I'm looking to get a feel for the current and historical census of characters who are/were both a Druid and an Underdark race.
An Underdark race is considered to be any subrace that has the option to start in the Underdark as a racial starting point (i.e., svirfneblin, duergar, kobold, drow, shadow elf, et cetera).

If you want to participate in the poll, select the option that most applies even if you have multiple (!?) UD druids.

Please answer only if you currently have or did have a druid that was of an Underdark race and interacted primarily in the Underdark.
If you do not have or have never had an Underdark druid then there is no reason to participate in the poll, and please do not select any option!

If you had an UD druid that you stopped playing, feel free to comment on the reason.

One of my characters also had a gay fling with one, if that counts!

_________________
feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

This is something that is being looked into for possible changes by the staff, so please keep this thread on topic.

I played a drow blood druid for a while. I remember reading something on them somewhere and thought it'd be interesting to try out my own brand. After a quick search, the idea was something along these lines:

'Deep in the bowels of the earth lies a doomed sect of drow druids, forever forbidden from walking in the light and clean air of the surface. They plot and let their anger boil like a festering cancer in the heart of the underdeep. When the need arises to summon these hideous perversions of the natural world to aid in the defense of drow communities, it is as if the very earth itself vomits them to the thick of the battle. In drow society, the blood druids are master diplomats, secretive assassins, and necromantic geniuses. To earn the ire of a blood druid is folly; to earn the ire of a conclave is death.'

I don't know if this is what you're looking for as I don't quite understand the motives behind the census, but the character was perma'd through rp in the end. I guess he didn't quite live up to the brethren described in the above passage.

I had an UD Shaman. Not quite a druid, but perhaps it's still helpful to your survey. I stopped playing him because his roleplay felt cheesy, and I couldn't find any strong groups of RP to get him involved in. Eventually, he just faded out of existence due to lack to PC interaction.

He's still played every now and then (Hence the poll), but that's mostly because he's a fun grinding build. I probably wouldn't play him if he was anything but a "Druidic" type of character.

Svirfneblin Druid of Segojan Earthcaller. Pure Druid from both a build and RP standpoint. Haven't played him in a few months as I'm trying to focus on not overdoing the alt situation.

_________________
Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object
True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder

I should make a little amendment to what I stated, and while I'm not sure its what you're after for with this survey, its impolite not to.

I did get an opportunity to become involved with my Shaman, and a chance to get some great Rp in, but it was timed with one of my occasional hiatuses from Amia.

Same.

Though besides that, never saw one.

The 'census' is primarily to determine the number of UD druids (or other classes that use the druid class and share the druid abilities) active in the community at this time; secondarily to determine how many were active in the past; and finally, to get a sense of why former UD druids left or stopped being played, or why active UD druids now aren't being played more often.

As a veteran UD player, I'd say this is the driving reason behind why any great variety of UD races/classes aren't being played more often. There isn't enough of a playerbase to support such great diversity. You've got a whole plethora of races, classes and ideologies to choose from and they're spread so thinly across such a vast module that formulating a niche group just isn't an option. In general, you've got to keep your goals/ideologies broad - it's band together or nada. I don't recall there ever having been much in the way of druidic interest, it just doesn't seem to feature greatly in the lore/current RP down there.

I am an active Underdark player. I have an epic level shifter and I am well known in the Drow Playerbase for proving that Druids (and other classes for that matter) can be integrated into Drow role play with some work and patience.


Soul_Reaper also had an epic level Underdark Druid/Shifter, and Soundofastream had an epic Svirf Druid that hung around L'Obsul.



From my perspective as a Drow Player, its quite difficult to have something "beyond the norm" (ie the "norm" being females are clerics, males are fighters, wizards or thieves) and feel like you fit in with the Drow. That's not to say the majority of the playerbase aren't accommodating to something different (there's always one however), but because its very easy to screw up and the punishments of screwing up are severe, its easy to become frustrated and give up. Druids are one such group.


My saving grace was that my character was extensively planned before I started playing him; I knew what to expect being a long time Drow player and planned him accordingly. Somehow I pulled it off and impressed the right people from the first day: I've never had a problem making him fit in and hopefully the Drow get something out of interracting with the Scholar in return.

_________________
"I had a plan! A good plan, carefully laid out! ...but then I got bored."

I also have a UD druid, but since he only spends some of his time in the UD, he's apparently excluded from this survey.

However, what I'd like is to point out that the player of the Scholar, Malios Darkblade deserves some kind of Amian Medal of Honor. Everyone who is looking to play as a non-standard character should look very hard at what and how he's done what he's done.

He started with a very clear concept and then mysteriously managed to maintain those concepts within the rules of his chosen society. Which isn't actually mysterious as drow society has very few actual rules, it's just that almost everyone else simply decides that any such rules don't apply to them rather than find a way to work within the existing framework of drow society. Anyone who has never crossed paths with this character and has ideas for playing a class that is off type for a particular society needs to RP with Malios and see what a successful character concept is.

It is really cool to come up with something truly unique and different for the society you are intending to interact with, but by taking all the years of RP that came before and playing like it doesn't apply to you is like shitting on someones efforts that are no better or worse than your own.

_________________
Thine taste in horrid footwear not withstanding, I did not say that thou were in fact an idiot, I merely implied that such things were self evident.

-Krrja

I agree 100% with Bravo21.

When I first heard that a player was going to have a shifter I cringed. Lolthite Drow society is really tough on anything outside their norm of pure drow perfection. Even my female Warrior pure drow with Lolth in the deity field was met with scorn and contempt due to the fact that she was viewed as weak for not having divine or at least arcane powers. After all, why in the hells was she attempting to be a male since only males were warriors??!!

Now Edonil is really Lolthite-lite but still, how was I going to give this new character an opportunity when Nizzre'tyne wasn't about to make Lolth upset by allowing some weak thing into Lolths town?? After all if Nizzre'tyne did anything to piss off Lolth, Nizzre'tyne would lose her power and that just wasn't going to happen. Nizzre'tyne is a selfish witch and likes her power, darn it!

Then... Nizzre'tyne met The Scholar.

Fi the player was totally blown away by the thought that went into how to make a shifter fit into Lolthite Society. Please note that the shifter didn't try and make Lolthite society fit them.

Nizzre'tyne was not so impressed, he was a male after all and with a rather odd arcane ability but she saw the benefits that the Scholar could provide. She saw how the Scholar could be used to get her more power. WOOT!!

So, I second Brav21, if you want to know how to get your interesting character concept into Edonil? Go talk to Malios.

_________________
Ari'aerath Dlues'athsha ~ Silver Singer with the Bow of the Sun
Clarette Feohn ~ Magic is Art.
Victoria Marrs ~ "I have an herb for that."

The reason that I decided to not include UD race druids who don't spend the majority of their time in the Underdark from the census is because it can be inferred that a UD druid might leave their home territory from time to time but my main interest is in those who are in the Underdark to stay, who consider it their primary stomping ground, and perhaps go out of their way to never go to the surface at all, and who otherwise have in interest in the Underdark first and foremost. Druids, in the case, may mean any druid-like class they wish to be played as that nature spells and abilities and has wild shape.

I'm honestly less concerned about Shifters because, IMO, Shifters already have the most and the neatest changes of any class or race on the server. I'm not saying the posts about the drow shifter are entirely irrelevant (or not interesting in their own right) but I do want to reiterate that this topic isn't about only drow; it's about druids* of every Underdark race. I enjoyed the posts about the Scholar, though they may be better served (and more topical) in the thread about the Underdark playerbase.

I agree. This isn't just about Drow, but 60% of reported Druids in this thread were Drow. You can't fight those statistics... or the Drow's popularity over other Underdark toons.

_________________
"I had a plan! A good plan, carefully laid out! ...but then I got bored."