Fed up with the druid = hippie trope
Historically it makes no sense, the druids were the priests of the Celts, they took care of the teaching of medicine, of poetry (the bards were druids), of all religious and administrative questions.
It was under their leadership that the Gauls and their Neolithic predecessors cleared a large part of the forests of present-day France.
Even the “proximity to nature” and tree-friends aspect is absurd. nature is governed by great principles which boil down to "eat, survive, reproduce", humans cut down trees because they need them to eat, survive and ultimately reproduce.
Everything else is fierce competition and arms race.
From a spiritual point of view, the true religion of the Druids is that of cycles, and every cycle passes through death, this aspect is very rarely mentioned (barely in DnD via the circle of spores).
Finally, from a political point of view, there is nothing natural about political ecology and its supporters; any hunter or lumberjack is closer to nature than a Western inner-city ecologist.
Now frick Jean Jacques Rousseau and frick German romanticism
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Most importantly, the druids were lawyers. That was their regular function in day-to-day life. You don't need a ritualist 360 days a year. You need a lawyer every other day.
>You need a lawyer every other day.
God help you
he must be american, be merciful
Don't project the modern notion of a lawyer onto the antiquity. They settled disputes in accordance with ancient precedent, and disputes arise every day. Their authority allowed to keep peace in lieu of law enforcement. Germanic gothi filled the same role, they were priests, but primarily lawyers.
So you're saying public literacy outmoded them completely?
Guess they're making a comeback.
yes, thats the point.
Underappretiated post.
>You need a lawyer every other day.
Do you live in the illegal tunnel under a synagogue in Bronx?
Why would any israelites want to live in the Bronx?
Druids were lawyers?
After a fashion
druids were educated on law to a high degree and their judgements superseded those of kings in some cases
keep in mind these are tribal kings so it's a lower bar, but it does speak to the status druids held that a random druid asked to act as arbiter over a situation could render final judgements over the local ruler
I also think that if the "priest of nature" exists in a setting then he must be a priest of "the survival of the fittest". Despise the weak and bless the strong.
That's not how nature works
This is not survival of the fittest. The fittest means the one best at carving a niche for themselves, not the strongest. The most successful animal in the world is the ant, weak as frick.
>The most successful animal in the world is the ant, weak as frick.
An ant can lift 50 times it's body weight.
If you could do that you would be benching 20,000 lbs
>can lift 50 times it's body weight.
but if you were to enlarge it to a human size it would not be able to do that, its interacting with the physical world in a different level. Every molecule every particle everything it is and how it interacts is fundamentally different in its microcosm. All its functions would collapse.
in sci-fi comics "logic" it would become super strong but actually it would just die.
Specifically, they would suffocate if they were to be enlarged even a little. Insect respiratory system is beyond primitive and relies on natural diffusion. Needless to say, it requires the organism to be very thin.
That's not impressive in the world of insects. There are some insects that are much stronger than that. Muscle power doesn't scale linearly with size.
>The most successful animal in the world is the ant,
Not by any metric.
Going by species ants are actually relatively small in number thanks to just how many species of ants there are, and if you go so far as to include all species under the same umbrella, than the same could be done for various mite groups and similar microscopic animals, so if you go by raw number of individuals, ants are not even close to the most successful.
If you go by biomass, Cattle and Antarctic Krill far exceed ants.
if you go by environmental domination, the Earthworm has altered the entire world so dramatically that they are primarily responsible for why our planet looks the way it does, with everything from forests to deserts being the result of their terraforming efforts.
Pedantry but that still proves the point. The idea of 'fittest = physically strongest' or 'the unchanging natural order' are bullshit ideas made to convince those outsmarted or outmaneuvered of their inherent rightness and security.
Even in the realm of mimetics and cultural spread this holds up. If to use Nietzche as an example, we talk about the rise of slave morality over that of master morality then it's logical to assume that Slave morality as an entity was fitter than Master morality as an idea. Granted Nietzche's new ubermensch morality was supposed to supplant it but that'd only be shown by it making slave morality extinct or inconsequential.
Even in predators you see this, like how Dire Wolves ate shit at the end of the Pleistocene while the comparatively puny Grey Wolves not only lived but pushed them out of ecological niches they once held.
OP and third poster here.
I used the terms “strong” and “weak” to talk about adapted/unadapted of course.
I wanted to draw a parallel with the defense of “endangered” species which is assimilated to the defense of the weak in the discourse. While “endangered” species are just unadapted.
That still doesn't matter because druids would be interfering in ways that weren't good for natural selection or species proliferation assuming such things exist. Like species turn arounds happen even without us based on various natural factors. They'd just be forcing their ideas onto nature if they blessed anything, and would presumably just cause ecosystems to topple faster than they already do inherently. Because they despise dinosaurs and love and bless rausuchians, until it turns out that unforseen shit would kill the Rausuchians and let the dinosaurs inherit the earth.
Now if the aggregate of all life has a goal irl, it's just to make as much biomass as possible. So druids who 'serve nature' couldn't pick sides or heal anything, they'd just make things more fertile. Because any meddling without some kind of 'foresight' of what'll happen thousands or millions of years down the line could result in less biomass.
The reason druids are Hippies in fantasy settings is because usually nature is heavily personified and created and controlled by a deity who keeps it in perfect changeless equilibrium. An Equilibrium that can only be screwed up by sapient species or infernal forces.
Druids would act like modern conservationists, occasionally killing animals and plants that are overabundant, invasive or spreading disease, but mostly regulating hunting and logging. Humans are also a part of nature, so anthropogenic extinctions are also a part of natural selection. Ultimately, protecting nature means protecting biodiversity, not natural selection.
Have you tried not playing D&D?
Druids you say
I would totally let my players roll a historically accurate (with a touch of Roman propaganda) druid.
What's this from btw?
British tv show Britannia.
but they're all white?
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Soothsayer" bullshit that's going on in the early iron age right now. Druids deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.
I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine druid in Hibernia for several head of cattle and a good mail shirt (that's about 2000 denarii) and have been consulting with him for almost 2 years now. I can even sacrifice slaves to the bogs with my druid.
Hibernian wise men spend years working on a single druid and roll around with him nude in the straw up to a million times to produce the finest sages known to mankind.
Druids are thrice as smart as Roman soothsayers and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a pharmacologist can cut through, a druid can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a druid could easily bisect a holly branch in full bud with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why Rome never bothered conquering Hibernia? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Hibernians and their druids of mystery. Even during the invasion of Brittania, Roman legionairies targeted the druids first because their wisdom was feared and respected.
So what am I saying? Druids are simply the best sage that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the iron age. Here is the stat block I propose for druids:
>a large granite stelae, inscribed with intricante knotwork designs
Now that seems a lot more representative of the divining power of druids in real life, don't you think?
tl;dr = druids need to do more mysteries in the iron age, see my new stat block.
>Paulie_Walnuts_Heh.mp3
Noice
Mistry of the droods, they all have an attitood
Mystery of the plebs, they all slurp the cum of e-celebs.
I always saw them as just another flavor of wizard. An especially crotchety one who rails against civilization for disrespecting nature and curing broken legs by throwing handfuls of grass on them.
D&Druids are inspired by druids from pulps as much if not more than by their historical counterparts, hence their access to Finger of Death or Conjuring an Elemental of Fire. They were closer to M-u, then 2e devided to make them Clerics.
Interesting arguments, OP. Unfortunately hippie druids mean barefoot women and therefore those arguments are all invalidated.
historical druids = celtic priests, ok
Asterix comic druids = panoramix, makes various potions and has a golden sickle
D&D druids = nature defending and preserving priests with animal affinities, so a mix of things invented and altered while ommiting the historical material.
pulp druids = What is that?
In fantasy settings where there are monsters that destroy nature we can use nature/ranger-like druids that defend nature from monsters and villains.
Shamans? Limited tribal duties roles.
Francis of Assisi mentions nature and stuff like that but does not fit the part.
Japanese shrine maidens?
Any ideas?
Panoramix is much more accurate than D&D druids, even if he originates from a parody. They definitely made medicinal potions and used golden sickles at least for mistletoe, but probably for rituals in general. What the comics got totally wrong is the no girls allowed part. "Female druids" definitely existed, although "druid" itself is a masculine term, a female one would be called bandrui.
>priests of the Celts,
Is this book good? HR3 Celts Campaign Sourcebook (2e)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts_Campaign_Sourcebook
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Celts_Campaign_Sourcebook
Celts - from those powerful barbarians who ruled Europe for centuries and challenged the might of Rome came the Druids, bards, and even the original legend of King Arthur. They ranged from Scotland to Greece and from Spain to Asia Minor, trading, raiding, and establishing a culture that is still alive today. Join mighty heros like the legendary Cu Chulainn or the woman-warrior Boudicca in wars against the Romans or the giant Fomorians, compete in feats of skill like chariot-jumping and spear-catching, or wander the half-world of the elflike sidhe.
The battle frenzy is strong and the call to war rings clear!
Why are you still pretending the celtic ethnoLARP exists? It doesn't and never did
>celtic ethnoLARP
i have no idea what this is nor am i interested
why didn't you post something useful to tabletop games? how is this chart useful?
The frick are we even looking at dick head?
this has a celtic druid at page 21, HR3 Celts Campaign Sourcebook (2e).
Lots of the pop culture than we get from Druids could be said of different shamans (shape shifting, like nahuales etc), and yeah, they are barely nothing alike with that.
>Fed up with the druid = hippie trope
Neopagans. Now the association should be clear.
>ruid = hippie trope
>Historically it makes no sense
ultimately its like the fantasy viking, a hero when they were a bunch of butthole raiders.
Fantasy viking, kickass hero
Fantasy druid, kickass hero
i am fine with it as long as the historical part is remembered as well
I don't know what kind of fantasy you've been reading. Vikings are usually butthole raiders. They're the main bad guys of Warhammer Fantasy.
>Vikings are usually butthole raiders. They're the main bad guys of Warhammer Fantasy.
i mean the generic image that player characters may take as a berserk or not norse viking hero themed fighter that hunts monsters, not the factions in warhammer or in some other games that have them as raiders and worshipers of chaos.
>bad guys of Warhammer Fantasy.
40k space wolves and many other norse/viking heroic stuff. Even when we played warhammer fantasy rpg some players wanted to become some sort of norse-themed heroic monster hunter.
the evil raider part is usually ignored even when present as an aberration and not the norm.
>I am fed up on shit that I created in my head
Lol, saw you post this before on
Druids were castaways from Atlantis.
If you're going to be autistic about actual druidism, then you need to be just as autistic about actual hippies, which fantasy druids are not hippies, as the hippie counter culture doesn't have shit to do with nature, it's just hedonism.
Through hedonism they want to return to a pre-civilizational golden age where humans were content to live naked, dance and eat fruit.
Civilization (and technology) thus being assimilated to original sin.
Imagine getting this worked up over the accurate representation of druids when not one historical source was written by the druids or anyone in their culture. Literally all we have is Roman propaganda.
>s written by the druids
the druids of the helveti tribe wrote using the ancient greek alphabet, something like that
I'm not saying our knowledge of the druidic beliefs is comprehensive, but saying the only source on them is Julius Caesar is extremely disingenuous. Druids were extensively mentioned in Welsh and Irish texts from the time when they still existed. Both mythological narratives and more mundane texts such as law codes.
In fact, bards were more prestigious.
>the bards were druids
Bards were story tellers and singers and musicians. Druids were priests. Even the Romans knew this.
>the true religion of the Druids is that of cycles
No one alive today knows what the druids believed because the only writings about them are either Greco-roman historians and propagandists or Christian apologists, all of them far more interested in relating unverified accounts of the evils druids performed than recording what they were believed to have believed, much less accurately recording what they believed.
>frick German romanticism
Hypocritical of you to be condemning romanticism when you have such a romantic and wrong view of the druids and their beliefs.
bard was the first level of a druid anon.
The first level of druid was Aspirant but OP wasn't talking D&D or any rpg and bards were not druids anon.
>druid = hippie trope
since this is /tg/ and not /history/ the subject should have been how do we make druids as a role and a class more heroic and fitting into the various settings.
Try actually giving them a real identity to stand on first. So far, their only really defining trait is that they turn into animals. Their power is only aspect of memes because of the mechanical wanks of 3.x and the unbridled mechanical power of casters to begin with and nothing to do with their background lore.
That said, I'll never forgive the idea that barbarian rages are somehow tied to nature power but that's an entirely different topic.
>barbarian rages
the fighter berserk kit/class was renamed and mutated into "barbarian class" (that is actually a primitive berserk with some strange stuff) and name that makes no sense whatsoever. It is beyond moronation. Whoever thought this up should be fired from the planet.
what the frick were they thinking?
>I'll never forgive the idea that barbarian rages are somehow tied to nature power
What should it be tied to? Divine inspiration?
No, it shouldn't be tied down to any one sources.
If I wanted to be a psychopath who enjoys reciving and giving pain the middle of battle should be different from going into a rage because you are afflicted with a supernatural illness that makes you temporarily hulk out. I'm sure you could come up with a barbarian subclass to fit any powersource flavor hence why I dislike it being so tied inextricably to primal
"Rage of nature" is shit and should be derided.
the class in the AD&D 2e HR3 Celts Campaign Sourcebook Historical Reference
the historical druid as a class is a limited cleric, fit to be only an NPC
It is, in fact, a perfectly regular cleric.
no armor, even more limited weapons, healing and divination spheres as majors with 4 minor ones. No scrolls, tomes, any armor or magic weapons outside of his limited options. Bardic knowledge and respect from Celts as a bonus.
He is a very weak cleric. Plus no Turn undead.
The class is fine for a celt rpg but for fantasy he is a weak cleric fit for an npc unless the whole campaign is weakened.
Make up your mind whether you're talking about D&D moronation or the real world.
>talking about
tabletop gaming, the class is bad for D&D, ok for an NPC but fine for a Celts campaign as a PC. Focus when you read. This is not Ganker its tg.
Well then, I can repeat exactly the same about cleric. Real clerics are not much different from real druids, except worse, as druids at least had ritual weapons and presumably could hold their own in a fight. Clerics in armour are somehow more stupid than D&D druids.
Ok, and how do you implement that into a generic RPG class?
Pathfinder already has alchemist, you should check it out.
I also hate the ideia they are smelly, like cultures close to nature had a lot more showers and hygiene compared to city folk in medieval Europe.
Reminder that the ultimate Celt feel still is
>when you gain a foreign tropy bride and have her entombed along with your other prestige good upon your death
>Finally, from a political point of view, there is nothing natural about political ecology and its supporters; any hunter or lumberjack is closer to nature than a Western inner-city ecologist.
Agree with pretty much everything here but the implications of this. Preserving of natural spaces is beneficial to mankind (and also my other major hobby, Ganker)
Hunters, hikers and lumberjacks preserve a nature heavily reshaped to the benefit of man though.
Indeed and I have no qualms with that. There are just people that don't think even that much matters and I oppose those people.
Where I live the "animalistas" and other eco-tards have done such damage to animals, pets and even fricking trees is hard to believe, for example they stoped ancient rights of people going to the forest and cut some trees.
Good, some tard will think. Well, those trees have been copiced for literally hundred if not thousands of years. A simple oak is able to give a Tonne of good quality coal in this way every few decades, but as they have forbiden to touch those centenarian trees, lots of them have simply fallen be they own weight.
Every week, you have a news article about some natural park where this or that animal started a major die off because disaes and poor food, as they have been eating everything and they didn't let hunters there (the wolf normally atack cattle and the like, I don't think we will get wolfs in a few years because the damage they cause and the ineptitud of the gov will make the farmers kill them all).
People fricking forget humans have been living in thise world for millenia and shaping the enviro and are a big part of the health of it.
>People fricking forget humans have been living in thise world for millenia and shaping the enviro and are a big part of the health of it.
I mean yeah, just leaving things alone starts a great dying of what currently inhabits the place, both plants and animals, followed by brambles or invasive plant species dominance before a biosphere we might not want will eventually establish itself.
If for some feak acident I end in any capacity able, I will transform the entire europre in an eternal dehesa.
They used Greek (the educated langauge of the time) and later latin for the day to day stuff, but not the sacred, that they memorized only.
They just used Greek, latin came after the Romans conquered Gaul and Britain. Their seat of power was in Britain, since they introduced Druids to Gaul.
And not writing stuff down consolidated their literacy monopoly
>Their seat of power was in Britain
Yeah nah, Britain was a total backwaters at that point once again. They literally still rode to battle on chariots.
nope. The Romans states they came from Britain. Britain was the hub of "Druidic" culture, thats why the last hold out of the Druids was deep in Britain.
Plenty of evidence supports this.
>They literally still rode to battle on chariots.
so did lots of people, chariots are pretty advanced old technology.
nope. The Romans states they came from Britain. Britain was the hub of "Druidic" culture,
Nope, the heart of "druidic culture" was "La Tène"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_T%C3%A8ne_culture
The main source concerning the Druids and the Western European culture of the Iron Age comes from archaeological excavations carried out systematically before each public construction site (at least this is the case in France, I do not comment on other European countries).
>The main source concerning the Druids and the Western European culture of the Iron Age comes from archaeological excavations carried out systematically before each public construction site
Whatever the continentals say carries no weight in the mind of the Anglo.
So Wales and Brittany are the only two areas where the Celtic languages are really spoken these days?
theres no such thing as celts
Nope you are completely wrong. La trene =/= druidic culture.
Druidic culture is Brythonnic. You are referring to an out of date assumption that Gaulish and Druids culture was transferred to Britain but it was the other way around.
As the Romans support by stating Druids come from Britain
>Caesar wrote that the druids recognized the authority of a single leader, who would rule until his death, when a successor would be chosen by vote or through conflict. He remarked that they met annually at a sacred place in the region occupied by the Carnute tribe in Gaul, while they viewed Britain as the centre of druidic study; and that they were not found among the German tribes to the east of the Rhine.
I understand that we don't have many indications for such contacts while we do know that De Bello Gallico was Caesar's "I Dindu Nuff" report on why he was marching all over Gaul and crossing the channel.
no idea what you are saying. Plus we have the last stand of the Druids in Wales.
I'm saying that Caesar might've been lying about it to cover his arse politically. He was the one who needed good reasons to invade the islands and: "That's where their leading caste operates from." is a pretty decent one.
If you take that angle everything we know about druids and gauls is bullshit.
Caeser invaded Britain because he was looking for valuable rare resources. He didnt find what he was looking for and was disappointed.
Why he decided to genocide the Druids may have been out of boredom, theres other precedences of the Romans genociding entire regions of human life and leaving them empty for no particular good reason.
Are you telling me a politician wouldn't lie just to get the people of his class to sign off on him starting a war in some random country somewhere?
>This institution (Druids) is supposed to have been devised in Britain, and to have been brought over from it into Gaul; and now those who desire to gain a more accurate knowledge of that system generally proceed thither for the purpose of studying it. - Julius Caeser
We kinda-sorta used to have those here in the Alps back when grazing meadows also housed cider apple trees.
IT's the best system, chestnuts trees also adapt very well to this kind of system, along cattle and even bush crops and some grains we could have abundant food sources in every town, but we are dummies. Medieval cities could get like 90 per cent of they necesities from the lands around them, with some brains we could do something a lot better than we get now and lot more healthy...
Poland?
>Historically it makes no sense
The neopagan revivall of the druids in the 19th and 20th century was hippie shit. That's the historical inspiration.
theres no such thing as celts
>Druids were priests
nearly everything known about Druids was invented in the 19th century.
From what we actually know Druids were a professional group of charlatans that claimed to be wizards. They also monopolised literacy and education, since they didn't write anything down
Caesar very directly said they were just like him - members of a leading class of priest-laywer-politicians.
The Romans said they were multilingual and could read, they monopolised knowledge to give themselves power.
have a nice day puckee
You sure it's him and not that toad literarylord?
You first you schizo frick
Why does Loving and Respecting Nature and its Creatures have to be hippy shit?
It ain't, the majority of movements of this kind where started be People like Roosevelt or even hitler (the bring back x animal like the auroch was nazi stuff) but USA as ever perverted it and exported it, making this kind of stuff incredible lame and/or psychotic. The few cabal "ecologists" are drowned in tardness.
fricking nazi idiot
Here for that wookie puss.
>setting has ¨druids¨ but no oak trees
Say what you will about BG3, but I appreciate that the druid representation was a bunch of bloodthirsty morons one hair-trigger away from murdering children and ethnic cleansing
Haven't read all the comments and replies so not sure if this has been mentioned. But I think OP could benefit by reading about the conservation vs preservation ethics as they relate to ecology. I get that OP is trying to have a hot take about "inner city ecologists" (do these even exist?) But it makes you sound ignorant. Being "closer to nature"=/= a greater understanding of "naturalness" and an educated ecologist understands a hell of alot more than a guy who cuts trees for a living. It's the difference between the collective knowledge of millions of scientists and the individual experience of one person.
Tldr. Actually learn about ecology before making dumb statements.
>"inner city ecologists"
>(do these even exist?)
This is the main electorate of green parties in Europe.
I've been under the impression that the green parties couldn't care less about the nature, unless you consider refugees animals.
they do it, unconsciously.
Okay? Then play them that way? I'm confused what you're mad about?
Or just play them as clerics sense this is obviously a D&D thread.
the druids in my setting replace clerics, as the gods are gone/dead and animism is all the rage. they're more like japanese shinto priests in similar temple structures