Idea: grove binding

[Alicia]

An ability available to guilds that have druidry called Grove Binding (or something similar)

User finds a wilderness area (Such as Emleth Forest, Vaelgraten Forest, etc) and 'cast binding', thus by permanently binding themselves to that area (and you can only have 1 grove). All skills receive a slight boost while in your grove, and stealth/perception are given a huge bonus. Cultivating effects by you in your area are doubly effective.

Grove spells- Note: None of these may be cast from horse back.


Grove Meditate: You must be sitting/kneeling but not prone. You may or may not be hidden. cast meditate while channeling druidry. The forest grows into the druid, sapping the Druids energy reserves to rapidly increase herb production. Also you can 'feel' the forest, allowing you to know when someone has entered/exited the area and exactly where from you they did so (but not who). Also know if it was on foot or horse back. Higher channeling/druidy allows you to meditate longer, if you lose your channel or run out of energy the meditation is broken and all side effects halt (though herbs grown stay there until foraged)

Grove Blink: Your intimate connection and understanding of your grove allows you to get around at lightning speed. Anytime you are in your area, you can channel druidry and 'cast blink <direction> <# of rooms>' If # exceeds area boundry you are unable to cast the spell. 1second RT for each room travelled and cost 1/4th of current energy.

Grove Ensare: This turns your grove against those that may be tresspassing. While channeling druidry and within your area, 'cast ensnare' causes roots to target everything in every room in your area and attempt to tangle root them unless they are in your group.

[Barius]

You're... proposing that a druid can claim an entire forest? That is incredibly powerful, and I'm not even sure it'd be reasonable to claim a single league, let alone an entire area.

[Alicia]

It is not claiming it so much as imprinting yourself with it. Two druids could have the same grove.

[Barius]

It's still an entire forest, and incredibly powerful. I can't see this happening.

[Alicia]

Let me put an eloquent lore-spin on it.

Binding/Imprinting with a 'grove'/area is the act of melding your spirit with the spirit of the 'grove'/area and walking away with a unique connection and understanding of the spirit of that forest/plain/etc.

It is very much a give and take relationship with no 'owndership' or 'claiming'. You give to the area, it gives back to you. You defend it, it gives you help in defending it.

[Lae]

So if someone sets fire to said grove, would you die?

>.>

[Alicia]

It's still an entire forest, and incredibly powerful. I can't see this happening.

How are the three abilities I've decribed "incredibly powerful"? One gives you a bunch of herbs (that anyone can pick) and gives you some rough information on movement within the area, however you're stuck in place and semi vulnerable while doing it.

One ability grants you the ability to run the hell away or just be able to pass through the entire forest for a HUGE RT if you move a bunch of rooms at once.

And the last ability lets you ensnare everything like tangle roots, but that's a what 8-10 second snare time? No guarantee the druid even knows where you are in the area to capitalize on it? And if you're in the same room as the druid it is really no different than using tangle roots in the first place.

The passives wouldn't be anything amazing. Maybe 20 points to stealth/perception and a 1-2% boost to all other skills?


Lae: I would say if you're connected to it via meditate, you could take damage. Otherwise no, it's just a spiritual understanding of the area, not a true intermingling of essences. Plus, nature can grow back from a burning, so it is not like you'd be fucked with no grove if someone decided to do it,e eventually your grove would grow back, possibly even faster if you help it along with meditation.

[Barius]

Let me put an eloquent lore-spin on it.

Binding/Imprinting with a 'grove'/area is the act of melding your spirit with the spirit of the 'grove'/area and walking away with a unique connection and understanding of the spirit of that forest/plain/etc.

It is very much a give and take relationship with no 'owndership' or 'claiming'. You give to the area, it gives back to you. You defend it, it gives you help in defending it.

You didn't specify what you are doing to "give". But you have listed a lot of "take".

I also second Lae's question.

[Alicia]

Fueling the forest with your own energy isn't giving?

[Lysse]

Unless you're constantly pouring energy into the forest, then it's not really a fair exchange. This is less of a give and take relationship, and more of "enslaving the forest to do my bidding" one.

[Barius]

Fueling the forest with your own energy isn't giving?

I don't see a mention of that in your first post, but never mind.

[Alicia]

Grove Meditate: You must be sitting/kneeling but not prone. You may or may not be hidden. cast meditate while channeling druidry. The forest grows into the druid, sapping the Druids energy reserves to rapidly increase herb production.

Grove Blink: Your intimate connection and understanding of your grove allows you to get around at lightning speed. Anytime you are in your area, you can channel druidry and 'cast blink <direction> <# of rooms>' If # exceeds area boundry you are unable to cast the spell.------- 1second RT for each room travelled and cost 1/4th of current energy.------

Grove Ensare: This turns your grove against those that may be tresspassing. While channeling druidry and within your area, 'cast ensnare' causes roots to target everything in every room in your area and attempt to tangle root them unless they are in your group. (figure out costs somewhere)

Fueling the forest with your own energy isn't giving?

I don't see a mention of that in your first post, but never mind.

Lysse: it's not enslaving, it is working with. Some people might see that as a form of enslavement but I don't understand how giving your lifeblood to grow herbs, using your own energy to transport around and what ever else for tangling people up in rooms is not "give and take"

[Vinz]

Unfortunately a majority of these spell sections fall under our "never lists". The blink power is too close to teleportation in my own opinion (though i understand your PC would move through the space, its still nearly instantly. Also the meditate power seems like improved cultivate which i could get behind but the other part of it sounds too much like a scrying power, which also isn't allowed.


An improved cultivate or having cultivate scale based on how powerful the druid is (assuming it doesn't already do that, i dont actually know.) would be kind of nifty.

[Alicia]

Unfortunately a majority of these spell sections fall under our "never lists". The blink power is too close to teleportation in my own opinion (though i understand your PC would move through the space, its still nearly instantly. Also the meditate power seems like improved cultivate which i could get behind but the other part of it sounds too much like a scrying power, which also isn't allowed.


An improved cultivate or having cultivate scale based on how powerful the druid is (assuming it doesn't already do that, i dont actually know.) would be kind of nifty.

Thank you for the constructive and informative feedback!

[Kunren]

Personally I think you are thinks my a bit big. How about a single league of forest, which, if ever burned(which would be an interesting thing to be able to do) would permanetely reduce druidry by X amount. when in your grove you have enchanced druidry, and perhaps a bit of stealth and perception. Enchanced cultivate and perhaps some other skills, RP of course. You would basically be saying "I am the personal caretaker of this little area. If I ever fail in my duty, I will be punished severely." Without constant checks, the grove would be in danger from infested, fire, anti-Druid people, PCs, you name it.

[Alaia]

Having played a game where you could claim a patch of natural world as yours if you were a druid, I have to say that I don't believe that sort of relationship works for what Clok is all about -- druidry in Clok isn't about controlling nature, if it was, the Gaea wouldn't be able to tell you that you've bothered it too much and cut you off. Which it can. It also doesn't sound symbiotic enough. Basically, unless you're going so far as to say you're going to be constantly near death putting energy into this patch of forest and thus otherwise not very useful in other aspects, it will never be symbiotic enough not to be a parasitic relationship (no one is online long enough for that). It'd also probably need a skill requirement that'd keep it out of the hands of PCs who aren't seriously RPing their Druidic connections, like Druidry 300+, or we'd end up with a lot of low-level druids claiming they take care of an entire forest.

In alternative to having some coded way to claim a patch of forest, since I think that would be a touch silly (after all, there aren't enough forests for all Udemi+Dunwyr, and who wants the dangerous ones like the Dead Woods and Brittlebranch?), you could just RP that you're the caretaker of one of the forests. I think it'd be much more realistic to the theme of the game; you would, of course, have to defend that claim and keep people from doing Bad Things to your forest, but there is no onus on the Gaea to give you anything (it already communes with you through Druidry). Anyone can go and say they are the Lorax, they speak for the trees.

For an example, see Dunwyr: Stone Canyon. They don't own the canyon. But they'll kick your ass for going into it, and so most people don't (when the Dunwyr are around). This also enables non-druidry Druidic groups to play up their druidry; for instance, the Dwaedn Wyr are druidic in nature, and I'm sure some love trees, and through RP, they could do the same thing. Or maybe you're just a guy who friggin' loves Nature and you want to take care of it. They couldn't do it the same way if it was a coded mechanic, which isn't necessarily fair, after all, we don't know how the Gaea reacts to people who are like that but don't have druidry as a skill; maybe the Gaea still communes with them.

TL;DR RP is win; there's nothing stopping you from claiming one area is your PC's grove in an IC sense, why does it have to be coded in with weird non-lore mechanics? No one will laugh at you for just RPing that way, because interesting RP is always good.

[Lae]

TL;DR RP is win; there's nothing stopping you from claiming one area is your PC's grove in an IC sense, why does it have to be coded in with weird non-lore mechanics? No one will laugh at you for just RPing that way, because interesting RP is always good.

This cannot be stressed enough. RP is the key to 95% of what happens in our little world. I'd love to see more people sensibly RP little ideas like this than most anything else. Sure, code to back it up is fun, but code has limits. Your imagination and you do not.

[Rias]

I think it could be fun to have some kind of neato druid-y reaction to someone with access to druidry who specifically takes charge of one "grove" in particular. I don't think it would do well to be just another ability/set of mechanical bonuses that every druid could pick up on a whim, though. It would have to be something earned and maintained. (Just thinking out loud here, not saything anything is planned.)

P.S. If I had a character inclined to claim/protect a swathe of woodland, I would totally choose the Dead Woods. So much more driven and exciting when the area is contested and dangerous!

[Alaia]

P.S. If I had a character inclined to claim/protect a swathe of woodland, I would totally choose the Dead Woods. So much more driven and exciting when the area is contested and dangerous!

I would probably pick one of the dangerous forests, I used that as an example more of... Common MUD-player mindset in my experience across lots of MUDs. I mean, it'd at least help. Because, like. Who's going to come screw with your forest if a brigand might jump out and kill them? Half your work is done for you defending your territory...

[Tangela]

I think seeing something like this done would be really neat!

[preiman]

Maybe something where you gain energy faster, your druidry works better, and your cultivation is stronger, but if the area is distressed you feel that even harder. That way it is a real trade off, you gain something in the area, but you are forced to look after it, and if you fail there is a price. Maybe even in extreme situations a penalty to skills or a temp or even perminent loss of druidry.

[Dorn]

...I'd have fun with that. Do that.