Vytrius, who is Beautiful and Mad

Vytrius

Vytrius is a town, and it is also a person. 

The town is composed of four parts, and I am going to talk about all of them sequentially, and then the person.

The City

Vytrius is an old city, and a prosperous one. It is one of the most stable places in the world, and its borders have remained almost unchanged for the past few hundred years. This is due almost entirely to its patron, who is powerful enough to scare off most incursions, but has no particular interest in expansion. The combination of posing no particular threat to anyone and everyone knowing exactly who lives there is quite effective.

The fourth circle of Vytrius is unassuming. It isn't technically part of the city proper and sits outside its walls, but most say it belongs there. You'll primarily find caravans, mercenaries, and most anyone else you'd see in a trading square. You might wonder why it sits outside the walls, but the answer quickly becomes obvious.

The third circle of Vytrius is where the actual city begins. 

Nothing ugly is allowed within the walls. No ugly people are permitted entrance. No items deemed ugly, no matter how valuable, are allowed into the city. 
Any contraband is taken, destroyed, and its owner is fined. Anyone found in the city who are not up to its standards are imprisoned and executed.

The guard are professionals, specially trained to judge books by their covers, and are often called upon to serve as judges during competitions, pageants, or petty disputes.

Besides that, the city itself is quite wonderful. The people are made friendly and generous by their comfortable lives, and the guard is largely ceremonial. More attention is paid to their appearance than actual combat readiness.

Nothing dull is allowed into the second circle of Vytrius.

Where the third circle is lively and warm, the second circle is often eerily quiet. It's simply more convenient to live outside the second circle, without having to worry about losing anything deemed "dull". Most of those who do live here spend most of the time in the third circle, and only reside where they do because the prices are cheaper.

Of the communities which exist entirely within the second circle, most of them have a frustratingly high opinion of themselves. They're stereotypical gated communities, except they aren't nearly as rich or beautiful as they'd like to think.

The first circle of Vytrius is not technically a circle. Instead, it is the original citadel that the rest of the city is built around.

Nothing that is not beautiful is allowed within the first circle.

The Person

To talk more about the first circle, I need to talk about who sits at its center - Vytrius.

Vytrius is a Swarmborne, at least one thousand years of age. Unlike most Swarmborne, who inhabit the bodies of convenient and numerous vermin, Vytrius has become a cloud of butterflies.

Most commonly, they appear as a swarm of butterflies in the vague outline of a man. They communicate almost entirely by telepathy, which is probably for the better - Those few that have heard their voice have described the combination of countless tiny sounds as terrifying, at best.

It is Vytrius who constructed the original citadel, Vytrius who decreed that nothing ugly was to approach them, and Vytrius who will emerge to defend the city when it is threatened.

Vytrius is also the reason for the city's legendary bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of the first circle, where many citizens earn their livelihood, has a double purpose - It keeps other people away from Vytrius, and it keeps Vytrius away from other people.

The first purpose is simple. Vytrius is quite reclusive, and really does not like disturbances to... Whatever it is they are doing in their tower.  The second purpose is a bit more obscure, but it goes like this: 
Almost everyone considers Vytrius quite mad, and a thousand year old madman with the magical power they possess isn't something anyone wants around very much. To this end, the bureaucracy was constructed so that any action Vytrius might take, they have to first wade through the miles of red tape that anyone else would endure if they wanted an audience. 
Vytrius does this voluntarily. While they are not technically ruler of the city, no one is under the illusion that they couldn't enforce their will, if they wished it. Vytrius simply obeys these rules because he thinks them to be beautiful.

And so the bureaucracy of Vytrius is an eternal balancing act. They must be keep the lord pleased with them, while simultaneously limiting his mobility. They must make sure nothing in the city rouses the lord to anger, while maintaining the almost-normalcy they've managed to create. It is not an enviable task.

Besides the bureaucracy, the first circle is a very strange place. There are rooms entirely filled with living butterflies, rooms whose walls are covered with dead butterflies, each in pristine condition, as part of Vytrius's ongoing quest to collect one of each type of butterfly that exists. There are rooms filled with illusions of butterflies, rooms filled with paintings of butterflies, the occasional butterfly-like monstrosity traversing the hallways, and that's on top of all the guards and traps Vytrius has set up to preserve his privacy and protect his collection. Really, you should always stick to the rooms the bureaucracy has cataloged.

Might make for a cool dungeon, though. Maybe even a mega-dungeon.

The Outside

At this moment, the peace of Vytrius is the most fragile it has been in years. 

Northwards, the Church of Ilysy's recent expansion shows no signs of stopping, and it seems the next place to go would be southwards, bringing them dangerously close to the city.

The city may not have been conquered before, but it is far from invincible. It's just that most would-be invaders reason that the risk of "Angry Ancient Mage of Unknown Power" isn't worth the reward of "One Pretty Nice City". 

Will the Church break this record? It is unlike them to tolerate a magic user this powerful in their territory, but the reward such an invasion would pose seems... Underwhelming.

From the hills, rumors spread that druids have begun to gather, plotting gods know what - Quite possibly invasion. 

That being said, the motivation that drives large groups of druids to actions is arcane. No one is ever quite certain why they do what they do, and if they are plotting to overthrow the city, then why now, and not hundreds of years ago?

The answers, as always, are frustratingly obscure.

Other Liches

I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER!

There are more ways to immortality than just undeath, you know. Spellcasters have been trying to extend their lives since time immemorial, and they've come up with a fair few more methods and just "Become a Spooky Scary Skeleton Man".

(\\Digression - I say spellcaster, but it really means anyone. It's a ritual, and like all rituals, it's theoretically possible for anyone powerful enough to preform it, its just that most fighters and the like don't have the resources or the inclination to do the research and preparation necessary to make it happen, while that is kind of a spellcaster's whole job.)

The Worm That Walks

You're probably already aware of the Worm that Walks, but for those of you who aren't, here's the gist -

Lichdom isn't the only path towards immortality, nor are necromancers the only ones who ever seek to escape death. When an exceptionally powerful spellcaster decides that they want to preserve themselves forever, they have a whole myriad of ways to do so. I'll definitely write a post about some of the more interesting ones sometime, but that's not right now. Anyway, our future Worm that Walks decides hey, you know what's better than become immortal as a person? Becoming immortal as a bunch of fucking worms! So this individual, who is doubtlessly both sane and extremely intelligent, does some ritual left unspecified so you can come up with it, and then a bunch of worms eat his corpse, and then he takes over all the worm's minds and now he's a bunch of worms. Also, he can incorporate new worms into the mix so he doesn't die when all the original get old. 

"Worm that Walks" is a stupid name, and also an innaccurate one. I'm going to call them "Swarmborne". While still stupid, this name is at least accurate, because they don't have to be composed of specifically worms. As long as the mix is homogeneous, they can use basically any creatures, as long as they're small enough. Ants, roaches, locusts, there are even rare examples of rats, and at least one giant has transformed himself into a pack of wolves. Worms are just the most commonly used ones because worms are common, versatile, and hardy.

Transmetallics

Oh look, another thing I built off of a concept stolen from, apparently, the only blog I know.

Transmetallics are people who pursue the immortality of metal. Metal isn't technically immortal, of course, but they figure they can patch up the damaged parts and be good as new.

Theoretically, there are as many different types of transmetallics as there are metals, but most of them are steel, because steel is both strong and easily found. The dream of every transmetallic is to turn themselves into pure adamantium, but this is not something that's ever been done before. Most people would say it is either impossible or close enough to impossible that it isn't worth trying, which is why most people aren't transmetallics.

The minority who transform into mercury are almost always driven mad. It's rather hard to hold on to a coherent identity when you've just made yourself liquid at room temperature.

Burners

You know the drill.

Burners are people who link their souls to a furnace. If the flame in that furnace ever goes out, the Burner dies. As a consequence, they tend to burn a lot of things, hence the name. The flames in these furnaces consume well more fuel than they have any right to, and the requirement just gets higher the longer a Burner's life is sustained. Sustaining life takes a lot of energy, man.

The longer a Burner lives, the less they look like a human, and the more they look like a walking piece of charcoal. They can become very combustible, but because they're totally immune to fire, it tends to be a lot more dangerous to other people than it is to them. 

If you wanted to be horrible, you could have them look like an actual burn victim, but that is so genuinely horrific and disgusting to me I will not set foot anywhere near it.

The size of a Soul-Furnace varies drastically. A bigger flame means more power, but also more fuel, and a higher risk of getting noticed and being heroically slain by adventurers, or possibly just having their heads bashed in by some very angry druids.

Chainers

Chainers are people who siphon off the immortality of naturally immortal (or very long lived) creatures they manage to imprison. Most commonly, those creatures are dragons.

Despite the rituals needed being the simplest of all the immortals, Chainers are by far the rarest.

This is because only an idiot thinks they can tie up a dragon and leach immortality from it without it, breaking out and eating you, one of its friends breaking it out and eating you, or one of its enemies breaking it out and eating you.

A Few Things people miss about Druids (Alternatively - Blood Makes the Grass Grow, KILL KILL KILL!)

 Inspired by the legendary Goblin Punch article. 

Have you noticed I take inspiration from that blog a lot? Because I take inspiration from that blog a lot.

It's a fucking good blog, what the fuck are you doing reading this nonsense instead of Goblin Punch?

What the fuck even is a Druid?

No, seriously. Everyone has a picture in their head of what druids are like, but no one ever discusses what a druid is. They're "people possessed by the spirits of nature"? That makes sense, but like... How does one become possessed by the spirits of nature? What exactly does that entail? From the perspective of what we call nature, there is no such thing as "nature". A tree does not view itself as part of a forest. A forest does not view itself as part of an ecosystem. The Arctic does not think it is a desert, and would probably be offended by the implication. 

It's the paradox of druids. The idea of "nature" is artificial. Druids would be people possessed by the fundamentally unnatural spirits of nature, and that just doesn't make any fucking sense.

In the 2nd A&D Player's Handbook, the Druid is listed as a subtype of Cleric. This is how druids are most conventionally played.

But at the same time, priests of nature gods also exist alongside druids? How does that work? What's the difference between a druid and a nature-priest? And why is it specifically priests of nature that get special treatments, and not any of the other domains?

I have chosen to resolve this problem by throwing everything about what druids are out the window, and coming up with something new.

This is what the fuck a Druid even is

Druids are worshipers of concepts. They do not worship a god with the nature domain, nor do they worship an embodiment of nature. Druids cut out the middle man, and directly worship the abstract idea of nature.

If we're on the same wavelength, you may have noticed that this definition works for any concept, not just nature. That's because not every druid worships nature. Most do, because nature is an incredibly prevalent part of our lives, but the definition of "druid" applies to any concept-worshiper. 

Now that we understand what a druid even is, we can move on to actually talking about them.

Druids are like anarchists - No one can agree what the fuck they're doing

Every single druid has a different idea of what "nature" is. Many of these definitions have similarities, and druids with similar definitions very often join together to form circles, but no two understandings are quite the same - And that's only addressing the druids who worship "nature". Many druids worship more specific things that might still fall under the category of nature, like "tundra", "fire", or "panthers", but there are also the druids that worship unnatural ideas, like "swords", "chiseled rock", or the even general idea of "civilization". 

The numbers of unnatural druids tend to stay on the low end, both because most other druids hate them with a passion, and because becoming a druid needs a certain irrational passion, one that's rarely found in the comparatively sterile world of "civilized peoples". It's very difficult to be so inspired by the idea of math that you gain magical powers, but it isn't impossible.

Even putting the unnatural druids aside, huge variances still exist. A druid of the desert will struggle to find common ground with a druid of the forest, and even more so with a druid of the river. This only gets worse the more niche you go - Druids of dormice would probably have a more productive conversation with a brick wall than they would with druids of the west wind. 

A Few Weird Subtypes of Natural Druids

Wild Druids, also known as primal druids, are the ones described in the article that inspired this whole thing. They are deeply passionate, deeply violent, and by the standards of society, deeply mad.

Blood Druids are sometimes mistaken for them, but they're not the same. Blood druids have no such ideas about "Destroying Symbolic Thought", or any common ideas at all. Blood Druid is a general term for druids primarily concerned with violence. Not druids who concern themselves with the natural cycle as a whole, but specifically the part where they get to kill a lot of people. These include druids who worship blood as a concept, druids of predation, druids of invasive species, druids of the shrike, and those idiots who think that nature means "No Rules, Kill Everyone".

Possibly the most unique of the natural druids are druids of the city. Not the unnatural construction of the city, but the ecosystems and that exist within them. They've gained a reputation as some of the cleverest people in the world, and it's for a good reason. Managing to survive within an inhospitable environment, whether the attacks of their unfriendly brothers, and endure the constant threat of further development outright destroying what little nature you can find requires a quick hand and a quicker wit. 

("You should stat them out as a class or subclass", someone probably says. Maybe I will eventually, but I'm much better at throwing out ideas than I am balancing things, sorry.)

Druids kill other druids a lot

Arguments over definition can, predictably, lead to vicious druidic infighting. Out of all the holy wars on the face of the world, the druidic ones might be the worst. Have you ever seen the kind old hermit who lives in the woods have his brains bashed out by a half-naked stranger who speaks only in screams? What about that nice woman who cares for the pigeons being burnt alive by the fire that red-haired wanderer is shooting out of his hands? Ever watched wacky uncle order a flock of goshawks to rip out a man's liver?

 Druids can always recognize other druids, and since no self-respecting druid would ever think to form a proper army, battles start the second one lock eyes on another, and ends when one of them is dead. It's always safer to stay away from anyone you think might be a druid, lest you get caught up in the crossfire.

Not every druid is at war with every other druid at all times, of course. Circles form truces, ally to deal with larger threats, and sometimes it's safer just to pretend you didn't notice your enemy was nearby. 

It's a lot like the world of espionage, but with more murder, and also trees.

Wrapping things up

I've listed a lot of types of druids here, some of which are very niche. These aren't examples of druids that actually exist, they're examples of druids who might exist. Everything I've said here is possible, but none of it is certain.

I may have accidentally given the impression that druids are commonplace in this article. They aren't. It takes a very rare kind of person to be a druid. Druids don't have detailed notes like wizards, natural power like sorcerers, or even doctrines to follow the same way clerics do. The best they've got is a mentor who'll probably end up spending more time forcing them to figure out their own solutions than actually helping. There are no certification exams that declare you a druid, no easy way to measure power. You don't choose to be a druid, you are called to become one. Some sudden spark of insight that forces you to rethink your life, giving in to that nagging doubt that's always been needling at the back of your head, being confronted head-on with the true horror of environmental destruction - These are the kind of things that put people on the path to druidry. 

There is only one thing that you can say without doubt about all druids, and it is that each and every druid is utterly and completely unique.