Questions of Capabilities

[Fayne]

I recently ran into the issue where I'd like to use my perk from Patreon to give my druidry some kind of personal flair, but I realized that the same issues I had there will come up if I ever want to ise my powers in an emote or whatever. So, I figure I'll just ask out loud and see what I get in response.

First of all, druidry seems to be the least scientifically researched of all the magics. Elemancers can tell you exactly how their powers work, sorcerors can give you a rough idea of what they're doing, even if they can't exactly tell you what nether is, and thaumaturgists at least all agree that the Inner Light comes from each individual person. However, druids by comparison can neither tell you what druidry is exactly, where it comes from, or anything. I'm not even completely sure whether or not druidry can be taught, like sorcery, or gained through hard work, like thaumaturgy, or if you have to be born with the ability, like elemancy. Why is it that druidry seems to be the most secret and hand-wave-y magic in the game? More importantly, what is essential in order for druidry to work? Could a druid that believes his or her powers are granted by a certain god or goddess activate their druidry by calling out to said deity? Could a druid who believes his or her powers are more scientific and based on their own will being exerted on the world around them acyivate it by simply closing their eyes and concentrating silently? Or is a whispered request the requirement to activate druidry?

Second, what sorts of limitations do druids have? Is it just urban environments that snuff our powers, or is it the absence of natural materials to work with? If the former, what exactly quilifies a place as "urban", and if the latter, how much "nature" must be present for us to work with? Could we potentially manipulate flowers in flowerpots if we wanted to? Also, does the plant have to be living and attached to the earth somehow, or could our influence work on cut herbs or flowers as long as they haven't completely wilted, withered, or dried, or can we exert our powers on any natural materials so long as they originated from a plant or animal?

Third, what are some things we can or can't do? Can we make flowers sprout from the ground from seeds or roots that already exist, kind of like how tangleroot rapidly grows existing roots to grab targets? Could we change the color of flowers or trees or such in a similar way to how we change our own skin and non-metalic items when using Chameleon? If we wanted to be dramatic, could we make roots, pieces of herbs, or flowers crawl up our bodies to circle around our wrists as long as we are channeling?

I think that's pretty much the extent of my questioning for the moment. I know if I could have these questions even partially answered, it'd help my understanding of druidry tremendously. I'm still working on writing a book on druidry IC, so any of this stuff I can manage to word well enough IC will probably go in it in order to help others understand as well, both druids and non-druids.

[Rias]

However, druids by comparison can neither tell you what druidry is exactly, where it comes from, or anything.

As mentioned on the wiki and the in-game skill description, druidry is essentially a channel of communication between the druid and a powerful druidic entity (The Gaea/Nature/the Wilds/what-have-you). It's quite like a prayer, actually - beseeching another entity to grant boons and powers.

I'm not even completely sure whether or not druidry can be taught, like sorcery, or gained through hard work, like thaumaturgy, or if you have to be born with the ability, like elemancy.

All channeling methods can be learned by anyone. Some are harder to grasp than others, and some people may just have to resign themselves to not being cut out for it. Elemancy requires the ability to sort of first abstractly vizualize these complex patterns, and then be able to put them together with other complex patterns and still retain an overall "shape" or "form", which is extremely difficult for most, but some are born with a knack for it just like any complicated mental thinking.

Anyway, druidry is almost always taught or passed down from druid to druid. It's usually considered something of a sacred ritual, which frankly probably earns the Udemi mild scorn from some circles for treating it as a mere tool (granted there are many Udemi who do treat druidry with great respect and reverence, but the Udemi will indeed teach it to anyone willing to learn it in order to give them an edge against the resen). Oops, tangent again.

So yes, druidry is usually passed down from druid to druid. It can be independently learned just like thaumaturgy, elemancy, and sorcery, but just like them, this is an extremely rare occurrance and player characters shouldn't assume they're one of these people. You can claim to have had the knack or affinity beforehand, but you had to be taught (presumably by a guildmater) to actually utilize the power to any significant effect.

People who have a special respect, reverence, and awareness of the natural world and the power within it tend to be the more apt students and practitioners of druidry. So a Udemi who just learned it to fight the resen because it was an option would technically not be as in-tune, so to speak. There's no mechanic to reflect this, but really, we don't have any dedicated "pure druid" guild, so it's not a big deal. Well, no, there's the long-name one, but frankly I hardly know anything about it - it was made while I was gone.

Why is it that druidry seems to be the most secret and hand-wave-y magic in the game? More importantly, what is essential in order for druidry to work?

Probably because as mentioned before, it's more of a prayer/superbeing-granted power than any of the other channeling methods. There are typically set "spells" known in druidic circles, and they're passed down. Occasionally a druid will learn a new spell and they can then pass it on, but again - player characters shouldn't assume they're one of these people. I imagine this doesn't happen by a druid practicing and experimenting in a lab (or a forest grove), but rather by appealing for a certain thing when the timing is presumably right and the druidic entity which the druid is communicating with grants that "spell" into being.

So, the "Stave to Staff" spell wasn't just devised by someone who was clever and really good at druidry and figured it out on their own. Rather, it was granted to one of the early Udemi, one who was a particularly dedicated and respectful druid who really did respect and wish to commune with and serve nature. Being an archer and a scout who traveled light, they often experienced trouble in the fight against the resen when they got pulled into melee, and presumably the Gaea (as the Udemi typically envision and name the power behind nature) granted the spell to this Udemi as a boon. I'm sure you can imagine a similar situation for when the Chameleon spell came about.

So, when you use the Chameleon spell, you're not consciously causing these chanages to happen in your body/gear in exquisite detail, but rather you're appealing for the boon to be granted. Now, these spells involve more than just thinking "hey gaea need chameleon effect plz thx". There's going to be some sort of mental mindset and stuff that's required. Like with Chameleon, you'd envision the effect in your mind, and try to "feel" it happening to your body even before the spell comes into effect, to get the spell to actually trigger and work. After all, it's fairly well-estblished that druidry communication doesn't occur in Common, or any semblance of human language, for that matter. You have to do your best to speak to these druidic entities in their own language.

Could a druid that believes his or her powers are granted by a certain god or goddess activate their druidry by calling out to said deity?

It could work if those deity was considered the source of natural life/power. Notice how often I use all those slashes? "Gaea/Nature/The Wilds/some other druidic entity". If someone decided that Vernungnr was the All-God and the source of all power, that wouldn't work. If someone logicked that Malfant is the Keeper of Secrets and Arcane Knowledge and so "hey, it can give me druidry too", that wouldn't work. If someone just decided that their left shoe was a source of druidic power, that wouldn't work. Clearly there's SOMEthing(or things) out there that can recognize peoples' druidic communications and respond to them, when properly acknowledged and addressed. While people may quibble over terminology - "It's the Gaea!" "No, it's the Will of the Wilds!" "No, it's the collective influence of the Great Animal Spirits!" "No, it's the Will of the World!" "No, it's the Great Tree!" "No, it's Teonanacatl!"- it generally doesn't seem to matter much if their underlying belief is that they're communicating with a being (or beings) that is more or less the master over all nature. Apparently whatever the thing is, it isn't overly picky about what people name it. (Note: If people start doing ridiculous things like "My character refers to the druidic deity as Bob/The Big Fluffy Teddy Bear In The Sky/The Great Oatmeal Raisin Cookie!" I will remove their druidry skill, and Jirato can't stop me.)

Could a druid who believes his or her powers are more scientific and based on their own will being exerted on the world around them acyivate it by simply closing their eyes and concentrating silently?

No.

Second, what sorts of limitations do druids have? Is it just urban environments that snuff our powers, or is it the absence of natural materials to work with?

I'm actually not sure why some things don't work in urban environments. I get the limitations with tangle root, because you need to have some earthy soil that presumably has a seed in there somewhere to work with, but just saying "Nope, doesn't work cause you're in town" to something like chameleon (I think?) is weird to me. I believe it's inspired by a similar mechanic in another MUD that Rithiel and I both used to play quite a lot. Maybe it's because there's less of nature around you to help you "get into the zone"? I dunno. I didn't put that restriction in there. Perhaps the communication with the druidic being(s) requires carriers to forward that communication on, so you need enough natural life around to do that for you. But then, it should be channeling druidry on a whole that's restricted, not the casting of certain spells. Don't really have a good answer for that one, unfortunately.

Could we potentially manipulate flowers in flowerpots if we wanted to?

If it was an established spell for a specific purpose, but we don't have any spells that effect flowers specifically, unless you want to turn one into a tangle root, I guess.

Can we make flowers sprout from the ground from seeds or roots that already exist, kind of like how tangleroot rapidly grows existing roots to grab targets?

You can do something that's long-term beneficial for the plant via druidry cultivate, or you can turn it into a tangle root (after which the poor thing withers away). You can't just dance around with flowers sprouting all around you or anything. (Imagine how that would impact the floral and herbalism businesses!)

Could we change the color of flowers or trees or such in a similar way to how we change our own skin and non-metalic items when using Chameleon?

Nope.

If we wanted to be dramatic, could we make roots, pieces of herbs, or flowers crawl up our bodies to circle around our wrists as long as we are channeling?

Well, you could tangle root yourself ...

-------------

So, yeah. All in all, just like most other channeling techniques, druidry is very useful and powerful, but also very limited in its use and application. It's not just free-form "as I will, so shall it be" magic that can affect anything plant or animal. Feel free to join the Elemancers in their chorus of anguish on the bitter limitations set upon you.

[Dorn]

However, druids by comparison can neither tell you what druidry is exactly, where it comes from, or anything.

As mentioned on the wiki and the in-game skill description, druidry is essentially a channel of communication between the druid and a powerful druidic entity (The Gaea/Nature/the Wilds/what-have-you). It's quite like a prayer, actually - beseeching another entity to grant boons and powers.

If Druidry channeling is rather like praying, is there a reason it is so prone to armor failure? Without knowing the numbers or having a Druid myself, I'm curious. Or isn't it, and in general the thoughts on the matter is that Druidry is quite effective in channeling with some of the leathers (like rigid or such) but no one attempts to do so?

[Rias]

Armor (and technically other dense materials held close to the body, but we're nice and handwave it for stuff in your backpack and so forth) interferes with the basic opening and maintaining of channels, not the actual casting of spells. The same basic underlying channeling technique is used for druidry as is used for elemancy, sorcery, thauamturgy, and cryomancy. That's why there's a separate "channeling" skill in addition to druidry, pyromancy, cryomancy, hydromnacy, thaumaturgy, etc. As mentioned here:

One could technically learn to channel their will and energy without being able to do anything else with it (elemancy, druidry, etc.).

Where they differ is how they apply that channel once it's open. A druidry "prayer" still requires an open channel to use. Otherwise, the "prayer" isn't going to reach the druidic entity you're trying to contact (and even if it did, you wouldn't be providing the will and energy to enact any kind of spell without being actively channeling).

Why is the channeling process hindered so? Nobody's certain, though the most widely-held theory is that the channeling process involves channeling your will and energy outward from your body at least somewhat, and these dense materials block it from being projected out and the channel fails. That's also why it doesn't appear to matter where the armor is worn. Some people seem to find it puzzling or amusing that things like boots and gloves can interfere with channels, but if it requires a projection from the entirety of your body to work, it wouldn't matter if "only a little" was blocked from your hands or feet - it requires a complete projection, and one little piece missing will cause it to fail.

[Rias]

Additional note: Druidry spells still work via the caster. It's kind of like this (assuming the druid considers the Gaea the source of druidic power - substitute with your character's personal/cultural belief as necessary)

Step 1: Druid channels request to the Gaea.
Step 2: The Gaea authorizes the request and sends back some encrypted data to be used for the spell.
Step 3: Druid uses their skill in Druidry to decrypt the returned data as accurately as they are able to.
Step 4: Druid utilizes their channeled will and energy to power and enact the spell based on the data they've translated.

This, particularly Step 3, is why druidic spells are more effective as druidry skill increases. It's not the druidic entity just casting the spell for you (it probably has better things to do, and doesn't want all its energy to be drained by druids everywhere). The entity is just providing the data to be used by the druid. The druid herself still needs to be the one to cast the spell, and depending on their druidry skill and their ability to understand and utilize the data returned by the entity, it will vary in effectiveness.

[Fayne]

So, druids are basically computer programs, requesting data and utilizing it to the best of their capabilities depending on how well they are able to interpret said data.

Dude, that's so meta.

[Kunren]

So, druids are basically computer programs, requesting data and utilizing it to the best of their capabilities depending on how well they are able to interpret said data.

Dude, that's so meta.

I <3 it

[merin]

So does that mean when the druid is unable to perform the spell that they suffered a compiler error?