Druid/FoL split?

As is well known, Druids will only join Neutral civs. This, ironically, means that they'll refuse to work for Arendel Phaedra, even if she follows the FoL, but happily join her ranks if she suddenly starts worshiping bloodthirsty, psychopathic horrors that lurk beneath the seas of Erebus instead. Meanwhile, the Grigori (unless I'm mistaken) accept Druids, even though they consider the seemingly identical Fellowship of Leaves to be little better then the fascist Order or bloodthirsty Ashen Veil.
So, are these presently Unanswered Questions, or did I miss something that explains the above oddities in Druid loyalties?

 

The Druidic Order will sometimes wipe out an entire herd of deer if it turns out that the area is being grazed too heavily and there is threat of a species of flower that does not grow anywhere else on Erebus could become extinct. The Good Alignment Arendel Phaedra cannot imagine doing such a thing and will attempt to make them stop. Thus the druids cannot bring themselves to work for her until she has changed her world view to accomodate what MUST be done.


The Grigori value Druids for the fact that they are willing to take what the One has given us and make the best of it through manipulation of their environment by their own hands. Not by kow-tow'ing before one of the pathetic Angels and begging him to spread his influence through the lands. Thusly can Cassiel see eye-to-eye with their kind, and welcomes them with open arms.

 

@xienwolf:
"by their own hands" *cough* *cough* rather with a bit of nature mana, it seems... Cassius should not be inclined to worship Sucellus, now, should he ?

 

I always pictured druids as not being tied to an angel since they have all spheres of magic. Hence they are directly tapping the Plane of Nature, rather than requesting divine favors from Sucellus. I could be quite wrong, don't think I have read their Pedia entry.

 

Well, they *are* a disciple unit, aren't they ? That would sugest using divine powers, wouldn't it ?

 

Damn, probably. But a god ought to frown on Sorcery & Summoning, except AV and FoL... and I guess it is halfway FoL... bah! So one of the examples fails

 

You know that in arendel's civpedia, it Faeryl says Arendel's been talking to Yvain too much. Yvain= druid hero. So what you say here is rebuked by ingame datas.

Really isnt any reason Druids shouldnt join AnyFoL not just NeutralFoL.

 

I don't think that nature summons are really summons like extra planar units, they are just creatures of the forest that can be convinced to do your bidding. Poisoning blades doesn't seem like true sorcery either (it could be pure chemistry with natural ingredients), and vitalizing doesn't seem like something Sucellus or Cernunnos would mind too much. And Priests of the leaves have sorcery anyway.

Druids are the disciples of Sucellus, while the Fellowship of the Leaves worships (or at least reveres) the new god of nature, Cernunnos. Personally I always considered it odd that Druid don't have Life magic when they are said to be infused with the magic of the god of life. (I changed it so that Druids have both life and nature, and dwarven druids have earth and nature instead.)

I'm considering changing it so that FoL civs can build Druids, but I don't want them to be only FoL state religion units. I may just remove the alignment restriction, or possibly allow good and neutral to build them, or allow neutral and FoL to build them. Of course, this would rely on python and would not show up in the civilipedia, so it could get confusing. I think I'm leaning towards making either druids or groves require FoL in the city, but having no alignment or religion restrictions, and no python blocks.

 

I think adopting FOL should make a civ neutral. I mean isn't FOL really all about neutrality?

 

As I understand it, different civs follow the Fellowship in different ways. The Calabim, for instance, commune with nature by releasing peasants into the wild and hunting them down.

 

Yeah I suppose. If you think about it the calabim have a lot of synergies with FOL, flavour-wise. Prey and Predator and all that

 

The Doviello always struck me as one of the best candidates for an evil civ joining the FoL, representing the savagery of nature and all that.

 

Of course, the real reason druids aren't specifically tied to FoL goes back to FFH's D&D roots. In D&D, druids aren't tied to a specific nature deity, but rather to nature itself. So while following Cernunnos is pretty common among druids (most notably Yvain), its not mandatory, and you can get druids who follow other gods, and even those who reject Cernunnos' authority over nature, and wind up with the Grigori.

As for neutrality, well in D&D druids have always had a neutral alignment, in a similar way to how paladins have always been lawful good in the core rules.

Translated to FFH this all seems to mean that druids strive for balance and neutrality, while the Fellowship don't care whether you're good or evil as long as you a: respect Cernunnos, and b: respect nature.

 

But does the latter condition not rule out a lot of the principles of evil? For example, if the Sheaim respected nature, they wouldn't be trying to bring an end to the world. If the Balseraphs respected nature, they wouldn't be so decadent. The Svartalfar could get away with it, I suppose, and so could maybe the Clan of Embers and the Doviello, but I think they're more "survivalist" than "evil", really, and "survivalist" strikes me as "neutral", because it rules out the choice over whether to behave in a way that's good or evil: you just need to behave the way you do to survive. For all of the truly evil civs, the FoL's principle of respecting nature conflicts with their core principles.

 

Hmm...well I suppose a FoL-following Sheaim could be like al quaeda in that respect, pretending to give a sh*t about the problems of the world in an attempt to gain some popular legitimacy. I mean bin Laden was talking about global warming in his last speech. Does anyone honestly think Osama cares about global warming???

And as for the Balseraphs, if you think decadence and environmentalism are mutually exclusive, you haven't been paying much attention to Hollywood

 

Seems now that we're talking about relative good and evil. Is someone who acts in their own interests neutral (as they act good/bad as events dictate), or good, if current events lead to beneficial (beneficial to whom?) behaviour, or evil if their actions have negative consequences (again - negative to whom?).

(Raises the question - if I act in my own interests to survive (neutral), and 9/10 times I behave in an evil manner, and 1/10 behave in a "good" manner, doesn't that mean I'm actually evil?)

I think the civ alignments are good as they stand - you have to use a bit of common sense and assume that good and evil can be considered from the standpoint that anything which considers the needs of others, and the world as a whole, is good, and the opposite is evil (any volunteers to pick an alignment for the USA? )

 

IIRC the civs alignment is primarilly whether their patron gods supported the compact (good), rebelled against the compact (evil), or are enforcing the compact (neutral).

 

Not really. Angel/God alignment is not determined by the Compact, it predated it significantly. Evil means that the god rebelled against The One and instead of serving his original purpose he works with Agares to corrupt creation and cause harm to its intelligent races (man, mostly). Good means that they took up the role of fighting Evil to protect humanity (etc). Neutral means that they didn't really get involved in such conflict, but continued to serve their original purpose in creation (which usually means that these gods' purpose didn't have a whole lot to do with humanity in the first place). The difference between good and neutral gods is pretty minor.

While it is true that the neutral gods were the one who proposed and enforced the compact (and the ceasefire leading up to it) you cannot say that good and evil are defined by supporting or rebelling against it. Agares himself supported the compact, mostly because Evil was losing the Godswar at the time (or am I getting ahead of myself and thinking of the state of the conflict late in the age of magic instead of the age of dragons?). Of course, he made sure that it had enough loopholes for him to still cause serious harm, and be largely protected from the good gods fighting back.