Some thoughts for druid villains
So, dailyadventureprompts was asked recently about druid villains who aren’t just environmental extremists, and apparently I just have lots of thoughts on druids in general (which is odd, as they’re not really my favourite class, but apparently I really like the lore/themes behind them more than I want to play them), so I started musing about villainous druids.
I’ve had thoughts in this direction before, see Ylin Dos, my horrendous dustbowl extortionist of a druid, who likes to foul wells and blight crops and drop isolated villages into dire straits before showing up all innocent with goodberry and create/destroy water and purify food and drink and mold earth and asking how much would they pay for him to stay a while and help them through this hard time. Because I like the Pied Piper fairytale and the character of the snake-oil salesman in westerns and depression-era stories.
And I’ve had other thoughts in my urban druid musings above, about spymaster druids in cities, and slumlords/beggar lords/gang leader druids, who again leverage things like wildshape into urban animals and speak with animals to gather information in a city setting, as well as goodberry, again, to gain loyalty among the hungry of the city and either persuade or extort them into working for them. If you’re playing a city campaign or have a hub city, you could definitely turn that into a local villain, a slumlord who takes advantage of hungry urchins to be his eyes and ears, along with the rats and the starlings who watch from every gutter and eave. You could make a boogeyman doing that. The rats are watching! The rats are always watching. The Butcher Bird knows what you’re doing, sir. You’ve got to be careful, you know. He’ll get you. He knows where you sleep. But if you do what he says, if you bring him stuff, and don’t get in his way, sometimes he’ll make a berry in his hand, and he’ll let you have it, and it’ll feed you for a whole day.
And there’s a couple of historical characters/legends that could provide inspiration either. I was thinking about La Voisin, the famous 17th century French witch-slash-fortune teller who sold poisons and aphrodisiacs to the Parisian aristocracy. Possibly this is more of a herbalist than a druid, but I do feel like there’s potential there for an almost Rasputinian figure? The filthy hedge witch of a druid who, in flagrant defiance of her uncouth and distinctly uncharismatic manners, somehow has the ears (and wallets) of a court. Why? Because with the aid of a little plant growth and dedication, her poison garden in its little walled courtyard behind her townhouse blooms so beautifully.
And then, while I was thinking about French history and druids, I thought about the 18th century Beast of Gévaudan. Which was, in all likelihood, a pair or possibly pack of wolves who just developed a taste for human flesh, but was, unsurprisingly, the inspiration for a lot of theories about werewolves and also serial killers. And. If we’re thinking about werewolves and druids, obviously the place to go is moon druids. A circle. A circle of moon druids. Who believe in power and predation, and hunting the most dangerous game. So. Lets tie serial killers and werewolves and cannibals and cults in a bow, and say that the initiation ceremony for this particular moon druid circle, upon reaching second level and gaining wild shape, is to take the form of an animal and, while in that shape, murder someone and bring back some piece of their carcass to the circle as proof. And lets say they’ve been going for a while. So you have this … aura of fear around an area that’s been developing for years or maybe decades or centuries. An area that’s known for horrific animal attacks. Perhaps, like Gévaudan, people have been sent to try and figure out what’s happening here, to stop it, perhaps even royal agents, but the circle is smarter than that, established, and their bloody reign over the area continues unabated. Until, perhaps, the party.
And then. While I was thinking about werewolves and reigns of terror. I was looking at other signature elements of the druid class, and in particular one signature spell. Which is, of course, moonbeam. Because if you’re looking for horror in the druid spell list, ‘ghostly flames that cause searing pain’ does sort of fit the bill, just a little. And the thing I’ve always loved about moonbeam is this little extra effect: “A shapechanger makes its saving throw with disadvantage. If it fails, it also instantly reverts to its original form and can't assume a different form until it leaves the spell's light.”
Moonbeam targets shapeshifters specifically. It’s the spell for druid-on-druid violence. It’s also a great spell for werewolf hunters, and changeling hunters, and supernatural hunters in general. And if we’re setting a scene were moon druid shapeshifters terrorise a population, a close, claustrophobic, paranoid environment … then maybe we could also get our witchfinder general on. So. Let’s make a druid inquisition. Or at least a druid hunter organisation. A druid order or circle dedicated, perhaps fanatically so, to hunting other druids (though there’s room for ancients paladins to also be knocking around with this one). Think about Moonbeam as a witch trial. Questioning under the torture of ghostly flame. Beasts set alight to test if they are shapeshifters in disguise. People set alight to see if they are changelings in disguise. (While we’re talking about witch trials and the druid spell list, I might also mention heat metal as a … very evocative spell, here?)
If you wanted to have two mutually opposed villainous druid factions in a campaign, a little bit of law vs chaos on the evil end of the spectrum, and the moral dilemma of which is worse, or perhaps the need to champion a population desperately pinned between them, why not bring the Eyes of the Moon, the druid inquisition, to town to hunt down the brutal cannibalistic circle of serial killers who have terrorised the province for a decade?
The druid spell list, to be fair to it, is quite metal in places. And if you want to do folk horror, druids are a class of villains that gives you options. Heh.
I do like a villainous druid. And an urban druid. And just the worldbuilding inherent in the druid’s spell list and abilities. They are a fabulous class for lore and themes.
