So, I have been thinking of how I can expand my Druidic culture, and following suggestions on my ideas from my last post on here and from others, I have decided not to use "Circle of the Land" as the Hufflepuff of the Druid world.

Instead, I decided to create a whole new circle.  "Circle of The Sun"

Essentially this circle is a total rip off of Atenism from ancient Egypt.  The whole shebang.

Druids of the Circle of The Sun; don't worship nature spirits or naturen Gods at all, instead they have a monotheistic religion that is centred around the worship of the sun - which they have turned into a God.

So although members of this circle still call themselves Druids and consider themselves to be part of a circle, other Druids consider them to be much more of a cult and view them with suspicion and Loathing.

So now, the circle of the sun becomes the outcasts.  Those who have rejected thethe tradit and laws of the rest of Druidic society, because they are either too weak or too afraid to face the trials and join one of the "proper" circles.

Just wondering what you guys thought, specifically about rippen off a whole part of ancient Egyptian history.

Stealing from history is highly encouraged! 

Just look at the Forgotten Realms, they stole the entire Egyptian Pantheon.

DM rule number one: rip of everything, change it a bit and use it. you have permission (because of your DM title), as long as its you homegame you are good. also no one have a claim on history. I have basically stolen and repacacked a whole plot of a book, and so many NPCs is just my best impression of different characters from pop culture. 

I ripped off, the entire Greek, Norse Gods, Percey Jackson's half-gods ( one parent was a God)  and  Hogwarts. Everything you can think of is fair use, I know a guy who's entire campaign is based off Doctor Who.

Sounds like this druid circle would be better represented mechanically as a "druid" circle which has mostly Clerics with the Nature or Light domain.

On topic: Rip off everything.

Stealing cultures in D&D is a time honored tradition. As pointed out: Forgotten Realms.

My recommended twist with it though, is to change aspects of it to make it harder to recognize.

For example: in my current campaign world, the people in my Viking analog culture are a mix of Nordic culture, with Maasai ethnicity, and aspects of a few other cultures added into the mix in certain areas ( mostly around customs and manners ).

Copying a cultural facet makes it easier on you - less design time - but changing it up and making it a bit novel keeps players from making too many assumptions about what's going on.

Stealing from Egyptian History is a horrible thing to do! 

Signed,

The_Plundered_Tombs.

(Also, "A whole part" seems kinda redundant! :D )

Quote from The_Plundered_Tombs >>

Stealing from Egyptian History is a horrible thing to do! 

Signed,

The_Plundered_Tombs.

(Also, "A whole part" seems kinda redundant! :D )

 

This made me smile lol.  Thanks for the chuckles :P

I'm curious though, if druids aren't worshipping nature spirits or nature gods, then they shouldn't be able to get their druidic power from nature.  Instead, wouldn't it make more sense for them to get their power from sun?

So they like wide open sunny places and tend to be friends with other races or creatures who either enjoy the sun or draw their power from it.

I'm also thinking that when autumn begins to turn to winter and the days get shorter (less hours of sun light) these druids come together to perform various rituals to stave off the encroaching dark, cold nights and short days of winter and then have a big festival in the spring, to celebrate the he end of winter, the return of the sun and the days getting longer.

So their rituals during winter are like a prayer to their god, not to forget about or abandon them and then their spring festival is like the joys welcoming back of their god and a prayer to set them in good stead for the coming year.

Does this sound like the kind of thing that druids would do?

Religions don't have to make sense!

But...if the druids have a vital role in encouraging the end of winter, then it would make sense for Nature to lend power to them, as without the Sun, Nature is not going to fair very well. 
Getting your power from the sun is not too far fetched either. There are quite a few people up and down my street who harness power from the sun. (Or claim to - who really knows what those shiny roofs are doing?)

Perhaps the leaders of the druids of the "Circle of the Sun" are actually Yuan-ti or similar reptillian (and thus sun worshipping) creatures. Conversely, maybe there is a secret cult of cold worshipping creatures that conduct rituals to encourage the onset of winter (in this world we call them George R.R. Martin fans but you could use Yetis or Star-spawn)

If you tell the players something with conviction, and you truly believe it (despite knowing you made it all up) then they will get on board. Heck, they accept the existence of dragons, right? (Some people even believe in Book 7 of GOT, but they are crazy!)

(Most) People play D&D because they want to experience something that goes beyond their daily lives. Dream it, and they will come...

Good luck. Keep dreaming.

In answer to your does this sound like something druids would do, out of the 400 or so Celtic deities worshiped from Ireland to what's now Germany round the first century, it looks like about 50 or so of them had links to the sun and had specific festivals around the equinoxes and solstices, I say this as some idiot who is currently attempting to translate this bunch for use as the gods of one of my game world continents along with the pre Roman religious system, it's difficult as the only people who made any real records of it were Roman and they tended to call the Celtic gods by the names of the equivalent Roman god

I am thinking of something like this.

Every year, storm giant gods blow down cold air from the mountains and with it comes the storm giants themselves, who come to raid the towns and villages and plunder the forests in the world below their moutain homes.

So every year an ancient battle is fought, between the storm giant gods and the druids of the circle of the sun - who use the power of their God (the sun, having came up with a name yet) to hold at bay and eventually drive back the giant gods and their giant kin.

With the coming of spring, the giants retreat back to their mountain homes.

The two forces can never truly defeat the other because both sides are needed to maintain balance.

When the sun god rests, the world grows calm and still and with regenerates itself.  Then with the coming of spring, the lord's of winter retreat and the with the coming of the sun, new life springs forth.

That kind of thing 

Actually, further research indicates that maybe storm giants are too damn powerful an opponent for Druids.  I need to do my looking through the MM I think

a handful of Frost Giants may work well for you in place of the storm giants.  The Storm Giants can still be the progenitors of the wind, only the frost giants are the ones doing the actual raiding.  that way you have a BBEG in the background and a large force to work through as well