Druid Calling

After being stricken with a strange sniffly illness, and lost in the wilderness for several days, I have returned to share with you the secrets of the ancient Druids!

Let us bravely venture forth into this uncharted territory, and I shall guide you path afterwards:

As you can see, the Druid offers many new options for your character, but I'll tame my wild excitement, and focus on a few aspects that I think are exceptionally nifty and keen.

Druid Domains

The four Druid Domains, which are easily expanded upon, are what makes a standard Fighter or Rogue into a Ranger, for all intents and purposes.

Domains grant the required Survival Skills, and perks, you expect real ranger folk to have, from the classic forest guardian, to the spelunking subterranean warden, and the swamp walker, or those who traverse the frigid mountaintops, we cover  the basics here to make a wide variety of druid characters.

Druid Familiars

What Druid doesn't have a loyal animal companion, such as an astute owl, a canny wolf, or a brutish but fiercely protective bear, or perhaps you want all of those... well, be our guest.

Familiars are the first instance where we leverage the Sylvan Beast stat blocks found at the end of the Druid Talents section, but they also serve the Shapeshift and Summoning spells (see below).

Harsh Terrain

This spell allows the Druid to alter the battlefield by controlling the environment, but this dweomer of fey magic only affects those the caster chooses. We loved the idea of the Druid calling upon the environment itself to hinder their foes, don't mess with mother nature!

Also, I learned the word word "dweomer" from an eldritch Gygaxian tome, just FYI.

Rampant Growth

When I think of Druids, I picture them making stuff grow dammit!

This spell fits the bill, allowing the Druid to increase a creature's Size, Hit Points, and Damage. This spell is especially effective in allowing the Druid to enlarge the wild beasts they summon, but it works just as effectively on friends, even Pecklyn (halflings).

Shapeshifting & Summoning

Shapeshifting and Summoning is the heart of the Druid, in our minds anyway.

Each of these talents allows the Druid to build up points, via spending Iron, which allows them to summon or shapeshift into a greater and wider variety of beasts, based on the points they accumulate.

The stat blocks for the beasts are kept fairly generic and simple, so as not to bog down the player with complex stat blocks, and we will likely add more variety after the full play test, but this gives you a good idea of how we want these particular Druid magics to work.

Dual Callings

We now have Three Callings to crossover, the Fighter, Warlock, and Druid.

As mentioned above, the Fighter Druid (Ranger) has a cornucopia of combinations you can make using these two callings, so here's a few rough examples:

Wilder Beast: Combine the Brawling and Berserker Fighter Talents, with the Druid's Feral Embrace, and maybe add a touch of Fey Healing, and you get your archetypal Canadian Berserker, so to speak :)

Wolf Pack: Your Fighter can be the leader of a small wolf pack, perhaps two or three wolves that they summon, or maybe they are familiars, waiting for your Fighter's Battle Cry!

Winged Scout: Here's an idea, why not turn into a Hawk, fly over the bandit camp, then once you've sussed out their formation, drop down and shapeshift back into a fully geared fighter... fun stuff!

Well, that's just a few Fighter Druid combos, but what about Druid Warlock (Grimwolf)?

We have a few treats for you here as well.

Vile Beasts: Why summon a normal bear, when a Druid Warlock can summon an Undead Bear, or a ghostly Owl, or perhaps a Demonic Wolf. After a slight rules tweak (that I'd meant to build in earlier), the Warlock can now add an Occult Creature Type to the beasts they summon, and shapeshift into.

Thrall Growth: If your Warlock likes summoning a Vile Thrall to horrify their foes, why not use a touch of the Druid's Rampant Growth for make them even bigger and more terrifying... yesssssss vile thrall!

We really liked the idea of a Druid Warlock being attuned to the "death & decay" portion of the life cycle, making them a darker, more aberrant, guardian of the wilderlands.

Those are just a few combinations that we came up with while writing play testing the rules, and we hope it sparks your imaginations as well, but what we'd really love to see the combination YOU come up with.

So, feel free to drop your ideas in the comment section below, or post them on my Twitter or Instagram, which you can find by searching Richard Whitters.

Go have some fun!

Richard