one spell, can wreck an entire region. Extrapolate.
That's the reason why druids hate language, because the human sort of communication implies *abstraction* in a level that could trigger such effects.
But it's right there at the blog post, so I'm guess I was baited.
>>47784050I'm sorry that the thread didn't end up that way.
>>47779526
nah just that one
>>47781205
>implying you've met real hippies
>implying you're not just parroting /pol/ memes
>>47779526
>>47781261
That's a weird way to say survivalist anarchist bear.
>>47781205
Um...Earth?
Yeah hippies care about the planet and peace way too much but they're also drugged up lazy assholes that can't do anything worthwhile even when they try.
>>47788149
You're both just describing the worst negative stereotypes about hippies
Doubt either of you have ever even woof'd
>>47781261
"Darwinist" isn't a thing.
>>47788272
Neither are druids
>>47779526
No, some of them are fucking terrifying.
>>47783406
>they're bigger than themselves.
part of something?
>>47781587
>Marisha Ray
literally who
>>47789117
Bikini Batmobile washer.
Also druid.
>>47779645
Oath of the Crown Paladin? Urban Cleric?
>>47779645
>wants to make as many species extinct as possible and replace their habitats with bustling cities
Uhh pseudo-Darwinian asshole druid? "My city is fitter for suvival than your wilderness"?
>>47786814
All the section that mentions language tells us is this.
>And true, druids use language to talk among themselves, but it is always tinged with a bit of self-loathing for this reason, a reminder of their distance from Nature and from what is Good.
No need to pretend people who understand language is entirely natural are trolls.
>>47785544
partially_visible_vulva
>>47780714
Are you aware that you have to be over the age of 18 to post on this site?
>>47781421
>It's not a philosophical matter, just how "natural" is defined.
But anon
The definition of words is the primary concern of analytic philosophy.
>>47779526
No. Someone them are bearable moralizing downers.
We have a post-apocalyptic style game (think Fallout but with fewer rads) going where the druid that got locked into the "Vault" with us is best-friends-nearly-dating the party's artificer (who would totally be an industrial engineer if we had any industry). Of course, it IS 4e which relaxes the ridiculous restrictions that used to sit on druids all the time.
Plus she makes pot brownies.
How do druids feel about animal husbandry and agriculture?
>>47790942
How do fighters feel about war?
>>47790567
GM of that game here, I'm honestly a little proud of that druid. For one, her introduction to the game involved the PCs finding her deep in the agricultural section of the 'vault' where she was trying to figure out what was going on with the potato crop they had; they were perfectly edible but the structure of the plant had changed somehow. She's got a noble's education and is quite intelligent, falling more or less into the role of a scientist for the survivors, at least when it comes to most things involving wilderness, agriculture, or animal husbandry.
>>47781738
That would actually be a sort of interesting take on the "opposed to industrialization" school of druid thought. It's not just mankind that goes against whatever their definition of "the natural order" is, it's every animal that tries to rise above their station in life.
I mean, it's pretty fucking stupid, but just along a different axis than other moralistic druid types.
>>47780714
This pretty much describes my last character. Jaster was a bit more reckless though. The circle of life kind of ruins the your fear of death.
Next time I play an evil campaign, gonna play as one of those "civilization is evil, return to nature, all hail the Great Mother" type of druid. Won't have to multiclass anymore, either, since someone finally made a Circle of theBlack Goat.
Gonna be fun.
>>47779526
No, that's just thememe.
>>47792111
Define "civilization".
>>47779645
>>47779526
Depends on how you play it. Druids draw their power by nature, but nobody said it was a mutual thing. A druid that casts spells by literally draining power from the world and twisting it for their own gain sounds pretty evil, and a druid that's more like a protective warden that guards the wilderness with such force that they violently murder anyone who steps on grass doesn't sound like they have much in the modern sense of "morals".
Granted, neither of those work particularly well as player characters so much as they do as villains, so I guess yeah, they kind of have to be pansy suckers.
On the topic of Druids, how would a Druid in Sigil manage to grow his mistletoe?
>>47779526
I made sure to mention that one of the greatest deities with influence over nature in my setting was a Lawful Evil HFY man who became a god near the dawn of time when he tried to bend nature to his will. The Fey had to make Elves in his image in order to stop him and he still ascended to deific status after barely loosing a war nearly single-handedly against an entire race. Like 70% of all "Druids" in my setting are essentially cultists who use the power of this deity to exert their will over nature through domination.
The players still haven't caught on to why exactly the elves keep getting into fights with the "druids" in the woods. I can't wait to have them square off against robed nutters who ride shaved bears clad in iron collars.
>>47789117
OP's image.
>historical druids practiced shamanism, bloodmagic, and necromancy
>nature worship involved human sacrifice
You're all doing it wrong. Nature is cruel and must be appeased with blood of men
>>47781205
there are three types of hippies:
1. pacifist anti-war hippies
2. drugged up free love hippies
3. Hunter S. Thompson
>>47792271
Culture
>>47779526
No. Immoren's druids are all absolutely whacked out sorcerers who have lost too many Sanity points because they've seen too much shit and have bought into the cult's viewpoint.
They draw their power from an elder god of destruction and primal power, but they need to keep him in a stalemate with the god of building and civilization. If the other god wins, they lose their powers and the builder god is also the fuck you, burn in hell god. If their god wins, he's gonna come back down after the fight to wreck and kill everything. So they have to keep the fight going forever. How do they do that? Micromanage cities. Stop those guys from building more cities and shit, they're expanding the builder's god's power base, he's starting to win! Go call tidal wave or earthquake or something ASAP and get those fuckers to knock it off for a bit.
Something I've been wondering for a while and this thread seems like a good place for it.
Are undead truly "unnatural"? In magical settings like D&D, undead are just a thing that happens sometimes. Die when you're too emotional? Ghost. Too stubborn to stay dead? Revenant. Go crazy and kill yourself? Allip. So on and so forth, with very many types of undead that simply occur without any outside influence.
This supposedly makes a mockery of the cycle of life and death, but it seems like undeath has been a part of that the whole time. It has to have existed at least as long as humanoids have, and probably even before them if animals can have ghosts and such. There just seem to be few differences between undead and the magical creatures that simply show up in the world. Like a unicorn or phoenix, maybe.
It seems unnatural to us because in our world, it is. However, a fantasy world has different rules. I don't know, it just seems to me like undead are just as natural as dragons.
>>47779526
I don't know about them being moralising, but I know that many druids are, what can I say... mysterious.
>>47793218
Also they're manipulative dicks that couldn't care less about the lives of their allies.
>>47793910
there are very few works of fiction in which an undead isn't actively created by a malevolent entity and often undead have a corrupting influence on their environment so in those cases undead are unnatural
also from the druids point of view intelligence matters for shit, what does matter is that there's a bunch of dead tissue and bones walking around possibly for all eternity that really REALLY should be feeding various maggots, fungi and general scavengers instead
>>47793091
I hate to shit all over your idea, but even animals have cultures. There are like monkey tribes that have alpha male decide what the rest of the monkeys gets to eat and not eat. Animals also have conflicts over leadership all the time and that's pretty much politics.
So you might want to rethink your terms at least.
>>47794662
Conversely, this means a druid can't actually decry humans for being too cultured.
>>47792595
You, I like you.
>>47794662
>There are like monkey tribes that have alpha male decide what the rest of the monkeys gets to eat and not eat
That's not culture. Those crows on that island that transmit different tool designs to their offspring have a culture, though. Culture involves passing on knowledge or customs to another.
>>47779526
Nah, you're thinking of paladins.
>>47788535
Well, no one really knows who they were, or what they were doing.
>>47793075
Got it.
Next druid should be Hunter S. Thompson.
Knew this thread would be useful for something.
>>47797709
But their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock
...of STONEHENGE!
>>47797780
....And THAT'S why the druids are so pissed!
>>47793075
how was Hunter S. Thompson a hippy, in your opinion ?
>>47792932
>after barely loosing a war nearly single-handedly against an entire race
Bet he wouldn't have had that problem if he tightened up his game.
>>47797885
Well, obviously, all counterculture between 1956 and 1978 was one homogenous mass, right?
>>47793075
Hunter S. Thompson was a gun-toting libertarian. Maybe your definition of hippie includes libertarians, I dunno, but he's pretty far outside of my definition.
>>47797921
sounds like a homogenous mass of bullshit
>>47797936
exactly
all people who enjoy LSD aren't hippies and Thompson wasn't even that much of an acid fiend, although he had high respect for Leary
>>47797921
>Well, obviously, all counterculture between 1956 and 1978 was one homogenous mass, right?
I know some Republicans IRL who seriously think so.
It's hard to kick someone out of the hippie club proper, though. My parents were hippies, actual dyed-in-the-wool 1960s hippies. The one thing about real hippies was that the whole movement was about individualism and being yourself. Rejecting conformity as pushed by the mass media. (And then a swarm of folks jumped on the bandwagon and made it about conforming to what they'd seen on TV, which was kind of sad. But most of them left for the next fad a few years later)
>>47797936
A LOT of hippies were anarchists of various stripes, including libertarian ones. I grew up around guys very much like that.
>>47793910
I would actually agree with you on this point. I feel necromancy is kind of like the carrion beetles of the fantasy ecosystem. Not clean and pretty, but part of the cycle.
>>47795917
Like predators teaching their offspring how to hunt?
>>47797913
In fairness, he did become a fucking god. He's so eponymous with domination over nature that despite being a Lawful Evil deity, he is commonly offered prayer by hunters, farmers, cavalry, and pretty much anyone who deals with animals in modern times. Elves still have to make consented pacts with their steeds before they ride, and they're open about how fucking inconvenient it is to them.
>>47779526
>Are they all unbearable moralising downers?
Yes.
Because they are right.
>>47795813
>>47795917
I feel that the druids that is angry about humans should be more upset about things like bureaucracy, trading goods for money instead of trading goods for goods, holding trials for crimes instead of just resolving the issue quickly, general anger over how democratic election doesn't always involve a violent conflicts and industrial efficiency.
I'm thinking of some kind of hippy autism that thinks humans are doing culture wrong or an old angry grandpa that can't stand that the world he grew up in is no longer there. He would just like a general contrarian asshole that don't want to understand how the world works in the cities, he wants to go back to "the good old days" and lack any actual objective understanding about nature. The autistic shitposter of fantasy settings.
At least that's how I would imagine druids that are angry about civilisation from a somewhat naturalist perspective.
>>47795917
>>47794662
Social structure and habits are only a fraction of culture. Culture is also social institutions, laws, customs, values, traditions, heritage and the intellectual achievements of a people or social group
>>47779526
I get Keyleth to a degree, but she still makes some stupid choices. Like turning down a charisma boost when your personal goal is to become a leader for your people. RP wise it made a ton of sense, but in the end they gave it to Scanlan to min/max. Probably a good call since he seems to be the one pulling their asses out of trouble more often then anyone else. But, the majority of flak she gets is because she plays up her low charisma score.
Personally, as much as Marisha complains that the Internet gives her shit, I think she likes that attention. It's probably the same reason she cuts up all her shirts and wears them half falling off of her. It's all bait so she can spout off about how special a snowflake she is.
>>47782018
>>47782142
Pretty much.
The whole "natural order" thing is just about us trying to subvert the natural order (OK, not subvert, but make conscious decisions and culture override instincts), and actually learn some freaking moderation.
Nuclear bombs aren't bad because they are "unnatural". It's about them being too much freaking power to handle, and about the fact that if we explode them all over the world, then we will all die. And we know that if we explode one, we will start exploding more of them immediately.
Also, in part, it's also because of our sympathy to other species (not sure how that trait is "natural" or "unnatural", though). Like, not all, nobody would cry if all the cockroaches and mosquitoes just died out, but people do feel sorry for kittens and pandas, and bees are pretty neat too, so we kinda want those to survive. It also helps that, in general, "healthy ecosystem" really means "things stay as they are now", and we have a vested interest in Earth and nature staying as they are now. It diminishes our chances of being killed off.
Us learning to live together with nature (OK, how together, basically everybody does their own thing, and we do our own thing, and WE aren't in danger of dying off from that, them too probably) is about the most unnatural we could get. And yet, we must learn to do it, somehow, or eventually our own power will backfire on us.
>>47801822
So...kill all sapient life? Like, if i kill ALL sapient life half that shit suddenly becomes a non-issue we don't have to throw all these resources into preventing and hedging off even as it tries to subvert those attempts?
Guess i got a new druid to try out.
>>47801622>The party just saved a town
>Killed a conquering, looting, raping tyrant
>Slew an ancient evil dragon demanding tribute
>"We're not heroes!"
>"We break more than we fix!"
>"We can't make a shelter for people to be safe, because I hate one of my party members!"
Christ alive. I used to like the show, believe ir or not - but it's not even about her low charisma. She just can't seem to let people just be happy with what they've accomplished. Ever.
And she's never going to be seriously reprimanded for it because of the DM's girlfriend effect.
>>47797947
HST despised Leary more than he despised Nixon.
>>47801951
Ugh and her anti-gods schtick makes NO sense ESPECIALLY when they have a GODDAMN CLERIC WHO EVERY DAY BRINGS HOLY JUSTICE FROM HER GOOD AND LOVING GOD. Like, literally, how can you even begin to get all uppity about the gods when fucking Pike is RIGHT THERE HEALING PEOPLE AND FIXING DAMAGES DONE.
Marisha Ray at least acknowledges that people shit on Keyleth a lot (in the Battle Royale episode, p1 I believe), but she writes it off as Keyleth being 'complex' and everyone else agreeing. There's some complexity there, but it's also met with the stupdiest fucking stances on things in a world WHERE YOU ARE GATHERING POWERFUL ARTIFACTS OF THE GODS THEMSELVES TO FIGHT EVIL. So fucking dumb.
>>47788488
It's right there in the rulebook, though.
>>47801874
Dunno. The more I think about it, the more I start to wonder if nature itself is kinda a stupid concept.
I mean, it's kinda like Newtonian mechanics. It's right most of the times and for simulations and such (nature for ecosystem simulations, Newtonian physics for engineering and game engines), but it's pretty much not how things actually work on the deeper level. It's just a useful way to think about things sometimes (unless you want to use quantum mechanics for your fluid dynamics problem), but, "an order trying to uphold Newtonian mechanics against the heresy of general relativity" is not a thing anyone sane would do, you would think. And yet, if us using quantum mechanics principles in our cars meant they would randomly start flying off into space, and it might not even be your car that does it, but somebody nearby, because we can't figure out how to use these principles better, it would be a thing.
It's kinda like that, I think. If I'm talking out my ass and there are biologists/ecologists there, fix me please.
>>47802070
So entropy is king and i should render anything that tries to establish order by being more than base energies back into base energies?
>>47801951
>>47801622
>>47802001
What are we talking about here?
>>47785346
Animals do not have language anon.
Some species of animal have advanced forms of communication, but calling them language isn't really correct.
>>47799047
No, instinctual behaviors are not culture. Culture has to be something one group has that another does not. Something that can be spread to others.
The crows I mentioned above have invented a wide array of tools, clustered in different groups across the island, as each group develops its own tools to handle its particular environment, and solve local problems in their own ways
. Some of these tools are used for the same purpose, but are built from different materials in different shapes, and are used differently.
>>47781300
This 2bh
>>47802831
Most whales, dolphins, a lot of birds, cats and dogs(they even have dialects between households as so certain whales), and sea turtles. All have definitively learnable languages with actual "words".
>>47802350
"Critical Role," some twitch stream where voice actors play D&D for the cameras.
>>47802864
I mean yes, some animals (bees being a great example) have definitive gestures or what have you that hold specific meanings, they are not, in the human sense of the word, "language." They don't have (or have only very limited) the capacity to create new words, recombine existing components into new meanings, or refer to abstract concepts. They lack modality, recursivity, and for the large part displacement (there are exceptions to the last one, again, bees).
Linguistics and linguistic anthropology are very interesting fields!
>>47803008
What the fuck has this world come to?
>>47803025
Are you implying people were better or smarter at some point?
Right now I have two druid characters written up.
The first is a pseudo-wild child, basically is a magician/soothsayer type raised in some small village. She's more of the opinion that magic comes from nature, and nature is this big powerful thing that shouldn't be shrugged off lightly, in the same way you might be a little leery of earthquakes if you lived on a fault line. She's mostly a combination pyromancer/diviner (mostly fluff on that second one), played more like a wizard than a traditional druid.
The second one is a desert nomad who basically realizes that it's better to be the grain of sand in the wind than the boulder that stays immobile and is worn down, but realizes that both are equally important in the cosmic balance of the universe.
>>47779526
Because real life Hippies are asshats, and they all want to play druids.
>>47797885
He believed in the same ideals.
But crucially, for him, was that he was identified with it by his contemporaries, and he used that to his advantage.
My favourite example was cutting his hair so he could call a political opponent "Long haired".
>>47803036
it was in the statement, but not my worldview. I'm just baffled is all.
>>47803125
sounds about right.
>>47781300
This
>>47779526
>OPs
Are they all dicksucking faggots?
>>47803914
Yes.
>>47803914
what website do you think you're on?
sidenote: it would still be true on tumblr, they'd just not say it as an insult.
>>47779526
I actually enjoy playing my druids as image related (Torodai from the anime Moribito). Perpetually grumpy yet still concerned greatly about nature and their close friends.
>>47779526
No
>>47804530
Great taste anon.
>>47804598
what is the source or purpose of that image?
>>47783882
Wouldn't those ecosystems have evolved over time to coexist with those dams? What about the pre-beaver ecosystem?
The modern idea of druids is dumb as shit and derived from anti-industrial sentiments. Either go ancient pagan or go home.
>>47779645
Is that one of those Ghost cities those silly Chinks built but nobody ever wants to live in, even if they were dirt-cheap?
Keyleth really is the worst character, isn't she?
>>47805238
I like that 5e is breaking a lot of dumb sterotypes like that one, they are giving the Druid a city domain
>>47783882
actually I find that druids fit perfectly in settings where there's a lot of magic
magic can easily have massive destructive effects on the environment and if there's necromancy involved it might even actively prevent nature from adapting to it
so instead of having the druid be all uppity about cities and what not he's just being really fucking angry because the latest experiment from its magic school somehow managed to salt over 500 miles of previously fertile freshwater swamp
and to make things worse whatever spell those idiots used is actively preventing the corpses from decomposing
>>47805916
What's unnatural about that? If a deer could do something like that for its own gain it would.
"Do what you want and fuck everything else" is perfectly natural.
>>47805970
>"Do what you want and fuck everything else" is perfectly natural.
Sure, on an individual or species level, but on the overarching level, nature is all about systems working in balance.
If one part of the system gets out of whack, everything gets screwed up, which is essentially what sickness is. Cancer is basically a group of cells in your body saying "fuck the evolutionary arrangement between us and the gonads, we're going to reproduce all on our own." This shortsighted growth gains the cells lots of offspring, but kills them in the end, along with their host.
>>47805970
and the druid knows just as well that if there suddenly was a lack of predators he'd need to get out his bow and shoot some deer to prevent the herd from eating itself to death
the thing that's pissing off the druid in that example is one the fact they somehow managed to not just kill a shitload of animals but also remove them from the cycle by means of stopping decomposition and the fact those mages are being so incredibly callous about their destruction
so he's gonna teach them a lesson the only way a passive agressive druid can to a bunch of stuck up mages: by sending a swarm of dire pigeons to crap all over their fancy school, every single day until they fix their shit
>>47804651
the name of the artist is right there anon, it's a black humor cartoonist
>>47806086
>sending a swarm of dire pigeons to crap all over their fancy school, every single day until they fix their shit
This paints a great mental image of wizard baffled by the appearance of these giant pigeons all of a sudden. Then one of the pigeons opens its beak and says, in the voice of the druid "Y'all are fucking up. Cut that shit out or I'm sending even worse stuff. Don't give me that 'what' shit, you know what you did. Signed, the druid."
>>47806086
>and the druid knows just as well that if there suddenly was a lack of predators he'd need to get out his bow and shoot some deer to prevent the herd from eating itself to death
Why would a druid interfere like that? "I'll kill deer so they don't die" is just weird.
>>47806222
and then the wizards preparing the best protective spells, conjured sentries, advanced divinations and what not
and still they wake up every day to see their ancient marble pillars covered in dire pigeon shit
>>47806277
if its the result of a largely unnatural catastrophe he would do it to prevent rapid collapse of the ecosystem
in modern times this could be say the result of a toxic spill or something like that, in fantasy the result of spells gone wrong
>>47806277
>"I'll kill deer so they don't die" is just weird.
It's wildlife management. If the deer become overpopulated they'll starve in great numbers, and their population will crash, followed by that of the wolves.
Kill a few off to slow their population growth, and the wolves have time to recover, and everything ends up stable, and there's a lot less suffering..
>>47806312
You usually don't handle oil spills by killing all seabirds.
Druids have plenty of space to be wild lunatics too
They can be a lot of crazed half-starved mystics who eat too many plants and mushrooms and scream at the moon while sharing poison ivy with new friends, because they let nature win over them
Throw in a couple dryads and you got a party
>>47806332
A druid who can't handle animals starving to death needs to get the fuck out of the forest already, because that's how the ones who aren't killed or freeze to death go. A druid would go after the ones responsible, not just kill a bunch of animals so that they don't die anyway.
A good way to make your druids a little more vicious and alien is to limit them to a broad class of nature. So you got Weather Druids, Animal Druids, and Plant Druids, and they're all in dubious alliance and vicious competition with each other.
>>47806378
You're missing the point. If the wolves' numbers have crashed for some reason, then the natural controls on the deer population are gone. "Going after the ones responsible" is justice, which is a civilized concept and isn't what a druid is about. It doesn't fix the problem.
The problem is that doe over there is going to have a bunch of babies, none of whom are going to be eaten by wolves, they're going to wipe out all the forage in the region, then die slowly die to starvation.
All because there weren't any wolves to eat that one doe. Solution? Kill the doe and eat her. The remaining deer don't have the competition, and everything stays in balance while the wolves numbers come back up.
>>47806431
>"Going after the ones responsible" is justice
No, it's protection. The deer population will adapt, as will the rest of the ecosystem. Nature can deal with its own ecosystem. Druids protect it against what nature can't deal with, which in this case is those responsible. The more deer available the quicker the wolves, and other predators, come back. As they come back and the deer starve from eating too much, the population stabilizes. A deer population can only grow to a problematic size if you continuously keep the number of predators low. The modern solution of "kill the deer since we're killing the wolves" is for the sake of recreational hunting, not wildlife preservation.
>>47806431
I should say that while the druid's not about justice, it doesn't mean that the cause of the wolf population drop is entirely unimportant to him.
If, say, there was a weird cult that killed a bunch of wolves to wear their skins, you wouldn't see the druid abandon his forest to go hunt them down for vengeance or something. Tending the forest is way more important. But if those dummies came back, murdering the shit out of them would be the simplest way to prevent a recurrence of the "too few wolves" problem, and so he'd totally do that.
>>47792206Don't be ashamed. It's only memes running thier course. You have no meme to make, nothing to answer for. You can meme with a clear conscious.
>>47806534
>The more deer available the quicker the wolves, and other predators, come back.
There are limits to this. It can take quite a while for predator populations to move back in balance, and if the deer population explodes too quickly it can lead to a general die-out in the region.
>>47806534
its not, population crashes are a well documented phenomena where an entire herd of grazing animals can disappear in the span of a few years in the absence of predators
do not forget that typically predators tend to have slower reproduction cycles than prey animals
>>47806594
Usually takes a bit longer than that, doesn't it? I mean, the scenario presented is one where the druid goes out with a bow to balance the numbers. That doesn't exactly paint a picture of an enormous area that would require decades before the wolf population returns.
>>47806680
a population crash can happen quite quickly and a single druid shooting to cull rather than hunting can kill quite a large number of animals by himself
>>47806806
I suppose the ability to just walk up to animals would be pretty handy in such a scenario. Still, I'd still go after those responsible, since they can do it again and everything. Can't just kill everything whenever some dickweed wizard fucks up the ecosystem, and then just let the wizard go about and do it again later.
>>47792111
what is the circle of the black goat?
>>47807696
Shun-niggurath
>>47808229
shub*
>>47781300
This beyond all else
>just want to play a character with nature powers
>GM calls me a powergamer if I don't roleplay it as a nature worshipping super hippie.
>>47792271
Sit-down toilets.
>>47811180
Unholy posture creators.
Humans came from nature, but the word does not usually refer to humans or the shit they make. A walk through a city is not a nature walk. Knowledge (nature) won't identify a piece of machinery. Nature specifically refers to the parts of reality least affected by humans.
There's fuzzy ground where the two worlds bleed together, humans living "in harmony with nature" (i.e, not changing their environment much), or slime and rodent colonies in sewers, or what have you. But, you guys saying that nature doesn't mean anything, y'all are being cunts. The word you're looking for is "reality", not "nature".
>>47811357
Fuck it. Nature is what the druid in question says it is. After all thats their job. And do you REALLY think you can tell a guy who's physically, mentally, and spiritually attuned with his job how to do his job correctly?
>>47811563
I always assumed the default in D&D style settings was that nature is a character and has been around much longer than humans and their gods.
My take personally is both, Nature was always there, both more and less than a god, but human belief warps everything in my setting and so you have successive layers of metaphysical nature, starting with the primeval forest-gods like the Old Margreve that are just waiting for the human sickness to burn itself out, and ending with cuntish fey formed by the newest wave of human belief which equates wildness with sin.
>>47811938
So.....kill all sapient life? Be the last man standing so what i say is nature, is nature? Sounds like a plan.
>>47812110
Hmm.. I the way it works in my world is that the more sapients there are the more belief there is. If you were the last thinking creature you would get to walk through a barren world and watch as all magic failed and fantasy locations collapsed into more mundane ones.
The other interpretation, of course, is that the belief-power is a zero-sum thing and that being the only thinking creature left would make you omnipotent and let you create a new campaign setting. Maybe my setting should have a few liches who see it that way.
Chaotic neutral best alignment. Druid best class.
Pick flower, smoke 'em
Gather herbs, make poultice.
Asshole tries to harvest stash, have animal I summon kill him.
Don't laugh, don't cry, just let things naturally go my way.
Forest dwelling and anti-civilization are the best tropes for the fantasy setting.
>>47812984
N - MAINTAIN BALANCE
LN - MAINTAIN BALANCE EVEN MORE
NG - ME AM GROWTH
NE - ME AM PREDATOR
CN - DON'T TREAD ON ME
>>47779526
That's not how I play Droods.
>Undead?
Whatever, so long as they're not causing problems.
>Are you personally destroying the forest?
Then you're okay.
If you clearcut 50 acres woodland to build an orchard? Sure, why not.
If you're bulldozing rainforests to build strip-malls, he might butcher you. He wouldn't be very preachy. You'd be told not to do it, and if you did it anyways you'd be killed in your sleep by assassin vines or the like.
And he'd probably try to arrange for unfortunate accidents to come to your strip mall.
>>47797885
The original hippies were actually intellectuals.
The point of "tune in, drop out" is to tune in. Which means "educate yourself, don't just take what you need to get a degree and consider your education done". The original hippies were all about learning fucking EVERYTHING. Mainstream America at the time didn't even want to know what Hinduism, Paganism, and Satanism were; but to the hippy, there was literally no reason to ever not want to learn about them because...you should fucking learn everything!
The original hippies were all about trying new things. Sure, Communism as an organized government didn't work, but what about socialism on a tribal level? Worth a shot! That's what the communes were basically, people acknowledging that most things other than capitalistic representative democracy don't work but they wanted to give every possible style of government a shot and tried to be self-sufficient while doing it.
Originally the point of the drugs was just to try new things, to try to see the world from a new perspective. You don't drop acid to get high, you drop acid to see some totally fucked up shit that can inspire you to write something, to draw something, or to understand something else in a new way.
The problem is that the first generation of hippies were united in interest. The second generation were encouraged to join by the first, but weren't really the intellectuals on board with the tuning in. They were still about trying new things, but were just kind of along for the ride.
Then...the third generation. The third generation were the violent assholes who just wanted a cheap fix. The kids who ran away from home, looking to be Peter Pan and never do work again. The nutcases who wanted to protest the government and call for a Socialist revolution.
>>47815052
The third generation were so fucking horrible, they ruined everything. They overpopulated the communes and just sat around all day getting high and doing no work, just wanting to fuck and get babied.
They started fights, participated in riots, and badmouthed the government left and right in places other hippies saw it as being on the level.
The first generation hippies saw that their movement had failed. They gathered symbols of the movement like love beads, peace signs, handwoven clothing, poetry and instruments, and filled several coffins which they burned where the hippie movement started; at the corner of Haight-Ashbury. They re-entered society, having finally grown up and realized there's too many fucking assholes around to change the world. That was in 1967.
Here's the main thing; if a hippie calls themselves something stupid like a "flower child" or a product of the "summer of love", they weren't one of the first gen hippies. First gen hippies didn't call themselves hippies or anything like that, they called themselves "Long Hairs" since rebelling against the expectations of society to cut your hair military style, tuck your shirt in, and wear a hat outdoors at all times was the main indication you were into breaking the mold.
>>47779645
All these posts and no one mentioned Darksun defilers.
>>47793995
It could still feed fungi and other small lifeforms. Actually, it could benefit them by allowing them to spread spores across a larger area.
>>47816403
And they're still kind of irrelevant because nobody knows what something is before you explain it, anon.
>>47781618
>>47780714
>>47779677
>>47779645
Well everything here is "natural" death is natural, building things out of natural parts is natural. Wouldn't the opposite be something supernatural? Like demons or something to that effect. Otherworldly lovecraftian horrors. Cities arent unnatural but things that are not of this world certainly are. Machines dont even defy nature they are the same but just made of different parts. Its difficult to grasp unnatural because everything we know of is natural.
>>47820584
Why do people keep saying this? "Nature" doesn't mean the same thing as "reality". Humans and everything we do came out of nature, that's a worthy epiphany to have, but it doesn't completely invalidate the word nature. Shit stops being nature once humans start building with it.
