Shadow Druids
Copastetic1985
Member Posts: 277
Hidy,
I love Druids. I've been an avid Druid fan since playing the vBG in the early 2000's as a wee 13-14 year old. So I'll just come right out and ask the question. Could there be a future kit for Shadow Druids? I realize it's more of a mindset than an actual class ( unless it's in some D&D Handbook ), but I'd like to play some other alignment other than True Neutral, and I figure they're a solid Neutral Evil class. No clue on what their abilities would be, or if they had special traits or whatnot.
Any other Druid players interested?
I love Druids. I've been an avid Druid fan since playing the vBG in the early 2000's as a wee 13-14 year old. So I'll just come right out and ask the question. Could there be a future kit for Shadow Druids? I realize it's more of a mindset than an actual class ( unless it's in some D&D Handbook ), but I'd like to play some other alignment other than True Neutral, and I figure they're a solid Neutral Evil class. No clue on what their abilities would be, or if they had special traits or whatnot.
Any other Druid players interested?
3
Comments
And yes, people play as druids.
In my revision, the base Druid class can be Neutral Good, True Neutral or Neutral Evil -- but a Shadow Druid can be only True Neutral or Neutral Evil.
My Shadow Druid kit is based around the idea that a sect of Druids started messing around with negative energy and the undead. They gain spells like Hold Undead, Repel Undead, Animate Dead and Command Undead; they lose animal summoning spells. Instead of gaining immunity to poison, they gain immunity to negative energy. Instead of transforming into a wolf or bear, they can turn into a shadow mastiff (which gives them some undead immunities).
Understandably, this has made them anathema to most other Druids, since most other Druids hate the undead. The Shadow Druids say they are only turning the weapons of their enemy to their own advantage, but do their ends justify the means?
I thought Shadow Druids just hated mans' perversion of the forests? Meaning killing men/women is perfectly acceptable in defense of nature, anything they deemed inappropriate or, just being there. Like the Shadow Druids in Cloakwood Forest.
I honestly just want something a little different than what's available currently. I'm not a fan of Shapeshifter, nor Avenger. I enjoy Totemic Druid though. The "Shadow Druids" in Cloakwood Forest have Hold Person. Which is a Cleric spell. I think that would be a perfect addition to said Kit. Or a modified version of it. Perhaps larger radius? Make it a special ability ( whatever their called in the 'star' section toward the end of the UI ) with a larger radius, and maybe a -2 to Save vs. Spell. I don't know.
So the Shadow Druids need to be even more radical than that, or the regular Druids wouldn't be ganging up on them in BG2.
Most druids (your average lives-in-a-cave-behind-a-waterfall variety) find balance by keeping civilization and nature separate, preserving what is already there and seeing to it that humans and other "invasive species" don't disrupt the natural order of things.
Then there are the Adventurer Druids, the Jaheiras out there who think that balance with nature means finding a way for civilization to cooperate and work in symbiosis with nature. They help humans and animals alike, and if this were a congressional campaign they would be the candidate trying to do the whole thing without any attack ads.
Shadow Druids are the opposite. They're the senator who thinks that the only way to restore balance in nature is to return things to the way they were before civilization got involved and mucked everything up. A Shadow Druid tries to thwart civilization wherever it can, and where civilization seems to be thriving, shadow druids look for opportunities to knock it down a peg or two.
None of them are good or evil in the strictest sense; they're all trying to help out nature, they all follow Mielikki. But they have different priorities.
A Shadow Druid kit would most closely resemble the Avenger, really. Summoning monstrous creatures to take back the land by force, and not taking no for an answer.
People who use attack ads are generally evil.
Yes, although conceptually all politicians are evil, so again it's a situation of "different means, same result".
That kind of cynicism is the most potent ally of an Evil Overlord.
(I of course understand that this won't happen.)
Just makes sense IMHO.