Environmentalism and D&D.

[tadkins]

Started thinking about a hypothetical scenario earlier.

There is a druid, living alone in the wilderness. His charge is to protect the natural environment of this land, which consists of ice-capped mountain peaks surrounded by a pristine forest. A rather beautiful, unspoiled place.

A group of industrialist-minded dwarves moves into the area and sets up a mining operation within the mountains. They're what you would typically expect from dwarves; simple, hardworking folk. However, as an unfortunate side effect of the dwarves' work, the balance of the environment is disrupted. The machinery pollutes the air, the noise displaces organisms crucial to the ecology of this environment, and a lot of hunting takes place in the surrounding area to feed the dwarves.

The druid will of course have to intervene. How the druid will intervene will probably depend on his alignment, and this is the part I got to think hard about.

A Neutral Evil Druid would have it very easy. Collapse the mountain and bury the dwarves alive. Marshal a group of ferocious predators to rip the dwarves to shreds. Send a plague through the cavern systems and camps, dooming the dwarves to a slow and horrific death. Transform a few of the dwarves into lycanthropes and let them loose upon their own brethren. The possibilities are endless for an evil druid. xD

A Lawful Neutral Druid would of course use the law to intervene. I figure he might call upon certain laws that were written by neighboring kingdoms that guaranteed the area to be protected. If no such laws ever existed, the druid might turn to diplomacy, appeal to the kingdom the dwarves originally came from and try to come to a compromise. Failing that, I'm not sure what else he could do, though.

A Chaotic Neutral Druid might play trickster on the dwarves' operation. He might steal tools, send some animals to play disruptive but harmless pranks, and generally try to be as much of a nuisance as possible to hopefully convince the dwarves to leave.

A True Neutral Druid might use a variation of the NG, LN or CN options. Maybe a cold-hearted one might use a lesser variation of the NE option, but I'm not entirely certain they'd remain TN after that one.

This is where I got stuck; the Neutral Good Druid. What could he do? Obviously, he couldn't take any of the evil options to drive them out. He could offer the dwarves aid as a good person would, but that'd make things worse and likely convince the dwarves to stay! He could try speaking to the dwarves, explain what they're doing to the land, and trying to convince them to leave. Beyond that, I don't see a lot of other options that the druid has if the dwarves choose to laugh him out of the campsite.

Would the act of standing for the environment and for nature even be qualified as a good act, or is it neutral as per the typical druid alignment? Basically, would a neutral druid battling good people that are harming nature still be considered neutral, or would that cross him into evil territory?

I'm interested in hearing some thoughts on this subject.

[deuxhero]

Lawful has nothing to do with following laws. It was a stupid name choice that stuck around purely to make the aligment system even worse..

[Haldir]

This is an alignment thread and has nothing to do with environmentalism, other than it being the core issue of rampant speculation on what an individual might conceive alignment-appropriate actions to be.

[Sam K]

Good and neutral people kill sentinent beings all the time, sometimes for fun, with no impact on their alignment. It's called "adventuring". Those dwarves better have brought some casters!

[tadkins]

I apologize for this thread then. I had no idea people disliked alignment discussions here.

[BWR]

Lawful has nothing to do with following laws. It was a stupid name choice that stuck around purely to make the aligment system even worse..

Um, Lawful does have something to do with following laws. It's a large part of it. Believing in the rule of law, of following laws for the greater good, putting the whole of society/organization above the individual (not necessarily always at the expense of the individual, mind).

[jedipotter]

Would the act of standing for the environment and for nature even be qualified as a good act, or is it neutral as per the typical druid alignment? Basically, would a neutral druid battling good people that are harming nature still be considered neutral, or would that cross him into evil territory?

I'm interested in hearing some thoughts on this subject.

This is not so much 'alignment' as is the druid passive or aggressive.

The aggressive druid will attack. He can do so in person or through animals or weather. Good or evil don't matter out in nature.

The passive druid will just try to get them to leave by making nature too rough for them. Animals and weather works good here too.

If a good druid things nature is being harmed, he can kill to protect it.

[Slipperychicken]

I think a good-aligned druid could bring himself to fight the dwarves, just like a good-aligned cleric could do battle to defend his temple.

[Telonius]

A Good-aligned Druid's first option would probably be to work with the Dwarves and teach them more environmentally-friendly mining techniques. Maybe suggest some items of Silence on the mining equipment, Purify Food and Drink for any water runoff, that sort of thing.

[Oko and Qailee]

Um, Lawful does have something to do with following laws. It's a large part of it. Believing in the rule of law, of following laws for the greater good, putting the whole of society/organization above the individual (not necessarily always at the expense of the individual, mind).

The reason why lawful doesn't really fit though is because you don't have to follow the law of a place specifically to be considered lawful. A simply way to show why it doesn't work is to think of a Paladin currently in a Lawful Evil society. If being lawful meant you had to follow external laws then this Paladin cannot exist. If he follows the law he's not good, and if he tries to fix the society he's not lawful.

Lawful means simply that there is some sort of code the you regard as greater than you are, that you're willing to follow, sometimes at the expense of your own judgement (or always if you're perfectly lawful). Lawful should be called "guided" and Chaotic should be called "free willed" or something.

[MrNobody]

Oh yes... this question is a tricky one (as always, speaking of alignement).

Just spending a couple of words on LN druids, I've always thought them as individuals that "like" to give themselves a lot of rules to help them mantain the "status quo". Things like:
- The pack of wolfs can't hunt on the left side of the "great river", and bears cannot hunt on the right side.
- Oaks that grow more than x ft. tall must be taken down to make room to the younger ones.
That said, maybe his first try should be talking with the dwarves, trying to get a treaty: He leaves the dwarves be and work if they don't mine more than x kg of stone per year, they accept to work with magic to reduce pollution, etc.
He should try proposing two or three treaties: if the dwarves are not collaborating, the druid may choose to use the basic law of nature. The strongest survives-he is the strongest (is he?)-he survives.
Personally i'm not seeing a LN druid using laws of near country because "human law" shouldn't matter for a druid!

A NG druid... why should want them to leave? I'm assuming of a really wise person, with an heart full of love for every creature, even the dwarves! He may think that they came to his land migrating just like birds migrate to south, gazelles moves to find food during drought and so on. To his point of view, dwarves could be no more that "high intelligent and capable animals".
How to react? First thing, helping them find their place in the land, in harmony with all the other creatures. He could teach them how to work not polluting all around, show them where to get food safely without interferring with the life of the other animals. If dwarves sincerely accept his help he may think to teach the druidic way to a couple of them, so that they could use their powers to extract metals and stones with magic, providing food to their fellows through spells and so on.
If dwarves refuse... he could start using nature against them, damaging them without killing. It's first attempt should be flooding the mines (while they are empty), destroying their factories, showing them that if they stay they will lose more money than they will gain.
Violence should be an option, but the last one: to fight them the druid will need to call plants and animals at his side, putting them in danger. And that's the last thing a NG druid shounld want.

[Mando Knight]

Lawful means simply that there is some sort of code the you regard as greater than you are, that you're willing to follow, sometimes at the expense of your own judgement (or always if you're perfectly lawful). Lawful should be called "guided" and Chaotic should be called "free willed" or something.

If you're perfectly lawful, then following the Code That Is Greater Than You isn't at the expense of your own judgement, it is your own judgement, and the idea of not making judgements based on the Code is completely foreign to you. Mortals are never perfectly aligned.

[Telonius]

A NG druid... why should want them to leave? I'm assuming of a really wise person, with an heart full of love for every creature, even the dwarves! He may think that they came to his land migrating just like birds migrate to south, gazelles moves to find food during drought and so on. To his point of view, dwarves could be no more that "high intelligent and capable animals".

I like this idea. It would be even better if there's an over-abundance of barley and hops in the region; their natural predator is simply moving in.

[VoxRationis]

Dwarves are usually depicted as mining via shafts rather than open pits, like most modern mines. How much environmental damage does that usually do? I imagine it depends on the ore, but I'm still curious.
Also, if dwarves live underground, a place that, even in fantasy, must have an ecosystem that's delicate at best, and manage not to destroy everything and starve themselves to death, they've got to be pretty good already at environmental stewardship. I guess they could import all of their food, but that assumes they're pretty outgoing, which is not a given for dwarves.

[Honest Tiefling]

I imagine it isn't so much the mining as the smelting and processing that does damage. Refining ores historically often used really nasty chemicals, and forges require a lot of fuel that can quickly deplete an area of wood.

[ellindsey]

Dwarves are usually depicted as mining via shafts rather than open pits, like most modern mines. How much environmental damage does that usually do? I imagine it depends on the ore, but I'm still curious.

Among other concerns, if the area has a high water table the dwarves will have to deal with flooding in their tunnels. They can pump that water out onto the surface, or set up clever drainage systems to let it pour out into the local waterways. Depending on the ores present in the ground that water could contain some fairly toxic dissolved minerals, or be severely acidic or otherwise harmful to the local ecosystems. This is actually a fairly severe problem with real-world mines, they can discharge acidic water loaded with heavy metals long after being abandoned.

Also, if dwarves live underground, a place that, even in fantasy, must have an ecosystem that's delicate at best, and manage not to destroy everything and starve themselves to death, they've got to be pretty good already at environmental stewardship. I guess they could import all of their food, but that assumes they're pretty outgoing, which is not a given for dwarves.

Sure, they might be pretty good about maintaining their own underground ecosystem, but they might not care if their mine runoff is killing all the fish in the local rivers. Which is why a Neutral Good druid will probably start by trying to persuade them and show them ways to reduce the damage they're doing.

[KorbeltheReader]

A neutral good druid may not like the idea of killing dwarves, but if that forest is his charge and the dwarves won't listen to reason, well, a man's got to draw a hard line somewhere. There are any number of reasons why a good character might have to fight or even kill another good character (in my game we call that "politics"). Characters with a particularly troublesome code, like druids and paladins, should at least occasionally find themselves at loggerheads with other good creatures.