Druids and undead

[Letsplayforfun]

I was just wondering if there's a common attitude druids should have towards undead, or if it more personnal thing (based on alignement, also).

I'm asking because i've run worlds where druids are more spiritists, calling on ancestors as well as nature, and in that case, they do use ghosts, spirits, etc.. even if they don't go to the skeleton/zombie/ghoul/vampire/ etc part of necromancy.

What's it like in Faerun?

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

undead break the natural cycle of life, death, and rot.

From Rot to Rot, could very well be a druid saying.

You smash undead when you can.

When people refer to the spirits, these are intelligent denizens of nature who have taken it upon themselves to protect a tribe of peoples or some such.

[Oroborous]

Some evil druids are known to call on the undead ancestors bound in totems, typically like baelnorn, these undead are willingly remaining on the Prime to aid their ancestors. The kinds of druids that would engage in this are very rare I'd imagine and typically followers of some of the more unusual deities.

Granted, this was more true in 2nd edition Realms. By third it wasn't mentioned, and I don't know if its cropped up at all in 4th.

[Oroborous]

Ah, in 3.5 druids who dealt with spirits became Spirit Shamans, which is the sorcerous equivalent of a druid. Again, they only dealt with incorporeal spirits--which included undead.

[tooh]

A bit of logic, it's about souls or meats and bones ?
A animal have a soul or not ?
A squeleton zombie have a soul or not ?
If haven't, command a undead or zombie is like command a animal.
Druids have a oath to sustain the balance of nature by any means?

[Oroborous]

In DnD.

Animals have souls.

Skeletons and zombies [as well as other physical undead] are animated by using their soul as a tether linking them to the negative energy plane (which is an evil act that causes terribly pain and suffering for the spirit).

Spiritual undead are souls actually stuck in the Material Plane or Ethereal Plane and unable to pass on to another. Typically, they require some aid to pass on, but some may be remaining willingly to serve some greater (good or evil) purpose.

On this understanding, druids who deal with dead spirits are often seeking to help them finish their purpose or attempting to force them to move on to the afterlife.

Through every version of DnD, all druids have fought corporeal undead-but their relationship to incorporeal spirits has been reinterpreted several times.

[tooh]

Soo summons (rats, cats, slimes, etc) have diferent origin from zombies and skeletons, but if all they are used for a "good" purpose - save our skins - and return to their planes, isn't it a good action ?

And if they have a brief time in "real" plane, why or how the balance is disturbed ?

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

Explains why some DM's used spirits for a DM quest Mort ran me once.

[Oroborous]

Soo summons (rats, cats, slimes, etc) have diferent origin from zombies and skeletons, but if all they are used for a "good" purpose - save our skins - and return to their planes, isn't it a good action ?

And if they have a brief time in "real" plane, why or how the balance is disturbed ?

Every undead created or brought into the world is disrupting both a natural balance and a cosmic balance though. Druids typically work to help the undead pass on to the realms where they are suppose to go under the natural functioning of the cosmos.

Even the brief appearance of the undead may trouble many druids, but druids all have various beliefs. Some are less troubled by undead than by aberrations, some are more worried about over-hunting or under-hunting or lumbering or the spread of farms.

I'd think all druids are different, and the Realms has a lousy history of explaining how druids function. You get much better explanations from the Eberron source books.

[Equinox]

Most druids -hate- undead. Because it involes ripping a spirit form another plane of existance and putting it into a body or giving it a form.

This is unatural, and therefore druids tend to destroy them.

[Oskar Maxon]

And if they have a brief time in "real" plane, why or how the balance is disturbed ?

Butterfly Effect.

[tooh]

That ever perfect principle: The Butterfly Effect.

now I know.

[Egon the Monkey]

Hmm. So what happens if you animate a dead butterfly? I'm assuming it breaks the Balance and destroys Faerun. :P

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

Yesss

Undead butterflies, I smell a Illum Quest in the air.

[tooh]

the undead butterfly will blow the winds of Ymph, change the webs and bogs, destroy the Stygian ships and colapse the Zigg over deep caves flooded with blood and bones.