Brainstorming: extraplanar druid sects

[inuyasha]

I'm posting from mobile for the first time so it's a bit weird, but I've had an idea swirling in my head for a little while.

My current game is a kitchen sink setting of weird and unexpected things, and will be going into planescape soon. One thing I want to add is a place for druids in the multiverse. So, my challenge for the playground is to come up with a group of druids that live on another plane of existence according to the standard great wheel, or a unique demiplane of your own creation. I just think that in terms of extraplanar stuff, druids get little love, and I figured you all might find it fun to help.

I'll be sure to post some of my own later, once I get to my desktop

[Eldan]

The Unbound

The BEastlands have their name for a reason. Anyone who spends too much time there will find themselves slowly turning into an animal. With sometimes quite horrifying effects (see: Something Wild adventure).

The Unbound are druids who advertise this as a way out. They preach among the destitute, the desperate and the despairing, praising the advantages of leaving humanity and all its ills behind, become an animal and living free and happily without the burdens of intellect.

The Evolutionists

Druids? On Limbo? Something loose in your head, berk? You can't have nature on limbo. It wouldn't last.

Evolutionists are looking for the perfect organism. They believe that life, eventually, will adapt to anything. Why not speed this up? They magically alter life for faster growth and shorter generation times, then throw it into the everchanging chaos. Here, where life has to deal with thousands of hazards, resources and changing environments all at once, they hope eventually something will arise that is adapted to everything.

[inuyasha]

These are perfect, I knew I'd get some cool ideas from here. Let's see how long we can keep this ball rolling!

The Circle of Nine Moons
As odd as it sounds, the nine layers of hell have nature too, from the twisted, freezing depths of Nessus to the snake pits and flammable air of Avernus.

Druids live and protect this nature too, most of them being of Neutral Evil alignment, but a fair amount being Lawful Neutral as well. They serve to guard this nature, with prides of hellcats and infernal animals at their disposal. The one thing they truly hate is Kytons, who, despite the notions of many, are not true devils and have set up a city of chains in their new land.

It is not uncommon for them to send death squads, acting as eco-terrorists in the city of Jangling Hiter, rusting it away and tearing at the metal-clad flesh of its inhabitants with magically enhanced claws and teeth.

[Potato_Priest]

The MuckTenders (From the Swamp of Oblivion)

The mucktenders, as druids of the swamp of oblivion, focus on nature's power as an infinite reservoir and purifier for the toxins and abuses of humanity. They generally tend to avoid permanent solutions to problems, instead relying on continuous temporary fixes. This approach is best reflected by their custom of burying objects of great evil and other problems in the ever-churning muck of the swamp, from whence legend states that they will not resurface for at least 100 years.

These druids live in trees that slowly sink into the muck with the weight of their inhabitants. When a portion of trunk becomes unusable, the druids simply relocate their platforms to higher up on the pole.

[Bob_McSurly]

THE BROTHERHOOD OF RECONQUEST
While many of the other outer planes have nature galore, Mechanus is notoriously artificial. As could be imagined, many druids aren't happy about this. The Brotherhood of Reconquest is a group of druids, mostly from the Outlands and the Beastlands, who have taken it upon themselves to bring nature to Mechanus. They have infiltrated the power structure, and run numerous missions to blow up the neat cities and gardens of Mechanus, and replace them with wild beasts from other planes. The Brotherhood is one of the Modrons' most direct foes, and there is a bounty on their heads.

[rferries]

The Ashen Circle

Undead are reviled as unnatural abominations by druids on all planes save one - the Negative Energy Plane. There, undeath is the natural state and it is the living who are unnatural. The druids of the Ashen Circle reside in this lightless void of life-draining energy, and focus their training on battle rather than nature (as there are no flora or fauna in the plane). Druids of the Ashen Circle are almost universally neutral evil, and either bear amulets of death ward or have become liches, vampires, ghosts, or other spellcasting undead in order to survive the ravages of their chosen realm.

[Mechalich]

AD&D 2e fluff focused druid interest on the Inner Planes - because they received the power to go there as part of their natural level progression - and that continues to make sense in later editions because druids are naturally associated with elementals through their powers. unfortunately, the Inner Planes got relatively little love in canon because they were so unrelentingly hostile (for instance the negative energy plane not only has a constant death effect, it also has no air - which is a problem for most PCs). I wrote about this somewhat more extensively a long time ago, but since the old host got axed, I'll re-post it, as it might be useful.

Spoiler

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Factions and Sects on the Inner Planes

Everyone knows about the Factions of course, and moderately well informed cutters tend to know about the sects as well. Well, ultimately I suppose they all qualify as sects now, having been booted out of Sigil, and certainly that doesn’t really make much difference as far as this topic of discussion is concerned. After all, Sigil doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with the Inner Planes, except as a source of portals to a place almost nobody’s heard much about. Certainly some trade does come through Sigil, but Inner Planar portals aren’t all that common there, and so it is difficult to make trade routes function affectively. So it really doesn’t make much difference here if a group has a headquarters in Sigil or not, they all essentially qualify as sects, especially following the recent war in Sigil, and the lack of Headquarters there at all.

In general, sects of philosophy have far less influence on the Inner Planes than the Outer Planes, and tend to have a very different focus. You see, as the Inner Planes are not created by belief, believing deeply in a philosophy isn’t going to get someone very far. Still, the sects do have their uses as a way to gather beings and planewalkers together in a forum that doesn’t involve violence, and also a number of Inner Planar sects have a focus that can be researched or pursued with the intent of getting definitive results and gaining new abilities.

The diffuse nature of the population of the Inner planes, with only nineteen known cities on sixteen planes population clusters in small towns and fortresses, enforces as diffuse nature on the sects. Without a centrally located and easily accessible place such as Sigil there is no great gathering together of these groups to debate their philosophies. Indeed, much like sects of the Outer Planes, many of these groups are focused intently on a single plane, and almost never leave.

The Factions

Of the fifteen great factions of Sigil, a mere two can consider themselves to have an interest on the Inner Planes, all the others have ignored them completely. Of these two, only one bothers to consider the Inner Planes as a whole, the other is interested only in a certain dark and remote corner that those generally considered sane avoid.

The Doomguard: The one faction that truly had a presence on the Inner Planes prior to the war, and the one faction that still does, the Doomguard is the most powerful philosophical organization in the Inner Planes bar none. However, the war in Sigil helped to nearly cripple the group and draw many of its members away to Sigil for a serious time block. During this time the Doomguard suffered a number of serious reverses, these facts, coupled with the loss of united leadership, the influx of members into their Quasielemental citadels that were not designed to hold them, and other factors, have seriously weakened the Doomguard. Here’s a quick run down on the fractioning that occurred. During the Faction War the Doomguard’s operations in Mineral were attacked by a united group of other sects, and wiped out and or forced from the plane, resulting in the death of a lesser Doomlord. In Smoke the lizard men of Slaan, taking directives from Mineral, ejected the Doomguard from their city and passed and ordinance saying they were not welcome. In Ooze the Illithids of Yuhnmoag took advantage of the Doomguard’s weakness and enslaved the personnel serving at the three fortresses there. The Doomguard fought amongst themselves at the Crumbling Citadel, resulting in that fortress’s destruction, the loss of their ship of Chaos, the death of Ely Cromlich, and the retreat of the survivors to Citadel Cavitus (which they are only inhabiting due to certain pacts that will be mentioned later). Also, Doomlord Peried’s erratic new philosophy, which offends many of the Entropy Champion’s she herself empowered, has isolated the “Dusties” into to separate groups, those solidly behind her, and those wandering about the plane seeking direction. Unfortunately, the mass fighting and movements of large numbers of Doomguard members about Citadel Alluvius have revealed the citadel’s location to Alu Kahn Sang, the Wind of Destruction. His quasi-elemental army is currently besieging the place, and shows no sign of leaving, though they have not managed to inhibit magical travel in and out or make any real progress. Without allies it seems unlikely Peried’s Dusties can break the siege.

All this being said, the Doomguard is still powerful in the Inner Planes, particularly among the small communities of the Negative Quasielemental planes. Almost all of their most skilled people, the Entropy Champions, remain alive and devoted to whatever cause they were devoted to. Many of the sects that were formerly their allies remain so, and if they can solve the internal split they will actually have more personnel in the Inner Planes than ever before.

The Dustmen: The Dead have an interest in only one Inner Plane, the Negative Energy Plane. Even there they are not found all that often, maintaining only the small monastic Fortress of the Soul. However, many enterprising Dustmen have taken to exploring the Negative Energy Plane since leaving Sigil, and they are finding surprising things. Though this has brought the Dead into conflicts with the Primals, who traditionally considered themselves the only planewalkers allowed in Negative Energy, it has also allowed them to call up some interesting agreements. The Dustmen have sided heavily with the Doomlord of Ash as well, and it is considered almost certain that they made some pact with a negative energy entity to extend the dead truce to all Doomguard operating within Citadel Cavitus.

The Sects
The Inner Planes have many sects, but few of them are found on many planes, most are more focused. This does not prevent them from being potent in their own ways however, though the general rule seems to be that one plane is only big enough for one sect. History would indicate that this is accurate, and therefore the continued presence of the Doomguard and the Dustmen has kept any sects from cropping up in the Negative Quasielemental and Energy Planes.

General Sects: These sects consider the whole of the Inner Planes to be open to them. This makes them strong nowhere, but exposed to everything. These groups tend to be diffuse and often not centrally located, though there are exceptions. These are also the most abstractly philosophical of the Inner Planes sects, as the others tend to be focused on rather more tangible things, in keeping with the concrete nature of the Inner Planes

Opposition: The most disorganized group in existence, with the possible exception of the Xoasitects, the Opposition spends most of its time fighting against itself, bashing heads into walls, embarking on strange expeditions to ‘defy the planes’ and other rather disorienting and vague projects. They are on every plane, but individual Opposers rarely stay long, they find such things calcifying, and they Oppose calcification just like everything else. Leapfrogging from one extreme to another, Opposers frighten many, but if you can get one at your back, they’re your best possible allies. Until they switch sides and try to stab you that is.

Primals: Secretive, absolutely secretive. The primals let no one know their goals, their purpose, or even exactly what they believe. Whatever it is seems to work though, and Primals have some mighty powers, and no shortage of bodies wanting to sign up. Primals rarely reveal themselves, but sometimes a procession of them gets together to march around the planes, generally seeming to ignore everything around them. Even more rarely, groups of Primals will approach another group with the intentions of a certain activity, and then get together to do so. The alliance of Primals on Mineral with the Crystallites and Opposition to eject the Doomguard was one such case of this. Primals can be found in every inner plane, and their mastery of potent magic makes them the sect most commonly encountered on the Energy Planes.

Anatomists: The youngest and smallest sect on the Inner Planes, the Anatomists can probably calculate their members in the hundreds. In fact, they probably have managed to keep an accurate tally of over ninety percent of those who are actually part of the group. This group metamorphosed into a full sect very recently, from an organization formerly known as the “Anatomical Society of the Planes.” The society, which was composed primarily of Dustmen, Guvners, Sensates, and Athar, became a sect when after the Faction war most of the members chose their intellectual pursuits in preference to faction ties. They also did so because their first great round of studies had showed that creatures of the Outer Planes did not conform nearly so well to their theories of Anatomy as did Inner Planar beings. So the group migrated to a sterile location, an airless Vacuum pocket on the Elemental Plane of Water, and proclaimed itself a sect. The Anatomists, who believe that by understanding the form and function relationships of all beings, they can comprehend all the working of the multiverse. Many like-minded sages from the Inner Planes and the Ethereal have joined them, as have intellectuals among the Doomguard fleeing that faction’s infighting. As a very new group, the Anatomists are still cautiously feeling their way about as a sect, and moving slowly. Their most notable endeavor is a project by the former Society’s Metallic and Mechanical creatures division to analyze the anatomies of all the earth and mineral elementals.

The Etherfarer Society: While this group can’t really be considered an Inner Planar sect, the Etherfarers deserve at least brief mention here. Consummate explorers and traders, the Etherfarers have a lot of influence in the Ethereal borders of each Elemental plane, and their Etherships are often found traveling about the Inner planes, making some sort of delivery. See, it’s often easier to take a cargo through the Ethereal to another plane than across several intervening planes, it cuts down on the types energy you have to shield the ship from. Most people make a point to not offend the Etherfarers, since they can often enforce near total trade embargoes between some place any another plane through their many contacts in that field.
The Order of Broken Chains: Also known as the Abolitionists, this group exists for one simple purpose, that all beings should be free and sovereign for themselves. Formed by Githyanki and Githzerai expatriates, who still hate each other and never work together, the group can agree on basically one thing, all slaves must be freed and all slavers destroyed. Running the gamut from the most virtuous paladins, to the bloodiest revenge driven assassins, the group splinters into numerous cells ranging from a single operative to small armies. Great haters of Dao, Illithids, and many more, the abolitionists have many enemies, but also often many allies, as races such as shad consider them blessings from the powers. Really the only common ground among all abolitionists is that where they go violence tends to follow, whether it be a violent uprising of enslaved gladiators against their elemental masters, the brutal putting down of rebellious shad by their dao lords, or the brutal massacre of a community of Illithids, violence follows in the wake of Abolition. Intriguingly, few slaves freed by Abolitionists join the group, not having the energy for the path of violence and constant fighting they espouse.

Specific Sects: These are sects that are generally limited to a single plane of influence, or perhaps two at the most. While this makes them limited in area, and often limited in philosophy by having one that really applies only to their little reality, they can be tremendously powerful within their plane. Indeed, planewalkers traveling in these planes are all but assured to have to deal with members of these sects.

The Refracted Association of Tones: This sect, based, in Mineral is a group that believes that by discovering tones, resonance, and such for all crystals they can achieve incredible, possibly absolute power, and discover what sound the multiverse as a whole is. They have already been covered in great detail.

Cremators: Also called Burners or Pyros, this sect observes that when you heat something hot enough it burns, and that this principle holds true for everything there is, even creatures of elemental fire. The Pyros therefore believe that it is the nature of everything in the multiverse to burn until utterly consumed; the multiverse is geared for its own cremation. They specialize in discovering how to make supposedly inflammable things burn, and in just burning through anything that gets in their way. Based out of Elemental Fire, the sect includes those who truly believe in the nature of combustion and the cremation of the multiverse, and others who just like to burn things. The sect makes common cause with the Doomguard relatively often, because they both see the multiverse as ending and they both share a certain joy in destruction.

Cinderformed: To be burnt is to undergo a startling transformation from the confining form of solids to the freely moving form of vapor. This transition is utterly liberating and fuels the rebirth of entirely new things. The Cinderformed, or Sootcoats, seek to understand this transformation and its nature so that they can find ways to undergo its revitalizing effects and be reborn without the concomitant destruction that burning brings. Lots of people think they’re crazy, but for those in the plane of Smoke the philosophy seems to make a whole lot of sense, and the whole be burned without being hurt bit helps a good deal. Of course, this philosophy runs headlong into the Pyros creed, and the two groups do not get along, Cinderformed consider them to waste the renewing power of fire, Pyros considering them blasphemers for trying to be burned without being hurt. There have been numerous clashes.

Also, if you want a place on the Inner Planes where druids have a lot of pull, I have a city full of lizardfolk you might be interested in.

[inuyasha]

Thanks so much! I'll be sure to look at that lizardfolk city when I get the chance, and I like your sects.

Having done some research, I don't quite like the way the faction war turned out, so I'm probably gonna retcon that part of the setting, but the rest of that is easily used. I'll also try to come up with another sect later today.

Again, thank you all for contributing