Druid Class Fantasy: How to Fix It

If Druid class fantasy is as lame, bland or samey as I covered last time, it kind of behooves me to talk about what to do to break the trend and avoid it. It would really suck if I spent so long saying something sucks then just said "Well, bye. ". Today we're going over some tips for world building, as well as some stuff for players, and even some general advice.

First, I'd like to share something. I don't know hardly anything about this band, other than they're from Eastern Europe, they base a lot of what they do on real Iron Age and Viking texts, and they're called Heilung.


Heilung - Krigsgaldr, Live at Castlefest 2017


I mean, I could stop the whole article here, right? Just have you watch that and leave. Imagine investigating a noise deep in a forest and running across this. They don't seem angry at your presence...but you should probably leave immediately. Heilung calls itself "Amplified history from early medieval Northern Europe" according to Wikipedia, and that's good for our purposes. Excellent, in fact, because "Amplified history from early medieval Northern Europe" is over ninety percent of what our hobby is based on. I also highly recommend you watch their whole Castlefest set, if only for the affirmation they do at the beginning.

Let's go over their sound first. Chanting,  which you can easily imagine as being in the secret Druidic language. An omnipresent, driving drum beat which almost hypnotizes you. Uwe Faust's singing which is so deep and throaty that it may as well be Mongolian throat singing, contrasted with Maria Franz singing in a beautiful, ethereal tone. Heilung aren't Druids, but they sure do play music that sounds like a Druidic prayer circle or ritual might. It's alien and strange, but not hostile or off-putting. It feels tied to nature thanks to its heavy drum beat, and most of the sound being made with some really basic instruments.

There's what they're dressed in, as well. I don't think I could get away with not talking about it. Pen and paper games are a spoken medium, so we're at a disadvantage here. It's easy to say "Antlered headdress which obscures her eyes" but it's another to see how striking it is. Despite what armor your druid is in, you should describe something much closer to what Heilung wears on stage than generic green robes. Animal skins, skulls, bones and teeth are obvious, but remember the ritualistic face paint or the embroidered cloth. The string of bells near the larger drum kit, or the carved tokens on the top of Uwe Faust's headdress. His tattoos, or the band's tribal designs.

For GMs, the moment you describe what they look like is really important to this process. Imagine that the players are really hot to think your druids look stupid. It's not a conscious thought on their part, but it's what often happens regardless. The second you describe them as "guys in green robes", you're doomed. Your players won't respect these NPCs, or think much of them. Be more visual and descriptive, even if it means not saying explicitly that they're druids. Understand most of all that if you want the look of a plant-like druid covered in living leaves or flowers, your players are probably going to think of them as lame. This is a good time to include a scene to establish their personality and associate wisdom or power with them as a trait.

Typically, druids live and practice outside of society, and what they look like should reflect that. Consider that they're very likely to use trained animals(whether or not they're animal companions), but not things they couldn't easily make themselves or would take too much resource for a convenience they see as small. Imagine druids walking into town, either to stock up on something they can't make, or to sell(or even donate) food to the community. Whether it's a few Druids or a procession complete with followers, they're not using wagons, or chests. They have saddlebags thrown across the backs of oxen, or carrying leather packs on their back.

The point is, even small details like this serve to illustrate how different they are. This is something you want. They may be neutral to a society, allied with it, or even working to benefit a society, but they are not part of it. They have their own way, their own people, and their own lands...whether it's in a forest, a cave, a mountain, a swamp, or even sweeping plains.

While we're on the topic of Druids being distant, I'd like to tackle a pet peeve. Part of the problem with Druid is definitely that Cleric takes some of its thunder. Plenty of settings are all about their God pantheon, some of them to such an extreme that you can't run a game without talking about them or their influence. See Forgotten Realms for that. These settings seek to add equality and play opportunities by saying the natural gods in the setting have both clerics and druids.

I'm all for expanded play opportunities, but this is a bad idea. I'm not big on the fact that clerics get nature domains at all, but in the spirit of not changing mechanics or play opportunities, we're going to work around it. In my blunt opinion, a God should have Druids or Clerics. Not both. If they have to have both, one should be very rare, or fill a vastly different role.

And to be clear, when I say Cleric, I mean mostly the civilized practitioner of divine magic, wearer of metal armor, and swinger of maces. This is far less about the class and far more about the two existing making Druids seem like Cleric Number Two. This is bad for their perception. Druid has always had a problem standing on its own thanks to its history of actually being the alternate Cleric, and a social situation that supports this perception isn't helping.

If you're working with a pre-established setting, it can help to portray a God's followers consistently as being one type. You don't need to retcon it, or make some sort of big claim about how the world works. No, all you have to do is, when Malar's followers come up? They're druids every time. Does he have clerics somewhere? Sure, maybe. Will they show up in your game? Not likely. The reverse can easily be true depending on how you want a God's followers or organization to feel. Lathander is a Neutral Good God of the Sun. Does he have druids? I can't imagine.

If you're making your own world, you have even more freedom here. You can split your natural gods how you like, or even create drama based on class distribution. Maybe the followers of the forest god see the harvest god's followers as weak and civilized because she allows clerics. It's a decent way to create conflict between two sides that isn't as reductive as good vs. evil. Alternatively, you can do something sweeping and bold like declaring there are no clerics of nature Gods, or that druids don't follow Gods at all: they instead revere primal forces of nature that are mysterious, unknown, and more powerful than paltry "Gods". Most systems support this type of divine caster to begin with, so no fudging would be needed.

For a character, there are a ton of different directions you can go. It can help to remember how real people did, and still do interact with the natural world. You can play someone who sees many of the trappings of society as pointless at best, or damaging at worst. You don't have to play a hard-ass about conservation: Even a rather dim witted druid can reason that trees grow back. No, building a huge mansion isn't (necessarily) an affront against what the Druid stands for...it's just quite stupid in his opinion. It's done instead of learning essential life skills, and ensures your children won't have the skills to do so either.

It's this kind of pragmatic view, and not being a 'protector of nature' that will serve you best. Sure, a Druid will step up and defend nature if he needs to. They'll certainly stand against a warlord viciously clear-cutting miles upon miles of trees or a city fouling a river and killing wildlife with its carelessness. They also know that they don't need to protect nature most of the time. They make an impact against nature as well. They use leather and eat meat. They might even cut down trees for wood. They know that nature can bounce back from a lot. Punishing someone for killing a single deer is ludicrous, and something the Druid would only do to send a message to a higher power like a King...or if they're evil and looking for an excuse.


I could probably go on and on, but we'll cut here for today. Honestly, the thing that's gonna serve you best as a player is to create a whole, realized person. Don't worry about their class, worry about what they've done in their life, and what they want to do. Their personality, what they like and dislike. And if you want to play one of those ethereal hippy druids like Perfuma, go ahead. Just don't step on someone else's toes. The problem always has been the perception that all druids are like her, not that a few of them might be.