I would say that druidic balance is the natural order. the planes are in check, the wolves (or any animal) live in harmony within their system. cities and nature, fey and undead; all stakeholders are represented and managed...
also,
they all speak druidic and no one else does. this indicates some organization. I will agree that not all druids will work together at all times. but they all have more in common than they have differences.
That sounds like the worst Project Management job ever. You are literally herding wild cats!
I would say that druidic balance is the natural order. the planes are in check, the wolves (or any animal) live in harmony within their system. cities and nature, fey and undead; all stakeholders are represented and managed...
also,
they all speak druidic and no one else does. this indicates some organization. I will agree that not all druids will work together at all times. but they all have more in common than they have differences.
I dunno, this is any "large group of people" problem. Saying they have a common language, doesn't mean anything the Gith are a fractured people who hate each other but share a common background. The drow and the high elves speak elven and hate each other. The fact that there is a language commonly used for "things relating to druiding" doesn't mean that these groups are all on the same team. Team good druids and team evil druids could have started as friends and splintered and hate each other. Doesn't mean they would give up the language.
Again: YMMV, and every table is different. If you want a single unified druid court that takes the good and takes the bad and then it has the facts of life, fine. If you want cells that know of one another and sometimes come together for common causes, that's fine too. If you want each druid group to be an island apart from the other, that can also work. My point was that you can't say any one of these is the way things are/represents the right depiction of druids. There's nothing supporting that in the source material, and there's no reason someone's game needs to behave that way.
Classes are "types", but to assume all druids work the same way/towards the same goals seems as off as thinking all fighters work towards the same goals or all clerics work towards the same goals. It's not in the books, but if you want to make a game that way, you totally could.
I would say that druidic balance is the natural order. the planes are in check, the wolves (or any animal) live in harmony within their system. cities and nature, fey and undead; all stakeholders are represented and managed...
also,
they all speak druidic and no one else does. this indicates some organization. I will agree that not all druids will work together at all times. but they all have more in common than they have differences.
That sounds like the worst Project Management job ever. You are literally herding wild cats!
Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, druids are part of a society that spans the land, ignoring political borders. All druids are nominally members of this druidic society, though some individuals are so isolated that they have never seen any high-ranking members of the society or participated in druidic gatherings. Druids recognize each other as brothers and sisters. Like creatures of the wilderness, however, druids sometimes compete with or even prey on each other.
At a local scale, druids are organized into circles that share certain perspectives on nature, balance, and the way of the druid.
the book (PHB above) says all druids are one group. this supports my original point of " but one druidic organization" and it certainly supports evil druids existing, which was never contested by anyone here.
I concede that one can play druids however they like at their table, the rules as written are merely guides.
I admit that, given the title of this thread, I did not expect this thread to be nearly so prolific. Druid is far from the most popularly chosen class, but there seems to be no shortage of people interested in analyzing what it means to be a druid.
Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, druids are part of a society that spans the land, ignoring political borders. All druids are nominally members of this druidic society, though some individuals are so isolated that they have never seen any high-ranking members of the society or participated in druidic gatherings. Druids recognize each other as brothers and sisters. Like creatures of the wilderness, however, druids sometimes compete with or even prey on each other.
At a local scale, druids are organized into circles that share certain perspectives on nature, balance, and the way of the druid.
the book (PHB above) says all druids are one group. this supports my original point of " but one druidic organization" and it certainly supports evil druids existing, which was never contested by anyone here.
I concede that one can play druids however they like at their table, the rules as written are merely guides.
Things we agree on: There is no rule that a large druidic omni-group couldn't exist, and that in said group both good, evil and neutral would likely be represented. Evil druids can (and should!) exist in just about any campaign.
Where communication is breaking down: The idea that ALL druids are part of this omni-group. "Nominally part of" means exactly what it says, part of it "in name only". You could make the argument that the druid omni-group may consider all druids members, but that the individual members themselves disagree about who is and isn't a member. How an evil druid who kills other druids feels he's part of the same group as those druids is beyond me. I don't think a wolf would feel a part of the same group as the sheep it prey's upon.
That said, this is a perfectly fine point to point out, as you did, that anyone can build a world however they want at their table, and that the rules are just a starting point. We're really just arguing semantics/philosophy here.
I'd like to just point out that while druids may all feel semi-kinship (maybe) Circles are there to show the division between thoughts of the world by their members. For example, Circle of Spores encourages undeath, while the rest of them try to actively take out undead and see them as an abomination.
Circle of spores doesn't really encourage "Undeath" more like it encourages other forms of life. I mean the spores that infect their targets are still alive it is just the host that has perished. More like they have recycled life...
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Circle of spores doesn't really encourage "Undeath" more like it encourages other forms of life. I mean the spores that infect their targets are still alive it is just the host that has perished. More like they have recycled life...
No, its totally undeath. The Circle of Spores was a stealth-test for the Ravnica Golgari guild, and they very much do practice actual necromancy and believe that the undead do represent a part of nature.
Whether it is a thin disguise for something else they modeled it after the version that was put forth in UA does not explicitly deal with undeath. : P
Besides I prefer my Recycler druid idea hahaha.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I agree that "nominally a part of" is suitably vague to allow anything from a perfect marriage of two circles to all out war. In my mind, that does not break the omni-group notion. As you said we certainly are just arguing druid philosophy, and the finer points of balance. I suppose the discussion has run its course and the OP is resolved; evil druids fit just fine.
book of vile darkness,... i believe they were called vermin fiends? i could look it up, but im lazy. and, 3.5 was too long ago for my synapses to properly recollect.
In any case, there are always SOME people who, when devoted to a cause, become more and more extreme and blinded to other ideas in pursuit of one single point of view, rejecting all introspection or ideas that refute their pet theory/cause/tunnel vision. (IE modern politics and activism.)
So, druids pursue balance in all things.
One druid is fond of dandelions, and is sad that they are called weeds, eradicated from lawns and generally disrespected by people, even though they have wonderful herbal, decorative and edible qualities. Meanwhile Roses, somewhat prettier, with the same good qualities, but harder to propagate and thorny, receive accolades, poems written in their honor, gardens and gardeners dedicated to their care, and general love from everyone.
This is imbalance.
Dandelion Druid decides to correct this. They start with a campaign of PR, promoting the good qualities of dandelions, making dandelion wine and giving it away, encouraging gardeners to add a dandelion bed, trying to convince towns to hold dandelion festivals where they celebrate dandelions and have a dandelion seed blowing event. (Ha, roses, try and match those mobile seeds for pure entertainment!)
That doesn't work. Something more drastic must be done! The druid starts seeding dandelions everywhere they go, uprooting rose gardens in the night and replacing them with dandelion patches, quietly spreading vile rumors about the local rose club, claiming it is a cover for a demonic cult trying to raise thorn demons. The druid gets caught one night vandalizing a rose garden and is charged a hefty fine and spends a few days in prison, even though the druid points out that they only replaced HALF the roses with dandelions, and that nature demanded balance.
Seriously POed, the druid stomps off to sulk in their tree house, and decides that if people insist on mistreating dandelions and will not be swayed by peaceful means, they will find OTHER means. They develop a new potion that can give plants power, mobility, and rage against anyone who eats vegetables or pulls weeds. The druid disguises themselves (they have a restraining order to keep them out of rose gardens) and sprays it all over the local roses. That night, an army of angry, thorn-covered rose people tear their roots out of the garden and terrorize the villagers, destroying property, scaring off animals, and eating a few children (which is fine because people have a tendency to overpopulate their environments, amirite?) A heroic band of adventurers turns up and chops the rose monsters into potpourri.
In the morning, the druid wanders into town sadly, saying, "I tried to warn you. This wouldn't have happened with dandelions." Some people dig up their roses. Others are suspicious. The party of adventurers sneaks into the druid's treehouse while they are off communing with their dandelion garden and discovers the potion and the many scribbled formulas and insane rants the druid left lying around while they were creating it.
The adventurers try to kill the insane dandelion druid, but they escape. The adventurers set fire to the tree house and the dandelion garden! Hearing the death cries of the dandelions, the druid swears vengeance. They are done playing nice. They find a cave and start making their potion: bigger, badder than ever. THIS time they use it to create an army of dandelion warriors who can reseed themselves at an alarming rate and destroy every non-dandelion in their path with their milky, poisonous sap and their seed-dart explosions. Evil? This is not evil. This is being done purely for the sake of balance. It's to save the dandelions.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Well said well put. Even going with something like the perennial, humans are an infection and need to be cleansed from this earth type scenario would fit in with a BBEG.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Reidoth in my campain is an evil druid. He spreads the blight and buys plant growth scroll to hasten the process. He also has a few levels in wizard and intents to use the gulthias sapling he has to become a powerful lich. The party will waste away their time now setting up base while my BBEG druid turn into a druidic lich that has a blight army at his command.
Well Jmelton the circle of rot sounds to me like this homebrew circle I'm actually making off-D&D Beyond called the Circle of Shadows... works more underground, leads crusades through the Shadowfell and Underdark, meets there, basically Gloom Stalker Rangers but even more dark. Also borderline necrotic-based because they can suck the sunlight out of the sky and make people wither to death (though this is good in the anti-aberration fight because it destroys beholder eye rays!). At least this is what I've got so far, and it sounds like both that circle and mine can be very evil. After all, there's no "strictly good" in the shadows...
Additionally the Circle of Rot sounds like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything's Circle of Fungi, which is happy about what mold and mushrooms can do. I find that kind of funny because... maybe you get where I'm going with mushrooms.
I am currently playing a lawful evil druid. I am going to be going with a homebrew circle I found on dndwiki called the circle of rot. My race is also a homebrew I found here called bloodborn. I am borderline undead with a borderline necromantic druid circle...gonna be very interesting.
In relevance to this, which sounds fun... additionally what is a bloodborn? I'm thinking that they're blood from some kind of creature that regenerates (I would say the Tarrasque but it doesn't have that anymore, so maybe an evil wizard that does a special ritual) that takes a humanoid form... Oh wow I just Googled it that's even weirder
this whole thread is actually a fine example of what Druids used to all be Neutral. This opening up of alignment has caused more of a problem than it has been a fix.
When they opened it up they should have just made it any of the three alignments on the Neutral Axis and left it at that. It would have created it's own problems because most people play chaotic stupid instead of chaotic neutral but it would have been more fitting.
Precisely because Good and Evil does not mean much for Druids. They will do both good and evil. And they will do them to both hurt and hinder other people, society, or whatever in the name of the balance of nature.
This is why I ignore good and evil when I make my Druids. I just stick somewhere in the Neutral plane and Do Both. Sometimes I do a bit more of one than I do another. But not enough to really shift me out of that space. Because Good and Evil doesn't really matter in nature. However Nature does have a rather complex relationship with Law and Chaos. Because some things about nature are complexly ordered and other things about nature have quite the bent of randomness and disrupting that order based upon a conflicting set of rules being introduced in different ways causing disruption. This is far more important to Druids. Do they help maintain a delicate intricate balance or do they inject disrupting elements into things.
Neutral Good and Neutral evil. They may have been left in because somebody thought it was simpler and they were more about making more choice. But when Druids really do their jobs well. These are alignments that are much harder to maintain. Because Druids are inevitably going to violate the good or evil part of these alignments and potentially see their alignments shift.
Edit: Also. somebody brought up the Lizard Folk. They aren't evil just because of Cannibalism and don't have to consider themselves evil to actually be evil. But they are a violent and antagonistic race. Even to each other. Often using force and discounting many consequences or even compassion for other sentient living things. But what they do while it is "Evil" is natural. They tend to be fairly destructive on several levels to the world around them. A Lizardfolk Druid in general (remember PC's are basically walking exceptions rather than stereotypes) would effectively be a case of honing and directing that destruction more than it would be to stop it. It would balance thriving and the damage that can cause with the preservation of things with the goal of making sure that thriving is maintained over the long term.
Yeah there are examples all over the place where it's not evil, it's nature like as you brought up lizardfolk will kill if the situation calls for it but not out of complete evil. Additionally, when the Tarrasque tail-slams you to kingdom come, it isn't evil. It is however an uncaring, unaligned monster who doesn't give a crap about your life. Or like how thri-kreen are completely willing to make you their next meal if you don't do them any good or slack off, but are actually chaotic neutral and completely willing to help.
In the end it's all perspective. I lied about my Circle of Shadows; I actually made the Circle of the Wastelands. These druids have figured out that while nuclear radiation is bad for humans, elves, and basically any other non-cockroach-based humanoid, it doesn't hurt animals in the long term. They are fine with incinerating people and committing war crimes to bring back natural balance that was lost in some places after people moved on from natural (and most arcane) magic and went to making technology and machinery.
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That sounds like the worst Project Management job ever. You are literally herding wild cats!
I dunno, this is any "large group of people" problem. Saying they have a common language, doesn't mean anything the Gith are a fractured people who hate each other but share a common background. The drow and the high elves speak elven and hate each other. The fact that there is a language commonly used for "things relating to druiding" doesn't mean that these groups are all on the same team. Team good druids and team evil druids could have started as friends and splintered and hate each other. Doesn't mean they would give up the language.
Again: YMMV, and every table is different. If you want a single unified druid court that takes the good and takes the bad and then it has the facts of life, fine. If you want cells that know of one another and sometimes come together for common causes, that's fine too. If you want each druid group to be an island apart from the other, that can also work. My point was that you can't say any one of these is the way things are/represents the right depiction of druids. There's nothing supporting that in the source material, and there's no reason someone's game needs to behave that way.
Classes are "types", but to assume all druids work the same way/towards the same goals seems as off as thinking all fighters work towards the same goals or all clerics work towards the same goals. It's not in the books, but if you want to make a game that way, you totally could.
Cats work best in an Agile environment.
...
...
I'll see myself out...
Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, druids are part of a society that spans the land, ignoring political borders. All druids are nominally members of this druidic society, though some individuals are so isolated that they have never seen any high-ranking members of the society or participated in druidic gatherings. Druids recognize each other as brothers and sisters. Like creatures of the wilderness, however, druids sometimes compete with or even prey on each other.
At a local scale, druids are organized into circles that share certain perspectives on nature, balance, and the way of the druid.
the book (PHB above) says all druids are one group. this supports my original point of " but one druidic organization" and it certainly supports evil druids existing, which was never contested by anyone here.
I concede that one can play druids however they like at their table, the rules as written are merely guides.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
I admit that, given the title of this thread, I did not expect this thread to be nearly so prolific. Druid is far from the most popularly chosen class, but there seems to be no shortage of people interested in analyzing what it means to be a druid.
Things we agree on: There is no rule that a large druidic omni-group couldn't exist, and that in said group both good, evil and neutral would likely be represented. Evil druids can (and should!) exist in just about any campaign.
Where communication is breaking down: The idea that ALL druids are part of this omni-group. "Nominally part of" means exactly what it says, part of it "in name only". You could make the argument that the druid omni-group may consider all druids members, but that the individual members themselves disagree about who is and isn't a member. How an evil druid who kills other druids feels he's part of the same group as those druids is beyond me. I don't think a wolf would feel a part of the same group as the sheep it prey's upon.
That said, this is a perfectly fine point to point out, as you did, that anyone can build a world however they want at their table, and that the rules are just a starting point. We're really just arguing semantics/philosophy here.
I'd like to just point out that while druids may all feel semi-kinship (maybe) Circles are there to show the division between thoughts of the world by their members. For example, Circle of Spores encourages undeath, while the rest of them try to actively take out undead and see them as an abomination.
Circle of spores doesn't really encourage "Undeath" more like it encourages other forms of life. I mean the spores that infect their targets are still alive it is just the host that has perished. More like they have recycled life...
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
No, its totally undeath. The Circle of Spores was a stealth-test for the Ravnica Golgari guild, and they very much do practice actual necromancy and believe that the undead do represent a part of nature.
Whether it is a thin disguise for something else they modeled it after the version that was put forth in UA does not explicitly deal with undeath. : P
Besides I prefer my Recycler druid idea hahaha.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I agree that "nominally a part of" is suitably vague to allow anything from a perfect marriage of two circles to all out war. In my mind, that does not break the omni-group notion. As you said we certainly are just arguing druid philosophy, and the finer points of balance. I suppose the discussion has run its course and the OP is resolved; evil druids fit just fine.
Thanks for the discussion,
cheers
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
book of vile darkness,... i believe they were called vermin fiends? i could look it up, but im lazy. and, 3.5 was too long ago for my synapses to properly recollect.
In any case, there are always SOME people who, when devoted to a cause, become more and more extreme and blinded to other ideas in pursuit of one single point of view, rejecting all introspection or ideas that refute their pet theory/cause/tunnel vision. (IE modern politics and activism.)
So, druids pursue balance in all things.
One druid is fond of dandelions, and is sad that they are called weeds, eradicated from lawns and generally disrespected by people, even though they have wonderful herbal, decorative and edible qualities. Meanwhile Roses, somewhat prettier, with the same good qualities, but harder to propagate and thorny, receive accolades, poems written in their honor, gardens and gardeners dedicated to their care, and general love from everyone.
This is imbalance.
Dandelion Druid decides to correct this. They start with a campaign of PR, promoting the good qualities of dandelions, making dandelion wine and giving it away, encouraging gardeners to add a dandelion bed, trying to convince towns to hold dandelion festivals where they celebrate dandelions and have a dandelion seed blowing event. (Ha, roses, try and match those mobile seeds for pure entertainment!)
That doesn't work. Something more drastic must be done! The druid starts seeding dandelions everywhere they go, uprooting rose gardens in the night and replacing them with dandelion patches, quietly spreading vile rumors about the local rose club, claiming it is a cover for a demonic cult trying to raise thorn demons. The druid gets caught one night vandalizing a rose garden and is charged a hefty fine and spends a few days in prison, even though the druid points out that they only replaced HALF the roses with dandelions, and that nature demanded balance.
Seriously POed, the druid stomps off to sulk in their tree house, and decides that if people insist on mistreating dandelions and will not be swayed by peaceful means, they will find OTHER means. They develop a new potion that can give plants power, mobility, and rage against anyone who eats vegetables or pulls weeds. The druid disguises themselves (they have a restraining order to keep them out of rose gardens) and sprays it all over the local roses. That night, an army of angry, thorn-covered rose people tear their roots out of the garden and terrorize the villagers, destroying property, scaring off animals, and eating a few children (which is fine because people have a tendency to overpopulate their environments, amirite?) A heroic band of adventurers turns up and chops the rose monsters into potpourri.
In the morning, the druid wanders into town sadly, saying, "I tried to warn you. This wouldn't have happened with dandelions." Some people dig up their roses. Others are suspicious. The party of adventurers sneaks into the druid's treehouse while they are off communing with their dandelion garden and discovers the potion and the many scribbled formulas and insane rants the druid left lying around while they were creating it.
The adventurers try to kill the insane dandelion druid, but they escape. The adventurers set fire to the tree house and the dandelion garden! Hearing the death cries of the dandelions, the druid swears vengeance. They are done playing nice. They find a cave and start making their potion: bigger, badder than ever. THIS time they use it to create an army of dandelion warriors who can reseed themselves at an alarming rate and destroy every non-dandelion in their path with their milky, poisonous sap and their seed-dart explosions. Evil? This is not evil. This is being done purely for the sake of balance. It's to save the dandelions.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Well said well put. Even going with something like the perennial, humans are an infection and need to be cleansed from this earth type scenario would fit in with a BBEG.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Reidoth in my campain is an evil druid. He spreads the blight and buys plant growth scroll to hasten the process. He also has a few levels in wizard and intents to use the gulthias sapling he has to become a powerful lich. The party will waste away their time now setting up base while my BBEG druid turn into a druidic lich that has a blight army at his command.
That...^^...is quite a cool idea.
I have contemplated druidic vampires before (half way there with shapechanging anyway!)
Well Jmelton the circle of rot sounds to me like this homebrew circle I'm actually making off-D&D Beyond called the Circle of Shadows... works more underground, leads crusades through the Shadowfell and Underdark, meets there, basically Gloom Stalker Rangers but even more dark. Also borderline necrotic-based because they can suck the sunlight out of the sky and make people wither to death (though this is good in the anti-aberration fight because it destroys beholder eye rays!). At least this is what I've got so far, and it sounds like both that circle and mine can be very evil. After all, there's no "strictly good" in the shadows...
Additionally the Circle of Rot sounds like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything's Circle of Fungi, which is happy about what mold and mushrooms can do. I find that kind of funny because... maybe you get where I'm going with mushrooms.
In relevance to this, which sounds fun... additionally what is a bloodborn? I'm thinking that they're blood from some kind of creature that regenerates (I would say the Tarrasque but it doesn't have that anymore, so maybe an evil wizard that does a special ritual) that takes a humanoid form... Oh wow I just Googled it that's even weirder
this whole thread is actually a fine example of what Druids used to all be Neutral. This opening up of alignment has caused more of a problem than it has been a fix.
When they opened it up they should have just made it any of the three alignments on the Neutral Axis and left it at that. It would have created it's own problems because most people play chaotic stupid instead of chaotic neutral but it would have been more fitting.
Precisely because Good and Evil does not mean much for Druids. They will do both good and evil. And they will do them to both hurt and hinder other people, society, or whatever in the name of the balance of nature.
This is why I ignore good and evil when I make my Druids. I just stick somewhere in the Neutral plane and Do Both. Sometimes I do a bit more of one than I do another. But not enough to really shift me out of that space. Because Good and Evil doesn't really matter in nature. However Nature does have a rather complex relationship with Law and Chaos. Because some things about nature are complexly ordered and other things about nature have quite the bent of randomness and disrupting that order based upon a conflicting set of rules being introduced in different ways causing disruption. This is far more important to Druids. Do they help maintain a delicate intricate balance or do they inject disrupting elements into things.
Neutral Good and Neutral evil. They may have been left in because somebody thought it was simpler and they were more about making more choice. But when Druids really do their jobs well. These are alignments that are much harder to maintain. Because Druids are inevitably going to violate the good or evil part of these alignments and potentially see their alignments shift.
Edit: Also. somebody brought up the Lizard Folk. They aren't evil just because of Cannibalism and don't have to consider themselves evil to actually be evil. But they are a violent and antagonistic race. Even to each other. Often using force and discounting many consequences or even compassion for other sentient living things. But what they do while it is "Evil" is natural. They tend to be fairly destructive on several levels to the world around them. A Lizardfolk Druid in general (remember PC's are basically walking exceptions rather than stereotypes) would effectively be a case of honing and directing that destruction more than it would be to stop it. It would balance thriving and the damage that can cause with the preservation of things with the goal of making sure that thriving is maintained over the long term.
Yeah there are examples all over the place where it's not evil, it's nature like as you brought up lizardfolk will kill if the situation calls for it but not out of complete evil. Additionally, when the Tarrasque tail-slams you to kingdom come, it isn't evil. It is however an uncaring, unaligned monster who doesn't give a crap about your life. Or like how thri-kreen are completely willing to make you their next meal if you don't do them any good or slack off, but are actually chaotic neutral and completely willing to help.
In the end it's all perspective. I lied about my Circle of Shadows; I actually made the Circle of the Wastelands. These druids have figured out that while nuclear radiation is bad for humans, elves, and basically any other non-cockroach-based humanoid, it doesn't hurt animals in the long term. They are fine with incinerating people and committing war crimes to bring back natural balance that was lost in some places after people moved on from natural (and most arcane) magic and went to making technology and machinery.