13th Sage: Reintroducing the Druid

 I’ve been looking through old design files, finding interesting mechanics that we never got around to exploiting, and passages of writing that dropped through the cracks through no faults of their own. Here’s one such passage, an introductory paragraph that Jonathan must have written back when the druid was going to appear in the core book instead of waiting for its star turn in 13 True Ways. It’s often hard to tell whether Jonathan or I have written a section, even for us, but I’m pretty sure this was written by Jonathan because of the passage’s ironic parallelism, because I never highlight words using underlines, and because I would have used the word ‘rumors’ at the end instead of ‘fable.’ Three clues!

If you compare this passage to what we eventually published in 13 True Ways, you’ll see that our thinking progressed towards a storyline in which the resurgence of the High Druid was making druidical magic and the power of nature something that even folks in “more civilized lands” would have to think about very soon, if not yesterday.

Druid

The world isn’t just ruled by the forces of nature, the world _is_ the forces of nature. Druids devote themselves to these forces. On one hand, the forces compel the druids, pushing or drawing them along unknown paths. On the other, the druids use these forces to compel, heal, or destroy others. For druids, this means giving up mere individuality for a truer selfhood, tied flesh and bone to the natural world. In some places, especially in forgotten valleys far from the imperial highways, druids are the priests rather than clerics. In more civilized lands, druids are rarities, subjects of curiosity and fable.