Druid

Class Traits

Secretive and enigmatic, druids call the wilderness their home. They are capable of running with a wolf pack, speaking with the most ancient trees, and watching thunderstorms from atop the clouds themselves. They regard challenges as tests, both of their fitness and of their connection with the wild places of the world. And though many druids project an outward calm, they have the cunning of the beast and the fury of the storm.

Whether you were born to the wilds or retreated from civilization, whether you chose your path or answered a call that whispered in your heart, you share a bond with the primal spirits of nature. You are neither their servant nor their master, but winds, trees, and beasts heed your words, for they recognize you as kin.

Call to the spirits, and they will entangle your foes or smite your enemies with the storm. Unleash your own spirit, and you will become the Primal Beast, uncaged and untamed.

“I am the voice of the wilderness, and when I speak, the world shudders.”

The primal spirits that inhabit the world are at your command. The very substance of nature responds to your call, allowing you to use it as a weapon and a tool. Your own spirit is a part of the primal world, and your body is but a reflection of your spirit, shifting freely from your mundane humanoid form to any of thousands of bestial shapes, reflecting the glorious variety of nature. You are a druid, mysterious and elusive, wise beyond common mortal knowing.

Your body is a conduit for primal magic, and with that power, you might transform into a wolf or a panther and glide unseen among the trees. You could sculpt your body into a shifting mass of fur, feathers, claws, or scales. Or your form can become a swarm of hundreds of small creatures, which move as a shifting, shapeless mass over the ground.

Class Features

Druids have the following class features.

Balance of Nature

Some druids favor being in beast form, while others prefer being in humanoid form. However, just as druids seek balance in the world between divine and primordial forces, druids pursue balance within their own minds and bodies. You begin with three at-will attack powers. Throughout your career, at least one of those powers, and no more than two, must have the beast form keyword. By this means, you have access to useful attacks in either beast form or humanoid form.

Primal Aspect

Druidic lore speaks of the Primal Beast, the first spirit of the world’s noble predators. A formless thing of shadows, fur, feathers, and claws, this creature appears in many druids’ visions, and they speak of channeling the Primal Beast when using their wild shape and beast form powers. As a druid, you choose which aspect of the Primal Beast you most strongly manifest with your powers. Choose one of these options. Your choice provides bonuses to certain druid powers, as detailed in those powers.

Primal Swarm is a Primal Aspect option from Primal Power.

Ritual Casting

You gain the Ritual Caster feat as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals. You own a ritual book, and it contains two rituals of your choice that you have mastered: Animal Messenger and another 1st-level ritual. Once per day, you can use Animal Messenger without expending components.

Wild Shape

As a druid, you have the ability to channel the primal energy of beasts into your physical form and transform into a beast. You have an at-will power, wild shape, that allows you to assume the form of a beast, and many druid powers have the beast form keyword and therefore can be used only while you are in beast form. The wild shape power lets you assume a form of your size that resembles a natural or a fey beast, usually a four-legged mammalian predator such as a bear, a boar, a panther, a wolf, or a wolverine. You choose a specific form whenever you use wild shape, and that form has no effect on your game statistics or movement modes.

Implements

Druids employ staffs and totems as a means of focusing their primal energy. When you wield a magic staff or a magic totem, you can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of druid powers and druid paragon path powers that have the implement keyword. Without an implement, you can still use these powers.

Creating a Druid

Druids rely on Wisdom, Dexterity, and Constitution for their powers. You can choose any powers you like, but many druids choose powers that complement their choice of Primal Aspect.

This chapter presents one new build for the druid, the swarm druid. You can choose the Primal Swarm class feature and select related powers to create a druid character who has a distinctive flavor, becoming an insect swarm when you adopt your beast form.

In addition to this new build, this chapter also includes a suite of summoning powers for the druid. Whichever build you choose for your character, you can use summoning powers to enhance your other capabilities.

Guardian Druid

As a guardian druid, you are a protector of the land and those who rely on it. Yours is the magic of earth, forest, and sky, the enduring aspects of nature that outlive any mortal tyrant. Your powers incline you toward leader as a secondary role. Wisdom should be your highest ability score, since your attack powers rely on it, but make Constitution your second-best score to heighten your endurance and your guardian powers.

• Suggested Class Feature: Primal Guardian

• Suggested Feat: Primal Instinct

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Heal, Insight, Nature

• Suggested At-Will Powers: call of the beast, chill wind, grasping claws

• Suggested Encounter Power: frost flash

• Suggested Daily Power: fires of life

Predator Druid

As a predator druid, you hunt down and destroy those who despoil the natural world. Yours is the magic of the bared fang, the stalking wolf pack, and the blood-red moon. Your powers make striker your secondary role, with a focus on dealing significant damage along with your control effects. Make Wisdom your highest ability score to get the most out of your attacks, followed by Dexterity to enhance your predator powers.

• Suggested Class Feature: Primal Predator

• Suggested Feat: Primal Fury

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Nature, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: flame seed, pounce, savage rend

• Suggested Encounter Power: darting bite

• Suggested Daily Power: savage frenzy

Summoner Druid

You are a champion of nature, a leader of spirits, and a summoner of feral beasts. You place your trust in the magic of the hunting tiger, the stalking wolf, and the shrieking hawk. The creatures you summon obey your every command, yet if you fail to guide them, they act according to their instincts.

Only the most powerful of your evocations can summon creatures to fight at your side, so you must be careful to pick the right moment to summon them. They fight with courage and tenacity regardless of the foe.

The creatures that heed your call are companions, not mere pawns. You are their caretaker and guide. If you allow them to run rampant, the blame for any foolish decisions they make rests on you alone. With the power to command the spirits and give them physical form comes the responsibility to use that power with wisdom and foresight.

The summoner druid is not a full build, but a druid of any Primal Aspect who chooses mostly summoning powers for his or her daily attack powers. As a summoner, you should choose powers and feats that allow you to function better when fighting alongside a creature you summoned. However, keep in mind that summoning powers are daily powers, so you can’t rely on them too heavily at low levels.

• Primal Guardian: You are a druid who dabbles in the leader role, and you can use summoned creatures to hold back enemies and provide relief to beleaguered allies.

• Primal Predator: A summoning power allows you to build your own pack, granting you an instant ally for flanking and distracting your enemies.

• Primal Swarm: You can use summoned creatures to hem in your enemies, making it easier to catch those enemies in your close attacks.

• Suggested Feat: Strong-Willed Summoning*

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Diplomacy, Insight, Nature

• Suggested At-Will Powers: call of the beast, fire hawk*, savage rend

• Suggested Encounter Power: call forth the spirit pack*

• Suggested Daily Power: summon pack wolf*

**New option presented in Primal Power.*

Swarm Druid

Druids call on forces associated with primal magic, such as beasts, plants, storms, and the earth. Swarm druids prefer to call on a particular primal force: insect swarms. Such druids see great strength in the unity of purpose and combined might of a colony of ants or a nest of hornets.

Most druids assume the forms of creatures such as bears, panthers, and rams, but a swarm druid splinters into hundreds of insects, all driven toward a single purpose by the druid’s mind. The druid is at once all the creatures in the swarm and none of them. Enemies might stomp at the swarm, crushing a beetle here and swatting a wasp there, but to the druid the loss of an individual in the swarm means nothing. It is the swarm as a whole—a dauntless tide of chitin and stingers—that matters.

Swarm druids are most often found in tropical climates. They typically dwell in jungles, where they have witnessed the power of an ant colony on the march. Druids of the Underdark also tend toward this discipline. In web-shrouded caves, drow and troglodyte swarm druids commune with spiders, mushroom forests, and creatures that have never seen the light of day.

As a swarm druid, you focus on close attacks and other multitarget attacks that can be used while you are in beast form. Many of your powers (as well as the Primal Swarm class feature) cause you to take less damage or to avoid attacks entirely, allowing you to hold your own when you stay in melee range. It’s a good idea to focus on feats, powers, and other options that boost your ability in close-quarters fighting. Many of your beast form powers are close bursts or blasts. Look for feats that improve such powers.

Make Wisdom your highest ability score to bolster all your druid attacks, followed by Constitution to enhance your Primal Swarm powers.

• Suggested Class Feature: Primal Swarm*

• Suggested Feat: Toughness

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Endurance, Nature, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: wasping claws, swarming locusts*, thorn whip

• Suggested Encounter Power: scattered form*

• Suggested Daily Power: fog of insects*

**New option presented in Primal Power.*

Druid Overview

Choosing Druid Powers

As you choose druid powers, you have two factors to consider. One is how the powers fit into your character concept — whether you imagine your character as more of a guardian or more of a predator. The other is how much time you envision spending in beast form. This factor is independent of your choice of build; both guardian druids and predator druids can choose powers that are mostly used in beast form or mostly used in humanoid form.

The easiest strategy is to choose the power at each level that appeals to you most. If you need more guidance, choose beast form powers for about half of your powers. At 1st level, choose one or two beast form at-will attack powers, then choose either a beast form encounter power or a beast form daily power. As you advance in levels, continue trying to balance your power selections between beast form powers and other powers. Remember that you can use retraining to change your power selections if you find your choices unsatisfying.

Playing a Druid

A solitary traveler bedecked in claws and feathers walks a lonely road, just ahead of roiling storm clouds. At a crossroads, a robed woman stands before a mangled tree, asking the plant for directions. Atop a high mountain, a weathered ascetic stares out at the sky, reading portents. Druids live in concert with nature, enduring both the blistering sun and the paralyzing cold with quiet persistence. Despite their apparent isolation, they count all of the world’s plants and animals among their friends, so few druids see themselves as hermits or recluses. As a druid, you view the wild as a living, breathing entity—one that is with you wherever you go.

The First Mistake

In the ancient days when the first druids achieved mastery over primal magic, some of the mightiest magicians chose to remain in beast form at all times. After all, why return to the life of the tribe when one could run in the night with a pack of wolves, prowl the savannah as a fearless lion, or roam the forests as a bear? These druids had unlocked many deep secrets, and they thought that by remaining in beast form forever they would learn more.

In time, the error of their reasoning became apparent—but too late to benefit those who made the mistake. The druids who chose to live only as beasts were gradually subsumed into the lives of the beasts they had joined. As their souls merged with those of the beasts, their minds grew dim, so that they forgot that they had not always been beasts. The deep secrets they discovered became locked inside their animalistic minds.

The druids who came after these ancient ones learned from the error of their predecessors. They realized that a druid must stand at the center of all living things, seeing in each natural form the purpose it serves in the order of the world. A druid takes the shape of a beast not to become an animal, but to learn to see the world from a dual perspective—that of an animal and that of a person.

Some ancestor spirits say that those original, ancient druids still wander the world as immortal beasts. Can such druids be returned to their humanoid forms? If so, would they give up their secrets? Perhaps one day you will find out.

Druids and the Primal Spirits

As with characters of other primal classes, your powers derive from your relationship with the primal spirits. However, your most important relationship is with the Primal Beast, the mysterious and savage entity that enables your wild shape power.

When you’re fighting in your humanoid form, your evocations often direct and manipulate the spirits. But you don’t normally communicate with the spirits in battle or summon them with conjurations. You summon beasts, not spirits. Your connection with nature during battle is more visceral—like bones crunching between your fangs or like lightning rippling out of your soul as you become the storm. The Primal Beast inhabits your flesh and shapes you into an echo of one of its many forms.

Outside combat, though, you might have much broader contact with a range of primal spirits, particularly in your use of ritual magic. Removed from the frenzy of combat, you are the most adept ritual caster in the spirit way.

Your Wild Shape

The ability to shapeshift is a power that itches to be used, making it hard for some druids to remain in one form for long. Is wild shape a power you reserve for combat, when you need to unleash the Primal Beast on your foes? Or is changing shape a form of communication, like the expression on your face? Some druids use wild shape as a form of conversational punctuation, especially when they are agitated—taking on a beast form to snarl a curse before finishing the thought in a humanoid voice.

Do you speak in beast form? Some druids choose not to, perhaps because they believe that the purpose of their beast form is to experience animal life in its purest context, and humanoid speech is antithetical to that goal. Others use wild shape multiple times in the course of a single spoken sentence, keeping a constant flow of words while punctuating their thoughts with growls and roars that their humanoid voices can’t properly produce.

What beast form do you prefer? Guardian druids lean toward the form of a large, hardy animal such as a bear, a boar, a wolverine, a rage drake, or a bulette. Predator druids often choose the form of a pack predator or a stalker such as a panther, a lion, a wolf, a tiger, or a displacer beast. Swarm druids have their own unique swarm forms, composed of countless tiny insects, rodents, or drakes. Many druids choose forms that defy these trends, however, commonly adopting the form of a stag, a ram, a horse, a bison, or a behemoth. Many more adopt a different form each time they change shape.

It’s often possible to tell, looking at a druid in beast form, that the creature is no ordinary beast. Some druids always adopt forms that have obvious magical distinctions from normal beasts, such as patterned fur or glowing eyes. Others take on forms that don’t resemble any normal animal, indistinct shapes of fur and claws, feathers, or scales. Sometimes, though, it’s subtle cues that reveal a druid in beast form—an obvious intelligence and attentiveness in the beast’s demeanor or something unusual in the way it moves.

Druids and Other Forms of Magic

Druids see the need for balance in all things, and that attitude extends to different forms of magic. Arcane, divine, and psionic magic all have their place in the world. Like all things, though, any form of magic becomes a threat when it grows too strong.

Arcane magic has the potential to upset the balance of the natural world. The quest for immortality seizes many wizards, some of whom take up the dark path of undeath to prolong their existence. Druids can accept that the influence of the Shadowfell sometimes spawns undead. However, they believe that rituals that create undead are intolerable attacks on nature. Such lore and its users must be destroyed.

Divine magic is a useful tool for protecting a community, but it comes at the price of obedience to a power that exists beyond the world. The gods are powerful and wise, but they have designs upon the world that at times put them in conflict with the primal spirits. To the druids, divine power is like a dire wolf taken at birth and trained to hunt. It might be a useful ally, but at some point its true, predatory nature will arise.

Psionic magic confuses druids. It has only recently appeared among creatures of the world, making its proper role in the natural order unclear. Its prevalence among aberrant creatures causes some druids to see psionic magic as a herald of the Far Realm’s corrupting influence. Others view psionic magic as a powerful tool against the threat of the Far Realm.

Other Origins

Most druids arise in families or communities that hold the primal spirits in esteem and follow the spirit way. As children, these druids seem aware of the spirits around them in the world, and they display the power of the Primal Beast within them. It’s rarely a surprise when such a child takes on the adventuring life and manifests the full powers of a druid.

It’s not unheard of for druid powers to arise spontaneously, for someone who has no familiarity with the primal spirits to suddenly change shape or call on druid evocations. This sort of event occurs most often in situations of great stress, moments when people want to flee or fight, and suddenly find that they can fight faster or with greater savagery than they had imagined possible. Their bodies transform without conscious will or effort, and the Primal Beast is unleashed.

Still other druids approach the primal spirits through less traditional routes. Some members of sects of Melora, for example, train their devotees to commune with the primal spirits, and occasionally druids arise among these sects, no less devoted to the goddess for all the primal power flowing through their bodies.

Druid Lore

The Circle of Serpentis

Most people, even among primal tribes, associate the form of the coiled serpent with evil druids, including the Circle of Serpentis. The circle is a sinister group that reveres Zehir above all primal spirits, some say. The members of the circle (mostly yuan-ti) use their coiled serpent forms to strike secretly in the name of their dark god. Although their lairs lie deep in the wilderness, they sometimes infiltrate cities and borderland settlements.

If you are or were associated with the Circle of Serpentis, you might be a former member of the circle who now seeks redemption by foiling the circle’s plans or a power-hungry character who becomes an ally of the circle despite its evil.

Druid Circles

As druids grow older, they are more and more likely to seek out other druids from near or distant lands with whom they create small informal groups that they refer to as circles, groves, or rings. A druid circle typically has between three and seven members. The members do not always share ideals, goals, or even alignments. Balance is the druid’s life lesson, and as druids mature, they are increasingly aware that listening only to viewpoints similar to their own can push them out of balance.

Sometimes a circle has members of vastly varying power levels. Given the small number of truly powerful druids in the world, it is possible that some druids go their entire lives without being a member of a circle, while others are members of two or three, sometimes even at the same time.

Most circles do not meet often. If members gather once a year on a particular solstice or equinox, that’s considered a busy schedule. Once every two or three years is just as likely, though members of the same circle might contact each other individually more often than that.

Druids’ Gardens

Druids often spend time, gold, and effort cultivating specialized magical gardens, but few people who are not good friends with a druid ever see a druid’s gardens.

Druids’ gardens partake of the class’s dual nature. Transforming into animal form, a druid travels deep into forests, into caves, or perhaps high into the branches of a great tree. In a distant glen, in a cavern with flowing water, or on the wide, sun-dappled branch of a great tree, the druid tends a garden that nondruids might not even recognize as such. The art is in growing powerful herbs, ancient species of creatures, and glorious plants that fit seamlessly into their environment.

The highest art of a druid’s garden comes when after centuries, the plants and creatures that the druid nurtured within the garden have spread naturally and noninvasively to form part of the natural heritage of an area. No matter how powerful a druid is in combat or as an epic hero, there is no guarantee that the druid’s garden will find a place within the world. Nondruids don’t usually understand how and why such gardens are so important to druids, but they sometimes see the consequences, such as moments when two druids who should be enemies spend time discussing tricks of gardening that seem irrelevant to everyone else.

Emissaries of the World

The primal spirits’ relationship to the planes that echo the natural world is a complex one. The Feywild and the Shadowfell aren’t part of the world, but both of them parallel the traits of the world, and so they are not entirely cut off from the power of the primal spirits. Shamans say that the primal spirits flow where they like, but that they are not nearly as powerful in either the Feywild or the Shadowfell, where other powers reign.

Druids say that when they enter these other planes, their presence helps the primal spirits flow alongside and out from their steps. Exploring or living in the Feywild or the Shadowfell, they say, makes one a kind of emissary, increasing the likelihood that people in those planes will benefit from primal power.

Instinctive Effects

Druid summoning powers use the same rules as other powers that have the summoning keyword, as explained in Player’s Handbook 2 (page 111). However, all the summoning powers in this chapter include an instinctive effect, an action the summoned creature takes in lieu of any other command. This feature reflects the fact that your summoning powers give physical form to beast spirits—spirits that are independent and not much different from the living beasts of the world.

Be careful with the instinctive effects of the creatures you summon! Sometimes an instinctive effect is useful and helpful, letting the summoned creature attack without costing you any actions. Sometimes, though, the summoned creature might attack you or your allies. Remember that when an instinctive effect refers to “the nearest creature,” that doesn’t mean just enemies.

Seekers of the Lost Dawn

During the bleakest days of the Dawn War, the overwhelming power of the gods and the primordials scarred, churned, and scorched the world. Great holes opened in the surface of the world, swallowing entire forests and mountain ranges, until the primal spirits finally drove the combatants back to the planes.

To this day, primal heroes search out those long-forgotten lands swallowed deep within the earth. Guided by spirits who half remember the battles but have no memory of what was lost, a few druids in each generation find themselves drawn to search for forests of gleaming crystals and former mountain peaks buried beneath earth that rests uneasily over former places of primal power.

Where such sites have fallen into the Underdark, they have nearly always been broken apart and digested by that realm’s alien nature. But in many places—too many to ignore—pockets of the lost dawn still exist as bubbles of earth and hidden springs, separated from the Underdark below by gradually eroding rock.

Sky Speakers

Druids don’t speak with the spirits as naturally as shamans do. Some druids choose a different mode of understanding the will of the spirits, a form of observation of nature that blends into a nomadic lifestyle that takes them across the world.

By observing the movements of storms, clouds, winds, birds and other flying creatures, druids who think of themselves as sky speakers believe that they can trace the earliest motions of the primal spirits—movements that lead to ancient places of primal power and hunting ranges in the clouds that have been preserved since before the Dawn War.

Sky speakers erect shrines atop the highest peaks. One sky speaker seldom has any difficulty recognizing another, because no one else pays so much attention to the world above, even while in the form of a creature that has four paws upon the earth.

For the DM: Summoned Creatures

When a druid summons a creature into the world, that creature is an independent entity, a shard of primal magic given form. In extremely rare cases—so rare that some druids never witness such an event—a summoned creature carries a shard of a great spirit. After such a summoned creature has survived the battle into which it was summoned, the creature speaks briefly with the voice of the elder spirits, or it snarls and motions for the druid to follow it.

The good news is that such a summoned creature will speak words of prophecy or lead the druid to a previously unseen path. The bad news is that such remarkable events happen only when the primal spirits are gathering their power to oppose a force that threatens the world. The prophecy points to danger, and the path leads to peril. But that is the stuff of which a hero’s life is made.

Three Halves Make a Whole

Although their ability scores don’t necessarily make them the best druids, half-elf and half-orc heroes are sometimes drawn to the druid class. A half-elf who hasn’t figured out how to balance her human and elven obligations can escape them both by shifting into beast form. A half-orc who has difficulty being accepted in civilized human or savage orc society can become a shapeshifter and gain acceptance with a primal tribe far from his original home. In a sense, half-elves and half-orcs who make this choice are taking a path set out for them by razorclaw shifters, who are descended from lycanthropes and drawn to the druid class for its ability to merge the separate pieces of their body and psyche.

Druid Powers

Your powers are evocations that call on primal spirits to alter your physical form and hamper your enemies. You call up roots and vines from the ground, summon lightning from the sky, engulf your enemies in fire, or transform yourself into a fierce predator whose howl can shake your foes with fear. They are listed below by the level at which you gain access to them.

This section expands the power options for all druids, as well as presenting powers tailored for swarm druids and for druids who want to summon creatures.

Class Features

Level 1 At-Will Evocations

Level 1 Encounter Evocations

Level 1 Daily Evocations

Level 2 Utility Evocations

Level 3 Encounter Evocations

Level 5 Daily Evocations

Level 6 Utility Evocations

Level 7 Encounter Evocations

Level 9 Daily Evocations

Level 10 Utility Evocations

Level 13 Encounter Evocations

Level 15 Daily Evocations

Level 16 Utility Evocations

Level 17 Encounter Evocations

Level 19 Daily Evocations

Level 22 Utility Evocations

Level 23 Encounter Evocations

Level 25 Daily Evocations

Level 27 Encounter Evocations

Level 29 Daily Evocations

Paragon Paths

At 11th level a druid may take one of these paragon paths. Each grants path features at 11th and 16th levels plus the encounter, utility, and daily evocations shown.

Blood Moon Stalker

“Tonight, the full moon rises red over the mountains. This is the night of the blood moon — my night.”

Several legends tell of the blood moon, a night or sometimes a season when the Primal Beast stalks the wilderness of the world in physical form. During the blood moon, the predators of the world are said to be more dangerous and to have an insatiable hunger. Whatever the cause and exact effects of the blood moon, some druids use these legends as a symbol for their own ferocious zeal in protecting the natural balance of the world. You are a blood moon stalker, favoring your beast form and choosing powers that make you more dangerous in that form. You take pride and pleasure in fighting without conscious thought, drawing on bestial instinct and wisdom to guide your attacks upon your prey. Through the power of the blood moon, you and your spirit brothers, sisters, and ancestors are the custodians of the world.

Blood Moon Stalker Path Features

Blood Moon Stalker Evocations

Coiled Serpent

“No sound of my movement or sight of my scales will reach you. You’ll feel only the pierce of my fangs and the sting of my poison.”

You have mastered the form of the coiled serpent, a sleek, stealthy beast form that carries the promise of pain and poison for your enemies. Some druids keep their distance from serpentine beasts, but you recognize such creatures as being just as integral to the natural world as anything that has fur or feathers. You call on cold-eyed serpent spirits, and your connection to the cobra, the adder, and the python gives you a subtle magic.

As a coiled serpent, you gain abilities that let you grab creatures, deal poison damage, and move swiftly.

Coiled Serpent Path Features

Coiled Serpent Evocations

Guardian of the Living Gate

“There are creatures from beyond this world that seek to destroy all that we have built. My task is to destroy them first.”

Ancient compacts and edicts protect the natural world from too much interference by gods and primordials. To many druids’ eyes, the greatest threat that now faces the world is not god or primordial, but alien creatures from the Far Realm that are not bound by the ancient laws. These creatures don’t necessarily want to destroy the world, but whether or not they mean to, they corrupt it simply by being in it. As a guardian of the Living Gate, you have sworn to seek out and kill aberrant creatures that have ties to the Far Realm and to seal any portals between that plane and the world. The mystical powers you learn on this path are generally useful for protecting your allies and bringing ruin to your enemies, but your charge is to use them to defend the natural world from forces that would corrupt and destroy it.

Guardian of the Living Gate Path Features

Guardian of the Living Gate Evocations

Keeper of the Hidden Flame

“The Hidden Flame burns within us all. Draw on it for your fury, or I will call it out for your doom.”

According to druidic legend, the Hidden Flame is a spark of vigor and vitality that exists within every creature. Beasts, especially predatory mammals, are said to live in harmony with the Hidden Flame within them, calling upon it to fuel their hunting fury. When a creature lets the Hidden Flame burn out of control, the result is a mad savagery that is no more in harmony with the natural way of things than the behavior of those civilized folk who act as if no flame burns within them at all. You are a keeper of the Hidden Flame, able to tap into this wellspring of strength and bestial fury. By calling to the Hidden Flame in a creature, you can spur that creature into a frenzy that leaves no room for strategic or tactical thinking.

Keeper of the Hidden Flame Path Features

Keeper of the Hidden Flame Evocations

Luminescent Swarm

“Insects don’t need to speak to communicate. Watch the way my swarm dances, and you’ll see the way.”

When you take on the form of an insect swarm, the insects glow with supernatural light. The stories of your ancestors tell of luminescent insects in primeval times, insects that led your ancestors through swamps and forests to safety. These creatures had no kindness for the enemies of your tribe and used their hypnotic lights to lead enemies astray, drowning them in deep bogs and abandoning them in animal dens. You, too, are a protector and an ally when you take on the shape of the luminescent swarm.

You can harness primal lights to bewilder and blind your enemies. Your attacks deal psychic damage and deliver effects that make it more difficult for your enemies to attack.

Luminescent Swarm Path Features

Luminescent Swarm Evocations

Pack Lord

“My companions and I are just a small part of a much larger pack, and we always hunt together.”

With each evocation you cast, you hear the distant growls and cries of your pack. They wait for your magic to call them forth into battle, and they are eager to fight. You strengthen them with your magic, and you draw power from them. You are at your mightiest when you stand at the head of your summoned pack.

When you summon the beasts of your pack, your evocations echo through them. Their wounds knit shut, and they leap to attack with a ferocity augmented by your primal magic. In turn, you draw on their feral strength to endure your enemy’s attacks and to strengthen your own.

Pack Lord Path Features

Pack Lord Evocations

Primal Summoner

“This isn’t a battle. It’s a hunt. And you’re not the hunter.”

Perhaps you were raised in the wilderness and learned to summon beasts to serve as your hunting companions. Perhaps your community needed protection, and you learned the ways of summoning animal guardians at a moment’s notice. Or it could be that you grew up hearing the whispers of animal spirits and are a master at calling them to your side. Whatever your route to the path of the primal summoner, you seek a mastery over summoned beasts that other druids do not possess. Some of your abilities help your beasts act on their instincts, whereas other abilities help you command those beasts with even greater skill.

The primal slayer that you learn to control at the peak of your power is an ancient spirit. It might not be the most mighty creature you learn to summon, but its ability to change its shape echoes the versatility of your power.

Primal Summoner Path Features

Primal Summoner Evocations

Sky Hunter

“The eagle is the perfect predator. Not bound to earth, it hunts like a primal spirit in the world.”

Although the Primal Beast usually appears as a mammalian predator, some aspects of the Primal Beast soar through the sky on feathered wings, hunting prey from the air. Eagles, hawks, and falcons are no less fierce predators than panthers and wolves, and some druids assume their forms to fly after their own prey. You are such a druid, a sky hunter who emulates birds of prey in your beast form. Your beast form can’t always fly, but it can take to the air from time to time. Some sky hunters assume a beast form a little like a cockatrice — a stalking predator with primitive wings that allow it to fly in short bursts. Others retain their normal beast form but change momentarily into a bird form when they use their sky hunter powers.

Sky Hunter Path Features

Sky Hunter Evocations

Spiral Wind’s Ally

“Stillness is death. Touch the wind and live.”

Many of the world’s languages use words for “spirit” and “breath” that are related to each other. Whereas other primal magicians mostly consort with the spirits behind the world’s creatures and things, you have befriended one of the ancient winds. The Spiral Wind carries the secrets of life in its twists; look at any humanoid fingerprint, and you’ll see the spirals that mark where the wind entered to give the person life.

You have learned to call the Spiral Wind when you and your allies have need of its healing powers. You won’t be mistaken for a cleric or a shaman, but your allies have learned that a sudden breeze might be a sign of your allied wind’s arrival.

The Spiral Wind has more to do with the people of the wilderness than with the beasts, and you are more comfortable in humanoid form than in beast form. You can still change shape, but most of the powers and features that rely on the Spiral Wind work only when you are in your humanoid form.

Spiral Wind’s Ally Path Features

Spiral Wind’s Ally Evocations

Storm Speaker

“Once the storm begins, no mortal force can halt it.”

The might of primal storms—furious things of lightning, thunder, and rain—courses through your magic. Few druids walk the path of the storm speaker, for it is fraught with indomitable forces that can be channeled only temporarily, rather than truly controlled. The storm speaker dabbles with primal powers that dance and surge across the sky, free of all fetters.

Storm speakers seek out broad plains, the better to see and study storms that sweep across the sky. Their lodges are marked by tall spikes of iron marked with yellow and blue runes. During a storm, a speaker meditates within one of these lodges, allowing his or her mind to wander among the winds and rain. If the storms are open to sharing their secrets, bolts of lightning strike the iron spikes, sending waves of primal energy over the speaker, fortifying his or her power.

Storm Speaker Path Features

Storm Speaker Evocations

Whirling Samara

“For you, despoiler, these seeds are a promise of death.”

As a druid who assumes swarm shapes, you have already mastered complex magic that maintains your identity even while you are dispersed in the form of many insects. Your new path focuses on gaining greater control of the individuals that compose your swarm forms. Most druids work with one swarm shape at a time, but you mix many different types of seeds, leaves, insects, and other natural things into a supremely flexible form, which adapts to any challenge.

Many of your powers take advantage of the whirling wings of the seeds called samaras or the buzzing wings of insects. You can take flight as smoothly as you shift into beast form, then send pieces of yourself whirling among your allies to protect them from harm.

Whirling Samara Path Features

Whirling Samara Evocations

Druid (PHB2 + Primal Power) —