Not sure that this will help but what the hay. You might search out the first description of a druid and what he/she does, which you'll find in Julius Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico". These druids have almost nothing to do with forests and nature but they play the most important role in their society. Perhaps aspects of this could be drivers for your druid.
FWIW, my druid is the "nature conscience" of our party ... "They're just a pack of hungry wolves. There's no need to Fireball them! Find another way." And I hang around with them coz I know I've got a role to play in something big that's coming, which I certainly can't do alone.
Good: values all life (people, animals, plants, fungi, you name it). Believes it is their duty to protect this life. Share loot and gear? Yes, it helps the druid save lives. Have adventuring buddies? Absolutely, they are living beings too. Stop whatever? Well, yes, a lot of lives are at stake.
Neutral: make sure dangerous stuff doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Keep dragon or whatever from infringing on the natural order. Stop those who cause imbalance (stop bandits from killing more animals than they need, keep trade going because a well-greased engine won't harm the environment as much.)
Evil: even "burn it all down" types need someone to burn it all down with. Consider an evil party. OR you are a "burn it all down" type and your party doesn't know. You are the BBEG.
Good: values all life (people, animals, plants, fungi, you name it). Believes it is their duty to protect this life. Share loot and gear? Yes, it helps the druid save lives. Have adventuring buddies? Absolutely, they are living beings too. Stop whatever? Well, yes, a lot of lives are at stake.
Neutral: make sure dangerous stuff doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Keep dragon or whatever from infringing on the natural order. Stop those who cause imbalance (stop bandits from killing more animals than they need, keep trade going because a well-greased engine won't harm the environment as much.)
Evil: even "burn it all down" types need someone to burn it all down with. Consider an evil party. OR you are a "burn it all down" type and your party doesn't know. You are the BBEG.
These are a bit simplistic; a chaotic good character for example is entirely capable of killing the innocent if they believe it will prevent a severe enough threat, in fact most good characters are/should be, the difference is how easily or quickly they will resort to that method "for the greater good". For example, if a village contains a cult, and you know that cult is going to summon an arch-devil at midnight that could result in the deaths of thousands, the chaotic good character might just burn down the village because they know it'll stop the threat and save more lives than will be lost, but a neutral good or lawful good character might make more of an effort to root out the cultists first. The beautiful twisted irony for a DM is having the act of searching for the cult cause them to perform the summoning sooner, so the chaotic good option was the right one. 😈
Meanwhile evil isn't simply mad cackling super-villainy and irrepressible cruelty; thieves can be evil if they don't care who they steal from, bounty hunters are evil if they don't care who they hunt etc. A character can be evil simply because they are willing to harm the innocent to get what they want, but it doesn't mean that they will do that. It just means that given the choice between an easier, more brutal path, and a longer more benign one, they'll be more likely to choose the former unless they have a good reason not to (e.g- allies will turn against them). An evil character is fully capable of co-existing with a good party if their goals are aligned, plus it's far easier for an evil character to pretend to be good, than a good one to pretend at being evil. I played a neutral evil character in Curse of Strahd who was seeking to lift Strahd's curse, but was only doing so because he believed it would help him to learn how to lift his own curse; he was condescending and heartless, but also rational and thoughtful (in the sense of thinking things through, he is not one for kind gestures) but ultimately he only did the right thing for selfish reasons.
In the context of druids there exist the shadow druids, who can be evil aligned because they're much more ruthless than your typical true neutral druids; they're more like your Poison Ivy from Batman types, who will destroy a logging camp to protect a forest, who believe that proactively rather than reactively preventing threats to nature is the way forward etc. Whereas your classic neutral druid might try intimidation or persuasion first, to give people a chance to change their ways or to stop of their own accord etc. Some shadow druids are also more "survival of the fittest reigns supreme" types who will attack even fellow druids for being too weak – such a group attacked the Emerald Grove once.
Having played a few druids, I continually am conflicted by my Druid roleplay. I find it easy to roleplay a druid interacting with nature, finding elements of nature in more civilized environments, interacting with animals and plants, being slightly uninterested in cities and humanoid cultures.
This all seems to conflict though with a Druid as an adventurer, sharing equal loot and coin, taking out baddies who threaten the stability of humanoid civilizations. Should the druid (at least fairly often) either not care, or at times even sympathize with razing towns and thwarting those who would continually encroach on nature?
Why does a druid need coin?
Why does a druid want to acquire anything material?
Why does a druid leave the nature they want to protect?
Why does a druid care about divisions and struggles created by gods of good and evil?
The whole premise of adventuring seems at odds with this class of character, much more so than any other (except maybe monk). While I've created plausible backstories, it still seems hard to play it true to the character.
It's up to you. I run an autognome circle of stars druid in spelljammer...so for Sirius, it makes sense for him to be out among the stars on a ship (it's all he knows really) but he would also be happy to explore a city because as an outsider, he always wants to learn new things about people, cities, civilization, even nature. And he also wants to improve himself. And he likes fixing things, included the broken and injured. As far as gaining funds and material things, they allow him to afford to outfit himself better (magic items, etc), so that he is more successful at whatever he does. BTW, he has never once wildshaped to a beast (he almost did to crocodile once)....he just uses starry form.
This could be adapted to other subclasses....A druid may have grown up in the forest, but is curious (and maybe still uncomfortable) about villages, cities, people, etc. And you can always find reasons to adventure. And everyone needs something that has to be found or bought (even a monk who could hear about great magic gloves that aid his blows) or they gather funds to give to their community or charity and improve the world.
Druids have always been stuck with that perspective as far as i can recall way back to AD&D 2nd edition, being characters that live by and for natures and might not have many reasons, to go out on adventuring, at least on a permanent basis Now temporary reasons to go on, such as a threat to the wilderness or phenomenon that threaten world balance can always push a druid to go adventure but what happen after this has been resolved? It's where a druid like many other characters, need more incentive to adventure, beyond treasure hunting - though they can be materialist too- such as friendship, love, will to do good and other immaterial reasons or noble causes.
Arguably most classes should not go on adventures for the sake of adventure if they are defined entirely by their classes. Rangers and Paladins should be protecting people, not hunting for treasure. Clerics should be worshipping, tending to their flock, or serving in armies in holy wars. Monks should be meditating and getting in touch with the inner world. Wizards should be studying in libraries. Even looking at rogues - why risk your butt in a dungeon, when there's easy pickings in a city? Professional full time adventurers are almost always oddballs and eccentrics, if not full on homicidal psychopaths.
One druid backstory of mine was that said druid wanted to open a nature preserve but needed enough coin to legally own the land and pay for the infrastructure, maintenance workers, animal handlers, etc. He wanted a place where people could go and educate themselves and hopefully learn to empathize with nature on a level you don't really get from living in a city.
Granted, most of my druids don't have a special desire for wealth. Instead, they see the accumulation of wealth as a means of interacting with the civilized world to further their own pro-nature goals. Mostly keeping supplied on health potions and such.
Why does a druid want to acquire anything material?
This is a world where a sufficiently rare stick can dramatically increase your druidic powers. Magic items are valuable to any class, and the best places to find them tend to be the most dangerous ones. Places a druid can't survive on their own. Hence they need allies.
Why does a druid leave the nature they want to protect?
Who says they have to leave? Nature is everywhere. Even inside the walls of civilization, you'll find a wide and diverse ecosystem composed of birds, rodents, insects, plants, and the weird apes who built the walls in the first place. Besides that, to defend the land you love you often need to leave said land. A druid might want to develop their skills so they can better defend their grove, but to do that they need to go where actual conflict is so they can develop the skills they desire. Or maybe they're looking for a specific plant or magic item to help them lift a curse that was put on their grove by some evil wizard.
It does help that druids tend to live in communal groups. Your druid might have left to find answers or greater power to save the land they're sworn to protect from whatever is assailing it while the other druids of their Circle stay behind to minimize the damage.
Why does a druid care about divisions and struggles created by gods of good and evil?
Do you suppose that a massive legion of the undead setting fire to cities and salting the fields of civilization isn't going to have a direct ecological consequence? What about demons wielding Hellfire? If an ancient god rises from the sea and threatens to drown the world with an eternal downpour do you not think this would kill many, many plants and animals too? When it comes to the apocalyptic stuff a druid really can't afford to sit back as a bystander. Conflicts between gods and nations tend to be disastrous for the entire world, not just civilization.
Your character is immersed in the D&D world in which personal progression is most closely tied to adventuring performance. For this end, just finding an adventuring party within which characters will watch each others backs is a boon.
Your character's goals might include being able to: locate plants and animals, speak with plants, awaken beasts, commune with nature, walk the winds or move the earth. Whatever it is, personal progression may be well achieved by adventuring.
However, in the cases of many adventure scenarios, it might make more sense to take a different character class. A druid might have little interest in a dungeon delve where central aspects of nature aren't involved.
Everyone seems to be confusing 'Druid' with 'person who has no emotion or connection to anything but nature'. Sure, you could play as one of those, but you could also play as someone who was abandoned in a forest, grew up there, then left to go find their family (for example).
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Hi! My pronouns are they/them. I've recently started DMing, so I'm not very experienced (yet).
Good question. And very good responses about possible motivations for adventuring for druids. I think a useful way to develop answers is to consider the druid's alignment and/or personality. For druids that aren't some form of neutral, it's very easy to develop a variety of different motivations for adventuring: adventuring will help the druid promote good/evil, etc. For druids that are some form of neutral, I think the question does make a lot of sense. And here are three general, plausible examples of motivations for neutral druids to engage in adventures:
Defending the natural environment: the stereotypical druid is committed to defending (preserving) nature, the environment, etc. from encroachment from civilization, monsters, undead, etc. I suppose a druid's motivation could be completely limited to this example where they travel around the world and defend the natural environment against all things encroaching on the natural environment, but that would be fairly boring and isn't necessary, given other sort of motivation, such as:
Promoting the interests of their Circle: a druid might be a very dedicated member of their circle, and their circle might develop missions/adventures for a druid to pursue that promote the broader goals of the Circle, forming alliances with other Circles, thwarting opponents of their Circle. Political/tribal activities of a druid's circle are never ending. (This example is based on my own druid PC.)
Personal ambition/power: a druid might have the personality that seeks power, i.e., collecting magical items, etc. Such druids might be extroverts and enjoy traveling, meeting new people (with similar personalities), etc.
Hi Obvert,
Not sure that this will help but what the hay. You might search out the first description of a druid and what he/she does, which you'll find in Julius Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico". These druids have almost nothing to do with forests and nature but they play the most important role in their society. Perhaps aspects of this could be drivers for your druid.
FWIW, my druid is the "nature conscience" of our party ... "They're just a pack of hungry wolves. There's no need to Fireball them! Find another way." And I hang around with them coz I know I've got a role to play in something big that's coming, which I certainly can't do alone.
Good: values all life (people, animals, plants, fungi, you name it). Believes it is their duty to protect this life. Share loot and gear? Yes, it helps the druid save lives. Have adventuring buddies? Absolutely, they are living beings too. Stop whatever? Well, yes, a lot of lives are at stake.
Neutral: make sure dangerous stuff doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Keep dragon or whatever from infringing on the natural order. Stop those who cause imbalance (stop bandits from killing more animals than they need, keep trade going because a well-greased engine won't harm the environment as much.)
Evil: even "burn it all down" types need someone to burn it all down with. Consider an evil party. OR you are a "burn it all down" type and your party doesn't know. You are the BBEG.
These are a bit simplistic; a chaotic good character for example is entirely capable of killing the innocent if they believe it will prevent a severe enough threat, in fact most good characters are/should be, the difference is how easily or quickly they will resort to that method "for the greater good". For example, if a village contains a cult, and you know that cult is going to summon an arch-devil at midnight that could result in the deaths of thousands, the chaotic good character might just burn down the village because they know it'll stop the threat and save more lives than will be lost, but a neutral good or lawful good character might make more of an effort to root out the cultists first. The beautiful twisted irony for a DM is having the act of searching for the cult cause them to perform the summoning sooner, so the chaotic good option was the right one. 😈
Meanwhile evil isn't simply mad cackling super-villainy and irrepressible cruelty; thieves can be evil if they don't care who they steal from, bounty hunters are evil if they don't care who they hunt etc. A character can be evil simply because they are willing to harm the innocent to get what they want, but it doesn't mean that they will do that. It just means that given the choice between an easier, more brutal path, and a longer more benign one, they'll be more likely to choose the former unless they have a good reason not to (e.g- allies will turn against them). An evil character is fully capable of co-existing with a good party if their goals are aligned, plus it's far easier for an evil character to pretend to be good, than a good one to pretend at being evil. I played a neutral evil character in Curse of Strahd who was seeking to lift Strahd's curse, but was only doing so because he believed it would help him to learn how to lift his own curse; he was condescending and heartless, but also rational and thoughtful (in the sense of thinking things through, he is not one for kind gestures) but ultimately he only did the right thing for selfish reasons.
In the context of druids there exist the shadow druids, who can be evil aligned because they're much more ruthless than your typical true neutral druids; they're more like your Poison Ivy from Batman types, who will destroy a logging camp to protect a forest, who believe that proactively rather than reactively preventing threats to nature is the way forward etc. Whereas your classic neutral druid might try intimidation or persuasion first, to give people a chance to change their ways or to stop of their own accord etc. Some shadow druids are also more "survival of the fittest reigns supreme" types who will attack even fellow druids for being too weak – such a group attacked the Emerald Grove once.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
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Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
It's up to you. I run an autognome circle of stars druid in spelljammer...so for Sirius, it makes sense for him to be out among the stars on a ship (it's all he knows really) but he would also be happy to explore a city because as an outsider, he always wants to learn new things about people, cities, civilization, even nature. And he also wants to improve himself. And he likes fixing things, included the broken and injured. As far as gaining funds and material things, they allow him to afford to outfit himself better (magic items, etc), so that he is more successful at whatever he does. BTW, he has never once wildshaped to a beast (he almost did to crocodile once)....he just uses starry form.
This could be adapted to other subclasses....A druid may have grown up in the forest, but is curious (and maybe still uncomfortable) about villages, cities, people, etc. And you can always find reasons to adventure. And everyone needs something that has to be found or bought (even a monk who could hear about great magic gloves that aid his blows) or they gather funds to give to their community or charity and improve the world.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E/RPG geek.
Druids have always been stuck with that perspective as far as i can recall way back to AD&D 2nd edition, being characters that live by and for natures and might not have many reasons, to go out on adventuring, at least on a permanent basis Now temporary reasons to go on, such as a threat to the wilderness or phenomenon that threaten world balance can always push a druid to go adventure but what happen after this has been resolved? It's where a druid like many other characters, need more incentive to adventure, beyond treasure hunting - though they can be materialist too- such as friendship, love, will to do good and other immaterial reasons or noble causes.
Arguably most classes should not go on adventures for the sake of adventure if they are defined entirely by their classes. Rangers and Paladins should be protecting people, not hunting for treasure. Clerics should be worshipping, tending to their flock, or serving in armies in holy wars. Monks should be meditating and getting in touch with the inner world. Wizards should be studying in libraries. Even looking at rogues - why risk your butt in a dungeon, when there's easy pickings in a city? Professional full time adventurers are almost always oddballs and eccentrics, if not full on homicidal psychopaths.
Broke up with your significant other and in the breakup your ex got to keep the grove.
Why does a druid need coin?
One druid backstory of mine was that said druid wanted to open a nature preserve but needed enough coin to legally own the land and pay for the infrastructure, maintenance workers, animal handlers, etc. He wanted a place where people could go and educate themselves and hopefully learn to empathize with nature on a level you don't really get from living in a city.
Granted, most of my druids don't have a special desire for wealth. Instead, they see the accumulation of wealth as a means of interacting with the civilized world to further their own pro-nature goals. Mostly keeping supplied on health potions and such.
Why does a druid want to acquire anything material?
This is a world where a sufficiently rare stick can dramatically increase your druidic powers. Magic items are valuable to any class, and the best places to find them tend to be the most dangerous ones. Places a druid can't survive on their own. Hence they need allies.
Why does a druid leave the nature they want to protect?
Who says they have to leave? Nature is everywhere. Even inside the walls of civilization, you'll find a wide and diverse ecosystem composed of birds, rodents, insects, plants, and the weird apes who built the walls in the first place. Besides that, to defend the land you love you often need to leave said land. A druid might want to develop their skills so they can better defend their grove, but to do that they need to go where actual conflict is so they can develop the skills they desire. Or maybe they're looking for a specific plant or magic item to help them lift a curse that was put on their grove by some evil wizard.
It does help that druids tend to live in communal groups. Your druid might have left to find answers or greater power to save the land they're sworn to protect from whatever is assailing it while the other druids of their Circle stay behind to minimize the damage.
Why does a druid care about divisions and struggles created by gods of good and evil?
Do you suppose that a massive legion of the undead setting fire to cities and salting the fields of civilization isn't going to have a direct ecological consequence? What about demons wielding Hellfire? If an ancient god rises from the sea and threatens to drown the world with an eternal downpour do you not think this would kill many, many plants and animals too? When it comes to the apocalyptic stuff a druid really can't afford to sit back as a bystander. Conflicts between gods and nations tend to be disastrous for the entire world, not just civilization.
Your character is immersed in the D&D world in which personal progression is most closely tied to adventuring performance. For this end, just finding an adventuring party within which characters will watch each others backs is a boon.
Your character's goals might include being able to: locate plants and animals, speak with plants, awaken beasts, commune with nature, walk the winds or move the earth. Whatever it is, personal progression may be well achieved by adventuring.
However, in the cases of many adventure scenarios, it might make more sense to take a different character class. A druid might have little interest in a dungeon delve where central aspects of nature aren't involved.
Hi! My pronouns are they/them. I've recently started DMing, so I'm not very experienced (yet).
Good question. And very good responses about possible motivations for adventuring for druids. I think a useful way to develop answers is to consider the druid's alignment and/or personality. For druids that aren't some form of neutral, it's very easy to develop a variety of different motivations for adventuring: adventuring will help the druid promote good/evil, etc. For druids that are some form of neutral, I think the question does make a lot of sense. And here are three general, plausible examples of motivations for neutral druids to engage in adventures:
Of course, 1 - 3 aren't mutually exclusive.
Started playing 1e in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in the last year.