Wild Child
Backstory NPCs are an important resource for a PC, especially if you happen to be a drama wizard type player. They can be threatened, killed off, rescued dramatically, or used for pen pal purposes when it comes time to write up in-character campaign logs. For some character concepts though, coming up with suitable NPCs is easier said than done. This has to do with campaign theme.
Bear with me. Ima explain.
For the vast majority of fantasy games, themes of good and evil dominate play. There’s always a Dark Lord threatening to lay siege to a White City, and the do-gooders of the multiverse are always there to man the walls. Next comes law and chaos conflicts, with courageous bands of Rebels set up to resist tyrannical Empires. For some reason, this kind of conflict seems more common in sci-fi games. Finally, sitting right in the middle of the alignment chart is druid/ranger territory. The natural world suggests conflicts of predator and prey, civilization and wilderness, and life versus death. These conflicts tend to be less popular though, serving as side quests rather than full campaign arcs. The aforementioned alignment chart is a possible explanation here, raising the silly Zen koan of “what is the opposite of neutral?” Because the correct answer is “uhhhh…” gray-side conflicts wind up taking a back seat.
What does this have to do with Ma and Pa Wolf? Consider the purpose of backstory NPCs. Like every other element of backstory, they’re there to inform the PC. Bilbo’s struggle against the One Ring foreshadows Frodo’s temptation. Obi-Wan’s act of self-sacrifice foreshadow’s Luke’s showdown with the Emperor. And if you’re trying to evoke a “champion of the wilds” theme, your background NPCs need to suggest that conflict. Maybe it’s my own failure of imagination, but I don’t think that leaves you with too many options. You’ve got the crazy hermit, the fey foundling, and Ranger’s Mowgli shtick. These background NPCs are annoyingly shallow, removed from the world by virtue of their isolation in nature. In consequence, the PC is left with a fish out of water story, a wild child trying to learn the ways of civilization. Tying that conflict to a BBEG is possible, but it’s not popular. That means your typical eco-warrior winds up a supporting character rather than a protagonist. That’s great if you’re an ensemble player, but I’m a prima-freaking-donna over here. Give me my Hexxus, dammit!
I dunno. Maybe I’m just trying to articulate why I have a hard time rolling up druids. What do you guys think? How do you make your nature-aligned characters more compelling than “Radagast, but with a bow?” Have you ever seen one of those gray-side conflicts take center stage in a campaign? Help me out here, because I feel like there’s untapped potential hovering around my own games.
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I tend to believe that the opposite of neutral is, well, everything not neutral. That means, that for TN Druid both LG Holy Emperor, and CE Demon King are both equally suitable villains. I can imagine then you can wound up in a story with three sides instead of two, and final showdown with two arch-bosses in the same time.
I enjoy that this sets up druids as the Ugly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6tR78d0cmA
I prefer The Weird.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tk80iXCspM
(Seriously, watch it; it’s great!)
Well shit. I’m sold. Now I need to actually watch “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” I’ve only ever seen “A Fistful of Dollars,” and am in dire need of additional spaghetti.
Basically true. The way I envision (and have played) TN characters is that they oppose any “extreme” behviour. So, FORCING everyone to follow LAW (read: rules) because they are for the Good of every individual would seem as abhorrent as forcing everyone to cower in fear due to the CHAOTIC and EVIL (read: self-serving) nature of a demonic overlord. Both are opportunities to take action to pull them back into Balance (read: Neutrality) .
Nature as a general theme is something I’ve never gravitated towards as a player. And yet, with new mechanical releases (I like the Shifter ironically) I’ve been compelled to give that general sphere of influence a look. So now I loosely orbit around the thing, gradually gathering speed as I descend like a meteorite. But this time, there is no Bruce Willis to stop me.
Ahem. I think of nature as a concept and ask myself, Rosc, how can you change or mutate this concept? I have a Shaman who gathers power from the Dark Tapestry, who’s backstory involves her being far more druidic before she saw the ‘truths’ out in the black vast while on a vision quest. I’m planning a stoner Feral Hunter Half Orc who advocates letting go of physical possessions and embracing nature, while seeing how far he can progress in PFS without buying permanent magic items. Some kind of Bat/Wolf Shifter with a heavy vampire motif seems fun, if mechanically underwhelming.
Making the character -pop- depends on a lot of factors. Do I get inspiration from media that gives me a concept to try and build in Pathfinder’s rules? Or do I discover a fun mechanical thing that I try to build a character concept around? I could start at any point, really, as long as I can follow up with the other end.
I even made a crappy little graphic to show my cyclical process: https://i.imgur.com/q0XNgA2.png
Love that graphic. I especially love that there’s no correct starting point. For starting players especially, I think that there’s a deer-in-headlights effect where they try to do all of the above in a go. It doesn’t really matter where your characters starts so long as you pick something.
Shit… I think ima post that on my Tweeters. 🙂
Edit: Posted it on my Tweeters: https://twitter.com/ColinStricklin/status/956911665978593281
Oh hey, glad you liked it! It’s funny, really. I whipped that up for a “how do you make characters” thread on the Paizo forum and no one replied or took note. I assumed it was a dud.
Naw man. That is absolutely my jam. It’s how I make characters anyway, and it’s cool to see a mental process turned into a handy visual.
It’s weird, but making these comics and throwing ’em up on forums week after week, it’s easy to measure your success in upvotes or likes or page views. I’ve found myself growing mad with jealousy at the comparative success of “Dungeons and Doggos,” and that’s such an absurd Saturday morning cartoon villain sentiment (curse you adorable adventuring hounds!) that I can’t help but laugh at myself. Keep making cool stuff. Do for yourself first, and all those other dudes a distant second.
Neutral on the alignment chart can mean different things to different people. While you do see the occasional PC who wants to militantly remain balanced, believing that all extremes are dangerous, in my experience there’s a whole group of people who simply prefer to avoid strong connections to any alignment. They may be nominally “Good” or “Chaotic” but really they don’t want any restrictions on how they are allowed to act or someone trying to tell them they are playing their character wrong.
Some of it I feel might stem from bad experiences, but I also think it’s a good idea to allow a 10th alignment: unaligned. Even if there’s not much difference in actual gameplay, allowing people to write this on their character sheet can go a long ways towards setting them at ease. They play the way they want to play without regards for the alignment descriptions in the book, and let the chips fall as they will.
For mechanical purposes, I’m guessing the GM just treats them as neutral for spells that reference alignment…? Not a bad idea at all. 🙂
Regarding “treats them as neutral”- mostly, yes.
It’s mainly an issue of presentation. Someone wants to be free to volunteer on Sundays at the St. Cuthbert’s Home for Crippled Orphans and Bunny-rehab sanctuary, but also be free to tie the bandit leader down and let their giant-snake companion start swallowing them from the feet up.
The shorthand I use for the two flavors of True Neutrality are “Militant Neutral”, and “Apathetic Neutral”.
I prefer Pumpkin Spice Neutral.
Except people tend to have VERY strong feelings about Pumpkin Spice 😛
It was also suggested that the not-strongly-any-particular-way alignment should be termed “Agnostic” but my group decided that we didn’t like the religious implications, especially when we’ve got several pantheons worth of gods to also deal with.
Ambiva-lance. +2 lance. The wielder of this mediocre weapon loses all alignment. It provides the so-so ability to ignore all alignment based spells and abilities. Its humdrum power can make you immune to a paladin’s smite, the detect good or detect evil spells, or even the blasphemy spell — if you’re into that sort of thing.
The problem is that the way neutral is defined is chaotic. Suddenly good then evil is (emphasis)ing weird.
Regarding Rangers, Druid’s, and other wild types specifically, I have definitely seen this point raised before, especially for Druids. They are without a doubt tougher to roleplay since they’ve got a very specific flavor (unlike a Fighter or Rogue) but aren’t handed a packaged motivation (like a Cleric or Paladin). I think this is a good opportunity to work with the GM and/or other players during character creation to work out your backstory and why you’re joining a group of random murder hobos. If there’s a BBEG floating around, come up with a way he’s harmed you personally and be out for justice or revenge. If not, maybe you know one of the other characters previously for some reason.
You don’t have to be an isolated character either, though IMO. My understanding on druids historically (IRL) was that they were a distinct social class that served a multi-purpose role of spiritual-leader/healer/adviser/mediator, etc. Maybe you’ve been apprenticed to another druid and now nearing the end of your training you’ve been sent out into the world to grow in power and knowledge, so that when you return to your home you’ll be able to take over the position of village elder.
Maybe you’ve been working for a king or other noble as the warden of his forests (keeping out poachers, etc) or the minister of agriculture. Maybe rather than being a dark and mysterious (serious) character you’re more like a bumbling wizard who has to be restrained from walking right up to the dragon to ask him about his scale-fungus (the dragon is very sensitive about it).
Maybe you think civilization is a plague and people need to be taught a better way, or maybe you understand that humanoids are part of nature too, and just need better education about sustainability and balance.
Maybe you don’t know WHAT your background is except that your caretaker fled into the woods with you as a baby and as soon as you were old enough to talk made you swear to never tell anyone your real name, but now you’ve grown curious enough to want to seek out your roots.
Or maybe you know exactly who you are and what you did, and now you’re on a quest of atonement.
The PHB kind of pushes the “Cleric of the Woods” theme on Druids, but it doesn’t have to stop there. People don’t seem to have problems making various followers of specific deities have a role in the party or inventing their own story for the Bard, the Monk, the Gunslinger, etc. A Druid might be a little tougher to work out but it’s still doable, provided you don’t immediately dismiss 95% of the possible tropes you could lean on just because they don’t perfectly match the very narrow example laid out in the books.
You’ve got a couple of nuggets in there that really speak to the heart of this problem.
That’s a big part of the problem, but as you point at later on:
100% agree. The bugger of it is that the shedding the default ‘Cleric of the Woods’ trope is only part one of the solution. You also have to get your GM past that hurdle:
I don’t just think that’s a good idea. I think it’s essential. We associate the revenge plot with the gunslinger and the monk (“You killed my master!”). Bards get romantic arcs. Druids are stuck imitating Treebeard, and that’s rarely the main thrust of the campaign. Not unless you lay out something different up front. And that’s the real pickle. If you fail to throw your ideas out there in Session Zero you’re going to wind up a supporting character. You’ve got more work to do than other classes inventing your plot arc, and you’ve absolutely got to make sure that your GM hears it. Otherwise you’ll have to make do with smiting evil dudes like an off-brand cleric, and that just feels wrong for a druid.
I guess it depends on what sort of game you are going for. I think there are lots of characters you can have with an open-ended background, and just roll with stuff as you feel like it. IMO you don’t HAVE to do the “so have you noticed I’m a Paladin yet, today?” for every single character. A PC’s specific class doesn’t have to be brought up multiple times a session unless it’s important and relevant to the current story.
As you yourself have pointed out, not everyone can or needs to be the focus of every single mission: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/main-character
(sorry I don’t know how to make links)
Just because you’re playing a Druid doesn’t mean you need to constantly rub everyone else’s face in it or sit down and pout whenever the party wants to do something that doesn’t advance your own particular goals. If the character arc is an important part of the game to you, then yes you should make sure you’re not left behind, but there’s a wide range between that and the other thing.
Good call linking back to that comic. It’s relevant here because the druid has the opposite problem to the paladin. Unlike that Lawful Good dude on the other end of the spectrum, the druid tends not to be the main character. I think that means you’ve got to jump up and down a little if you want to be noticed. The paladin is sharply defined. The druid is more diffuse. After all, nobody builds a campaign around these guys:
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/tell_my_wife_hello_neutral_futurama.gif
I don’t disagree with you, but I think you might be focusing on the “neutral” aspect a little to strongly. just because you’re not Lawful-Good or Chaotic-Evil doesn’t mean you can’t be the focus of a campaign.
For example, an incursion of Far Realms aberrations or anything from the Book of Elder Evils is the sort of stuff I’d expect a Druid to notice first- disruption of the natural world.
How’s this for a campaign-hook: 4/5ths of the party is sitting around in a tavern, when all of a sudden screams are heard from the street, followed by strange roars and crashing. The party rushes outside to find a wild-eyed, straggle-bearded dwarf (the last 20% of the party) riding a grizzly bear shouting about creatures with to many eyes, limbs, and orifices.
Bam! Roleplay in 3…2…1…GO!
To paraphrase a certain pirate or three, “The Alignment Chart is really more like guidelines than a rule”. We use it mostly for reference than anything else. “Wait! You mean that creature that just ate that orphanage is ACUTALY NOT EVIL!?!” In game it mostly is a placeholder for how Holy weapons and the like function. As for things like feats and class features that require a specific alignment, they are on a case by case basis. After all with all the “flavor is everything” in DnD and Pathfinder, it kinda sucks to find something that mechanically and thematically works for a character only for an alignment prerequisite to get in the way.
I think the best argument about alignment prereqs is Super Heros and Villains. It’s not the power, it’s how you use it (or to a lesser extent, who you use it on).
As for the Druid backstory/motivation problem…
You can go Urban Druid (not an archetype that abandons nature, if that even exists). In a larger cityscape there are greenhouses, parks, and nurseries…
Maybe that big beautiful tree in the center of the park is a Dryad that longs to bring back her forest, and your Druid is making nice as a grounds keeper while he attempts to figure out how to restore it…
You also brought up vigilantism in a previous post, so the “Eco-Warrior” could be a underground radical activist too…
I once wound up trying to build a reach cleric around the plant (growth) domain:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo-domains/plant-domain/growth/
…and the tactics domain:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo-domains/war-domain/tactics/
That was a mechanics-first build, and I wound up struggling trying to figure out how to flavor the dude. I decided that he was raised by treants to be a sleeper agent, tasked with planting acorns within the boundaries of human settlements in strategic locations. It was a while ago, but I believe the idea was that he would use magic to speed the trees’ growth and slowly shrink the borders of civilization. It managed to fit the mechanics, but I don’t think it was ever more central to the campaign than one player’s weird character shtick.
Subjectivity is way too pevailant in things like DnD/Pathfinder and Star Wars. You aren’t (our idea of) good? HE’S EVIL!
After all, destroying a small town with trees is pretty terrible, but mindlessly killing off a sacred grove and the Dryad that lives there to build said town also sounds pretty bad…
“You just destroyed my house!”
“You mean the one you chopped up a good friend of mine to build?”
I think that’s why the idea of the Jedi Outcast in Star Wars resonates so well with me.
Why does my light saber collection have Sith and Jedi colors in it? Because they both keep trying to kill me.
Why don’t I pick a side? Because they are both wrong/extreme/trying to kill me…
I think I want the next person I play to be that sort of Neutral aligned realist. It’s just hard to get into that mindset…
Also, on the note of Pathfinder and Star Wars, WOOO Spheres of Power light sabers are now a thing! At least if the new Creation book is finished…
So want to make a Force Adept!
I wish I played enough Pathfinder to play with Sphere of Power. I’m only in one campaign at the moment, and I’m enjoying my Occultist VMC Magus quite a bit. So many other builds though! Argh!
There really is never enough time…
One nature character/druid I want to make sometime is one the embodies the “ideals” of his view of nature more than actual nature. Basically, a Darwinian philosophy that nature is about evolving to survive and out compete the competition, and with a goal of becoming the apex of that understanding. To that end he cares about trees, dryads, and such in the same way the wolf cares about deer; useful to keep around for their utility, but not inherently valuable itself (would have no problem replacing deer with sheep if they would be easier prey).
He adventures to face new challenges that force his evolution and growth. He travels with the “pack” of PCs, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. He also disdains the spread of technology, as he sees these tools as stunting the growth of people, as they try to change the environment rather than themselves. However, he doesn’t have a problem with earned or self-crafted gear, as this is earned and fought for; forging sword for self: good. Forging swords to be given to militia: bard. He’s neutral to good and evil only in the sense he rejects both, and neutral to law and chaos because he combines lawful pack loyalty with chaotic disdain of states that just stunt growth. I think it would an interesting character to play.
Laurel likes to talk about the desert druid she played back in 3.5. She was all about the Darwinian angle, and apparently the character wound up in conflict with the lawful good types.
“If the merchants didn’t want to die at the hands of troll raiders, they should have been stronger.”
“You could have saved them!”
“You’re not my supervisor.”
The grey puppy/cub is offering is offering Inquistior a bone. That is just so cute!
I can neither confirm nor deny that we’re developing a Baby Bestiary.
Apply young template (pathfinder), or the inverse of giant template (limited to 3e or 3.5e); repeatedly as needed.
So we’ve met Inquisitor’s dad, and we’ve met ranger’s family, we gonna meet Maggie’s family too?
In terms of the main cast the only family we’ve seen are the parents fighter murdered. I would imagine rogue’s family is interesting. I’m not sure how Tieflings work in Pathfinder, so I’m not sure how interesting they’d actually be.
Well as we found out in the newly minted Role Call page…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/role-call
…some of Thief’s family has already appeared in the comic.
…And then it turns out that Sorcerer is related to Wizard on his Elven side, and that relationship becomes gross.
Maybe it’s because I’m in a particular mindset, but imagine a True Neutral person championing a fight against someone who is obviously ‘bad,’ but has sympathetic notes with every alignment who would possibly hesitate to make it a priority to capture him.
I’m envisioning a Robin Hood kind of character that tortures and brutally murders people who use the law for ill gotten gains, but uses their money to finance orphanages and has a charter from the regional government to do so. The Good guys see a redeeming feature in the results, the Evil guys won’t particularly care but might be interested on what kind of torture, the Lawful guys understand that he’s doing this legally, and the Chaotic guys are jazzed that he’s messing with the scumbags that abuse societal systems for personal benefit.
This does hinge on giving Mr. Neutral a piercing reason to care, but watching your players react to all this might be fun all by itself.
More than alignment, I think my real problem here is conflict. Stories are built on conflict, and a protagonist whose defining feature is “True Neutral” has some natural roadblocks to overcome on the road to an interesting adventure.
Hmm. That’s actually just not what I use most of my backstory NPCs for. I just tend to treat them as “seriously, what people would this character have had in their life that makes what they are a sensible or at least possible result?”
As such one druid I made had parents who were….
…..
………….
Librarians.
Yeah, the druid was a naturalist (in the sense that they study nature, not that they don’t believe in the supernatural because that would be a REAL weird stance in a fantasy setting) from a city big enough to have a real library. They studies took them out into the woods where they met a druid and they just went all in.
Of course they were also a 12 year old kid and had to actually get parental permission to join the adventuring group and had a bat familiar called “HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED NOR LET IN THE HOUSE”. I’m sure you can figure out how that name came about.
But yeah, the way I write character backstories, half the time at least oe fourth (and up to half) of the backstory is “who are this person’s parents”. Even though I’ve almost never had the parents or siblings actually show up in any way.
Though breaking from that, just today in one of my games my Horizon Walker Ranger (fitting right?) just returned home after the game’s premise event which left them stranded in the Astral and then in the neighboring country with no idea if their family was safe. Which is unique for me in both that a character’s family members ACTUALLY mattered in a game and having a character accomplish a major character goal so early in a game.
Heh. I wondered if anybody was going to call me out on the blanket statement. I’m an English guy as well as a games guy, so I tend to approach character on a literary level. I’m always asking myself what X detail means on a symbolic level or why Y backstory element exists. If you imagine a game like Sim City however, it doesn’t really matter what you decide to call your town or how it got that name. It’s just not the point of the game.
I guess I’ve got a little Ian Bogost on my mind: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/
So once again, we come back to my oft-used Hengeyokai Vow of Poverty character (which I believe I mentioned one iteration of a couple comics ago). One method to make the character stand out is that the Vow of Poverty isn’t standard: it is a sacred vow to show that the primal way of life is the most dignified and perfect way of life.
Most BBEG’s I’ve fought tend to be Lawful Evil, masters of civilization and excess in their quests to dominate the kingdom/continent/world/etc. The perfect antithesis of this archetype of BBEG is the Mowgli, the character raised by beasts and living off the land, freeing others from tyranny and teaching them to fend for themselves by living off of the land and hiding from pursuit.
On a separate note, something from 3.5 that is not present in PF is the planar wheel, and one plane specifically called “The Beastlands”, which is a Neutral-Good aligned plane where celestial beasts roam and primal creatures of all sorts play out the circle of life. One of the more important aspects of this is that the most powerful deities that reside there are the Neutral powers of Nature, such as Mielikki and Ehlonna. These are both Unicorn themed neutral good goddesses that are exemplars of the goodness of woodland beasts and the cycle of life within them. It would be very easy to see them representing other aspects of nature as well, such as mountains, tundras, or deserts. Druids that follow the teachings of these two can be Neutral Good and be champions of their causes.
Another possible source of inspiration is in the descriptions of Neutral in previous editions of D&D: Neutral characters tend to like good neighbors better than evil neighbors, since one is usually less dangerous than the other. A neutral druid does not want threats to his domain, the land he guards from encroachment. This makes it a not-so-gray alignment.
One example of that might be from the lore of Rooftrellen, the Treant Protector from DotA2. “It was decided: a lone Protector would be sent into the wider world, and instructed to wander until the glaciers arose once more, to observe the changing land and its creatures, and to discover what unknown dangers could threaten their sacred ground.” Another example might be a more nature-themed version of Nick Fury from Marvel Comics. It was revealed in the Original Sin event that Nick had basically been a Man on the Wall for fifty or so years, locating and eliminating threats to humanity before they were able to threaten Earth. A druid with that kind of theme might take levels in Inquisitor or Hunter to show their preemptive attitude. I find that Inquisitors tend to take a more central role in the plot by their very nature, so there is this angle as well.
I guess I need to do something about my longwindedness, but if you’ve read this far, thanks.
Naw man, these are great ideas. I especially like the nature-themed Nick Fury angle. I am highly amused by the image of Sam Jackson as a defender of nature.
“Sylvan, Motherf*cker, Do You Speak It?”
I agree with the “good neighbors” thing; just look what happened to Fangorn Forest when Sauruman went all power-mad 😛
Well, i know of 2 Ways, to make a Nature Hero more fun. 1. Behave like one of the Fey yourself. Youre not here for the Big Bad, youre just here too have fun, and pranking his Mooks,… well they took that a bit too Personal. Played right such a Character can be funny, played wrong, you will annoy the Players.
I mean, think off Druid getting pissed. Think of her getting REALLY REALLY pissed. Yeah, i think that means Erathquakes shattering City Walls while an Army of the most gigantic Animals invade. THAT is how you play a Badass Druid.
2. Way. Balance is threatend. Maybe the BBEGS armys are mowing down Forests to build Siege Machines. You will put a Stop to it. He will be squashed by the Power of Mother Nature like the Insolent Bug he is, and you are her Agent!
I think that #2 is the default druid. No doubt that Treebeard is a fun concept, but I’m trying to think my way around that stock option.
The fey thing, however, is a cool take. Don’t believe I didn’t think of that, especially as Laurel has some art in this thing:
https://www.amazon.com/Graceful-Wicked-Masques-Manual-Exalted/dp/1588466183
Curses. I can’t Edit Stuff. Please switch the Second Passage with the third one, to get the right Order.
I need to shout at Laurel and figure out if there’s a way to give a little more power to the people. I’ve had several dudes bemoan the lack of formatting options. :/
Awww! It must be getting serious if Ranger is taking them home to meet the parents!
Ranger: “…”
Inquisitor: “What’s she saying?”
Magus: “HISSS!”
Inquieistor: “Yes. We all get that you don’t like dogs. Now stop being a bad kitty for five seconds and translate.”
Magus: “Fine. You’re not going to like it though.”
Inquisitor: “What? Why not?”
Magus: “She introduced me as the pack’s beta female. Apparently you’re the omega.”
Inquisitor: “WHAT!?”
Ranger: “…”
Magus: “Maybe you should keep your voice down. Pa Wolf seems to think you’re in need of a ‘dominance display.'”
Inquisitor: “HISSS!”
My hunter Irlana is an orphan that was raised in a forest. To keep her from being a Mowgli type, I made it so that she was old enough to remember her parents and civilization to not be feral when she started out on her adventure. We actually had Mama Boar come by the city for a visit once.
I like “awakened animals” as a riff on the trope. That’s a great way to play the “Mowgli” trope without the baggage. I approve!
Thanks. Sadly, the GM later had an NPC who hated the party go after their loved ones. Mama Boar is now gone.
Well that one’s on you:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-handbook-of-heroes-13
😛
No, that one’s on the GM. He did this without telling us beforehand. Irlana screamed when she saw her adopted mom’s head mounted on a wall.
Well… I’m afraid my own experience backs up your established conceptions. I once ran a character, who was the aforementioned Fey Foundling type – a kid nabb’d by fairies and growing up in the feywild. He was a Druid with the fey-themed Circle.
I loved playing the guy but a strong part of his character was to have only a detached interest in the campaign’s myrh arc. In acting against the forces creating massive upheaval in the world, he was satisfying his own concsience, and that was enough for him. He didn’t need any more personal motivation.
I felt that this was a strength, not a flaw; a character who didn’t have personal stakes was one less character the DM had to pander to to keep invested. But our DM disagreed. And from what you’ve written in the comments, maybe you would to? Here’s where I differ: I felt that a motivation of “lets try not to let the world get too messed up” was enough for my druid to take a leading role in the story.
Neutral, I tend to find, will naturally align with Good in most circumstances. Because everybody is well off in a Good-wins scenario, wheras you have to be something of a sociopath to really enjoy an Evil-wins scenario. Does it really matter that Neutral is less ideological about it?
Neutral prefers good neighbors. It hangs out with Good for that reason.
But the generalized heroic “let’s save the world” gets old after a few campaigns. If that’s the experience you’re happy with, there ain’t nothing wrong with it. But if I want a character with personal stakes, the “wild child” route is a tough one to take.
Personally I’m trying to veer away from world-saving plotlines in my own campaigns, but I still want to have a main plot that can exist independently of the characters.
But as a player, yeah, I’ve rarely seen a game that doesn’t invoke either good v evil its main story arc. There’s usually some sort of good to be done on some scale and the choice is handed to the party to do it, or not.
I had a character raised by bears once, vaguely inspired by the myth of Atalanta. Only instead of being a badass warrior/hunter/track star, she was a little girl who turned into a bear. (I still crammed versions of like half of Atalanta’s myths into her backstory.)
Non Mowgli backstory for a druid: You live a sheltered life with normal parents in the average village. As a teen a fluffy cat from the wild (read: animal companion) shows up and follows you around. You feel nature blessing you with power (magic).
Then you notice that greedy/evil/has to feed their kids part of the community doing mining/farming/whatever that destroys nature. You’re pissed off, your parents are stupid sheep that don’t understand and so you have to take things into your own hands.
One night you sneak out, sabotage what you deem the evil opposition to nature and then flee into the woods. It starts to rain. You’re sitting wet and cold in the dark. You find out that Mother Nature is a bitch that doesn’t give a flying fudge about your whining.
But there is also no way you go back. You’ve burned all bridges there (maybe even literally). So to not sit wet and cold in the dark the next night, you throw yourself at the next best group that you meet who travels to a land as far away as possible from your former hometown.
Bitter. Resentful. Aging hippy whose ideals got dumped on in the 70s… I digt it!
A Druid I had in a solo campaign that never really got off the ground was a defector from a noble house in a city of necromancy who bonded with her family’s menagerie (before they died and got raised again as darker things), then decided to run away, joining a druid commune in the plains to the west.
My goal was for her to eventually decide to try and find a more sustainable source of power for her homeland, although that’s less “champion of the wild” and more “environmental activist.”
Another idea I never fleshed out into a full character was a gnome druid who learned primal magic to more accurately and humanely study the world’s wildlife, a natural scientist doing research as they adventure. Maybe if I ever ran the concept in PF2e they’d have a Beagle animal companion or something, I don’t know. (For the record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle)
I feel like there’s ample ground to explore nature-themed concepts and stories outside the “champion of the wilds” concept, and the “environmentalist” angle conveniently opens up some excellent BBEG options (including chances to punch avatars of rampant capitalism in the face.)
As for “opposite of Neutral:” I feel like the answer is “anyone with diametrically opposed goals and motivations, including other Neutrals.” Alignment isn’t the end-all-be-all of characterization and motives, just a sometimes-convenient signpost for how a character approaches morality and social structures in a vacuum.