Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-15-2012, 04:01 PM   #1
b-dog
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Default [DF] Druids in Worminghall

I really like the Worminghall pdf for a town base for dungeon exploration. I would like there to be some druids nearby as well. I like the concept of image magic and it fits well with the way wizards work in my Mythic Earth gameworld. But I would like druids to be literally the "old faith" meaning they are religious as opposed to mana magic wielding wizards. This also makes sense that druids are given power investiture instead of magery. So what would druids worship? Nature itself? This sounds fine but I was thinking of bringing some older Celtic gods into the gameworld. So my idea to do so is that the Celtic gods were defeated by Christianity and were relegated to a lesser status. In the process their pantheon merged with nature and this how the druids worship them. Some of the more powerful individual Celtic gods can be called upon and can help PC's or the clerics who worship them but for the most part their power is linked to nature. Does this make sense? I would like keep the gameworld with a pseudo-medieval feel if possible. Thanks.
b-dog is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-15-2012, 09:52 PM   #2
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: [DF] Druids in Worminghall

Quote:
Originally Posted by b-dog View Post
I really like the Worminghall pdf for a town base for dungeon exploration. I would like there to be some druids nearby as well. I like the concept of image magic and it fits well with the way wizards work in my Mythic Earth gameworld. But I would like druids to be literally the "old faith" meaning they are religious as opposed to mana magic wielding wizards. This also makes sense that druids are given power investiture instead of magery. So what would druids worship? Nature itself? This sounds fine but I was thinking of bringing some older Celtic gods into the gameworld. So my idea to do so is that the Celtic gods were defeated by Christianity and were relegated to a lesser status. In the process their pantheon merged with nature and this how the druids worship them. Some of the more powerful individual Celtic gods can be called upon and can help PC's or the clerics who worship them but for the most part their power is linked to nature. Does this make sense? I would like keep the gameworld with a pseudo-medieval feel if possible. Thanks.
I don't know about druids specifically. Worminghall does have pointers at ancient Celtic traditions that are surviving in Britain, particularly in Wales, but local faerie legends descend partly from them. In Christian terms, of course, anything from ancient Celtic paganism to leaving out milk for the brownies is spirit magic and punishable as idolatry; most priests would be inclined to avoid noticing trivial bits of paganism unless they were forced to, but out and out worship of pagan gods would be viewed poorly.

If I were going to go for druidism in a big way I would probably look at the tree magic rules from Thaumatology.

Bill Stoddard
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-16-2012, 03:50 AM   #3
Peter Knutsen
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
Default Re: [DF] Druids in Worminghall

Often pagan practices were tolered by the Church, in the later medieval period - or any area that had been converted for several centuries, as long as the people still participated in Church activities. I think only outright worship got slapped down hard (since that often included sacrifices of produce, animals or humans, or interacting with an idol, or several of them), and perhaps (but not necessarily) attempts to practice magic.

1300-or-so AD Norman England, in which Worminghall is set (as far as I know), certainly counts as having been converted for several centuries, so there's no reason for the Bishops to have a hard-ass zero-tolerance attitude. And the practice of magic obviously has to be looked at in terms of fitting into the setting, since it's not standard medieval, but rather a place where magic is acceptable enough to have a school devoted solely to that subject.

As for the Keltic gods, many of them, if not all, were co-opted by the Keltic Church and/or Catholic Church and turned into saints, with the goddess Brigid being the best known case. So that's one way for the Druids to sneak in a lot of worship without being caught at it - they can just be very devoted to Saint Brigit, and so forth.
Peter Knutsen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-16-2012, 05:06 AM   #4
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: [DF] Druids in Worminghall

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
If I were going to go for druidism in a big way I would probably look at the tree magic rules from Thaumatology.
That looks like a good starting point, but there are at least a couple of issues that arise from it.

You need to decide if Herb Lore is something that druids do, and if Worminghall's practitioners have any relationship with druids.

Eventually, someone will discover that while image magic and tree magic have very different structures, the spells possible within them are pretty much the same. The druids likely won't have much of a problem with this: "the spells are part of the world, not creations of your god", but some parts of the church may feel that magic which isn't exclusively christian is contaminated by paganism, and should be discarded.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
worminghall

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:46 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.