Greetings friends. I am knee deep in world building my campaign and I would like to reach out to Druid lovers to help me build an NPC Order of Druids, that some might look upon as a cult.
The rulers of Calanthi figured out that if they get a bunch of druids to help them with Plant Growth, the kingdom will have much more food with less total resources being devoted to farming. So, they have entered into an agreement with Druids to bless the land once a year with Plant Growth in exchange for giving the Druid Order an hundred acres in each Barony for the Druids to live in apart from the citizens of the kingdom. It is something like an embassy in that they are the sole authority in these lands. Another group in the kingdom, the diplomats, are allowed to visit the Druids in their land but they are not allowed to exercise the authority of the Kingdom in the Druid retreats. Since the Druids want to do the Blessing thing within a month so they may have the other months to pursue their own interests, it takes 17 druids to perform this function in one month per Barony. A few top druids are not going to spend their time doing this and only druids 5th level and higher can do the spell, so each Forest Reserve (Druid Retreat, Grove or what have you) has at least 20 druids at 5th level or above, and a handful of lower level druids working their way up. In addition, the Druids are permitted to have families, so there is an Hamlet inside each of these areas where the families live.
So, given that functional description, can anyone offer some ideas on what these guys are all about? I Imagine they are mostly Circle of the Land Druids. They have some sort of hierarchy and the top druid in each group is called a Shepherd and the Group is called a Herd. Within the kingdom there are about 1000+ of these individual groups in Calanthi, so that makes over 24,000 druids, which is quite a sizeable population before you consider their families too. In essence, they are a nation within a nation. There are so many, the Country has to allow Druids to immigrate from outside the country to keep the numbers up. This means that these Druids might be the most diverse group, in the context of backgrounds and ethnicity, in the whole country.
In the Capital City, there is a special garden that is the embassy of the Druids. When an official of the kingdom wishes to confer with the druids, they arrange for a meeting in the garden. The garden is located in the Government District in the area where the other nation's diplomats live. So the garden is where many diplomats spend quiet time.
The nation is very keen on their archives, but they don't have much in the archives concerning the internal dealings of the Druids. The Druids have a method of recording their history in magical books that are not material. When a druid reaches a high enough level in their society, they learn the Archival Tome Ritual. With that, they create for themselves a kind of journal that they may write in but it has no physical form. They may also read the contents of another journal from their Order once they know the sigil of that volume. They may also show the contents of their volume or another to a third party. For this reason, the Calanthi Diplomats seek to form close friendships with members of The Order. The diplomats trade information with the Druids; sometimes they trade for historical sake and sometimes for other reasons. This whole relationship helps the two groups maintain a bond. Unfortunately, folks with some authority not within the Diplomatic circles believe this is not an entirely wholesome relationship.
The kingdom supports the druid hamlets, and the druids make that easy to do. In exchange for the food and other support given to the druids apart from their acres, the druids grow special stands of trees that are harvested in exchange for the support. The druids get a thousand bushels of grain, the nobles get 2000 board feet of ideal furniture wood, or oak for ships, or yew for bows, or hickory for tool handles. They have a good relationship ... it seems.
So if anyone can help me build out these druids, I would like to hear some ideas. Thanks.
What type of fantasy game are you trying to run? By that I mean what kind of stakes do you anticipate and to what degree have the players agreed to them? I'm asking b/c you have obvs put a lot of thought into this, and there are a lot of different directions you can take this.
If this is an "epic fantasy" game, you are looking at existential stakes. The Druids must be suspected of collaborating with the BBEG trying to literally conquer the main "good people" kingdom and kill/enslave everyone. Think of Lord of the Rings.
If this is a "war simulation" game, you are looking at which faction of the war, the Druids are most likely to support, possibly with some internal political struggles thrown in. Think of Game of Thrones. A game centered on political intrigue would look similar to this, as far as the Druids are concerned.
If you are going for a "swords and sorcery" fantasy, then it probably doesn't matter since the players likely would not care.
I am currently running the campaign for just my brother and his family, with my wife and son also playing. Six characters and one DM has certain challenges.
They are not interacting with the Druid component of this setting right now. They are about to meet the level 5 challenge of fighting a horde of Gnolls swarming south, and they will meet the Black Dragon, which is the real threat to overcome by level 10. The Black Dragon has pushed the Gnolls south away from his domain.
However, there is a druid in the party (my son's character, who is the most adept D&D player at the table) and I want to give him something to experience if he chooses to go down that thread.
I am also building this as a setting so future adventures can be scripted inside this world.
I do expect to have an adventure where a group of the druids start acting like they are not getting a fair shake in this arrangement.
In another adventure, a group of druids were sitting on an ancient library from a cult of water elemental worshipers. They didn't know it until someone came to find the library trying to make use of it without the druids finding out.
So, right now I'm not sure where this thread goes, or where this thread ends.
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Greetings friends. I am knee deep in world building my campaign and I would like to reach out to Druid lovers to help me build an NPC Order of Druids, that some might look upon as a cult.
The rulers of Calanthi figured out that if they get a bunch of druids to help them with Plant Growth, the kingdom will have much more food with less total resources being devoted to farming. So, they have entered into an agreement with Druids to bless the land once a year with Plant Growth in exchange for giving the Druid Order an hundred acres in each Barony for the Druids to live in apart from the citizens of the kingdom. It is something like an embassy in that they are the sole authority in these lands. Another group in the kingdom, the diplomats, are allowed to visit the Druids in their land but they are not allowed to exercise the authority of the Kingdom in the Druid retreats. Since the Druids want to do the Blessing thing within a month so they may have the other months to pursue their own interests, it takes 17 druids to perform this function in one month per Barony. A few top druids are not going to spend their time doing this and only druids 5th level and higher can do the spell, so each Forest Reserve (Druid Retreat, Grove or what have you) has at least 20 druids at 5th level or above, and a handful of lower level druids working their way up. In addition, the Druids are permitted to have families, so there is an Hamlet inside each of these areas where the families live.
So, given that functional description, can anyone offer some ideas on what these guys are all about? I Imagine they are mostly Circle of the Land Druids. They have some sort of hierarchy and the top druid in each group is called a Shepherd and the Group is called a Herd. Within the kingdom there are about 1000+ of these individual groups in Calanthi, so that makes over 24,000 druids, which is quite a sizeable population before you consider their families too. In essence, they are a nation within a nation. There are so many, the Country has to allow Druids to immigrate from outside the country to keep the numbers up. This means that these Druids might be the most diverse group, in the context of backgrounds and ethnicity, in the whole country.
In the Capital City, there is a special garden that is the embassy of the Druids. When an official of the kingdom wishes to confer with the druids, they arrange for a meeting in the garden. The garden is located in the Government District in the area where the other nation's diplomats live. So the garden is where many diplomats spend quiet time.
The nation is very keen on their archives, but they don't have much in the archives concerning the internal dealings of the Druids. The Druids have a method of recording their history in magical books that are not material. When a druid reaches a high enough level in their society, they learn the Archival Tome Ritual. With that, they create for themselves a kind of journal that they may write in but it has no physical form. They may also read the contents of another journal from their Order once they know the sigil of that volume. They may also show the contents of their volume or another to a third party. For this reason, the Calanthi Diplomats seek to form close friendships with members of The Order. The diplomats trade information with the Druids; sometimes they trade for historical sake and sometimes for other reasons. This whole relationship helps the two groups maintain a bond. Unfortunately, folks with some authority not within the Diplomatic circles believe this is not an entirely wholesome relationship.
The kingdom supports the druid hamlets, and the druids make that easy to do. In exchange for the food and other support given to the druids apart from their acres, the druids grow special stands of trees that are harvested in exchange for the support. The druids get a thousand bushels of grain, the nobles get 2000 board feet of ideal furniture wood, or oak for ships, or yew for bows, or hickory for tool handles. They have a good relationship ... it seems.
So if anyone can help me build out these druids, I would like to hear some ideas. Thanks.
What type of fantasy game are you trying to run? By that I mean what kind of stakes do you anticipate and to what degree have the players agreed to them? I'm asking b/c you have obvs put a lot of thought into this, and there are a lot of different directions you can take this.
If this is an "epic fantasy" game, you are looking at existential stakes. The Druids must be suspected of collaborating with the BBEG trying to literally conquer the main "good people" kingdom and kill/enslave everyone. Think of Lord of the Rings.
If this is a "war simulation" game, you are looking at which faction of the war, the Druids are most likely to support, possibly with some internal political struggles thrown in. Think of Game of Thrones. A game centered on political intrigue would look similar to this, as far as the Druids are concerned.
If you are going for a "swords and sorcery" fantasy, then it probably doesn't matter since the players likely would not care.
I am currently running the campaign for just my brother and his family, with my wife and son also playing. Six characters and one DM has certain challenges.
They are not interacting with the Druid component of this setting right now. They are about to meet the level 5 challenge of fighting a horde of Gnolls swarming south, and they will meet the Black Dragon, which is the real threat to overcome by level 10. The Black Dragon has pushed the Gnolls south away from his domain.
However, there is a druid in the party (my son's character, who is the most adept D&D player at the table) and I want to give him something to experience if he chooses to go down that thread.
I am also building this as a setting so future adventures can be scripted inside this world.
I do expect to have an adventure where a group of the druids start acting like they are not getting a fair shake in this arrangement.
In another adventure, a group of druids were sitting on an ancient library from a cult of water elemental worshipers. They didn't know it until someone came to find the library trying to make use of it without the druids finding out.
So, right now I'm not sure where this thread goes, or where this thread ends.