Primalists: Nature's Many Paths

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Sembiance
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Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:22 am

Primalists: Nature's Many Paths

Post by Sembiance »

I've been playing a Primalist a short while and was very excited to get into Druidry and nature magic before realising that they're a little on the unfinished side and don't actually have much to them at all, like Arcanists. Following on from a brief discussion of skill caps yesterday and inspired by Irylia's warlock suggestions, I had some ideas for particularly Primalists. I've split four concepts I had thinking about Primalists, their relation to the game into different paths that their design could take. The ideal primalist probably rests somewhere between these four paths, the wilderness, some might say. Just my half-baked suggestions!


The Path of the Steward Primalist
  • Interacting with Flora + Fauna
    Caretakers of Nature
    More Balanced Than Other Druids
The Steward Primalist doesn't so much as tend nature, but instead manages nature, one could even say micromanages. Steward Primalists have more control over growth and more control over culling growth. The aim isn't to have neatly cultivated gardens, so there is probably an element of randomness here in line with dealing with primal spirits, but the steward has firm control over what they want to natural world to appear like. The Steward manifests this power over all of nature, even holding some control over the weather and having a much firmer grasp on animal nature.

Changes + Additions:

Growth can be used to cultivate more of what the Primalist wants, possibly to the point of springing up new forests if trees begin to take over the area.

Vitality can be used by Primalists to just obliterate flora, and focused on targets to straight up harm susceptible animals and druids. Alternatively, a new ability called Drain/Cull learned by Primalists only. Would work to kill trees but not stumps. Could change the room type if enough trees are eliminated.

Weatherdance is an ability that allows a Primalist to clear up the skies above or gather clouds, manipulate the breeze to blow harder or soften, this should be of a similar level to Growth and probably leave the steward floored if not outright unconscious without going above maximum energy. Possibility this can counteract or call on storms . This might differ in various environments and their weather patterns. Perhaps instead of a list to pick from, Druids can intensify or lessen elements of the weather, but only limited to a certain degree: They don't cast Clear Skies, they cast to reduce the cloud cover or intensify it.

Stewards can cultivate animal growth in the area, bringing creatures that normally need to be hunted out of the woodwork and making the area seem more alive. This ability would be something like Wildcall, and would randomly bring animals to the area without need for tracking or hunting. Could make tracking/hunting in the area more dangerous or make animals wander into urban environments. "This is why we stopped inviting you to our camping trips! You always bring wolves or bears or crocodiles!"

Stewards can ward away animals by using their skulls or bone charms, making hunting that animal less likely and making some animals recoil in fear or horror.

Stewards can force the growth of plants or make animals... Bigger. This might make a plant spontaneously grow more berries/cones/bark or boost animal husbandry & butchering. This might be another version of focused Growth.

Stewards can make bodies of water fill with fish over time.

The steward's focus is on: Plants, Animals + Environments.

The Path of the Worldly Primalist:
  • Honestly Kinda Rangerish
    Less Spiritual Focus
    Interacts With Skills
The Primalist that is basically a ranger, but instead of having high skills, they just brute force things with magic and use druidry as a versatile skill to dominate the natural world.

A worldly primalist might grow firm vines (Ability Vines) up a rock wall or ladder to make climbing it much easier.

The primalist might use their magic to more easily work wood, even without a carving knife, moulding the wood just with their hands or reducing wood into kindling, smaller branches with a druidry hand chop. This might not necessarily be a spell and just a passive niche thing that primalists get. Similarly, foraging thornleaf and similar materials without needs for tools. The worldly primalist is so of the world that the thorns blunt themselves in reverence.

The worldly primalist most likely calms their mount using druidic magic while traveling. This might have some adverse effects on the mount such as making them more docile and less ready to strike, but at least they aren't going to be throwing their rider off or spooking. The worldly primalist may even ride something like an elk or an icewyrm, since tamed, domesticated horses aren't wild enough for them.

A worldly primalist finds that fish will just hop into their hands, or onto their hook with a little manipulation. The general idea here is that no matter what a worldly primalist is doing, the world will move mountains (possibly literally) to make that possible. Primalists don't need high skill rolls when their druidry is complementing all the natural tasks they're setting out to do, just a pool of rerolls and task difficulty modifiers.

Practically all general skills would be boosted by this. Stealth would be boosted by plants moving to conceal or muffle steps, perception is boosted as nature reveals all, the waters calm themselves for the primalist to swim in, and it's easy to track an animal when you can SENSE the life force that sustains it.

The Path of the Primal Primalist:
  • Subjugation Of And Submission To Primal Forces
    Meditative States Or Communion With Nature
    Less Feral Than The Primalist Primalist But Still Feral
The Primal Primalist really focuses on the primal forces and calls on those powers. At 700 druidry, this Primalist is nothing short of a primal force themselves, domineering over lesser powers and bidding them to carry out their will. The primal has a whole bunch of spiritual powers and generally tends towards the more magical magic, instead of mundane things.

The primal primalist breathes the frosty breath of the Wechuge and much more.

Their tattoos glow with the light of a floodlamp, they drink in the sun by the gallon (especially now that adrenaline exists), they move in the wild like spirits and flow with the river, able to bypass bodies of water with ease.

The primal primalist are the biggest proponents of rejecting civilisation amongst the druids, even more so than berserkers. They reach a zen-like communion with nature and really put to use their meditation skill, able to absorb the ambience of areas to rapidly refill their nutrition or ignore hunger pangs, filling themselves with deposits of spirit energy to fuel their hunger instead. Similarly, they can weather blizzards naked without a touch of frostbite and traverse deserts without breaking a sweat, pure endurance and mind over matter.

These primalists are the occult entities that the people of shadgard fear, and have reason to fear. They walk around with easily perceivable power and make no attempt to disguise their power. They might not necessarily be amazing at combat, but they can definitely make you wish you'd just left them meditating.

Essentially, the Primal Primalist takes existing powers and their raw skill in druidry just bumps up their prowess and skill. Essentially, they throw around twice the metaphysical power as other druids do, and have a few unique spiritual abilities.

The Path of the Primalist Primalist:
  • Does What They Want
    No Clothes, Look!
    Wild Boiye
The Primalist Primalist does what they want, when they want to. The world is very much their oyster. This really embodies that aspect of druidry that says "You don't have to have to give back to nature, there is no cycle of balance to uphold."

Primalist Primalists embody animal aspects in their psychology and physicality. Primalist Primalists aren't so much party people, but moreso animalistic predators, beings of joy freedom and a savage wild vibe overall.

Primalist Primalists may be able to turn into actual animals or plants moreso than other paths, but this is incredibly taxing on their mental state. The primalist primalist has patches of fur, feathers and scale or bark over their body where they have transformed themselves excessively and other time, delving into animal madness.

Primalist primalists can grow bark to block out heavy blows, fur to keep out the cold, perhaps even wings or gills. Once again, civilised common folk probably see these people from behind a filter of raw terror.

This druid alternatively cultivates food on themselves, perhaps has vines for hair and grows barbed thorns on their body to retaliate against those who bite or punch them.

In their untamed hunger, a Primalist Primalist's vitality can defoliate bushes and trees with the raw force of energy it draws on, or leave animals dazed and in fear of what is clearly a superior hunter.



I just wanted to offer some suggestions about what my ideas of Primalist were, feel free to disregard if they're contrary to any design points! Thanks for reading all that nonsense above!
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