Re: [DL] Pagans (slightly OT)

[Eric Avedissian <eric@pro-usa.net>]

I, also am writing an AB for Druids. I've researched Druidic history.
They were essentially Celtic priests who also functioned as teachers.
While many were wiped out with the coming of Christianity, their stories
were preserved in bardic poems through the centuries. In the late 1700s,
the Ancient Order of Druids was founded in London by Henry Hurle. Drudic
tales and poems became popular in the early 19th century.
As part of the Great Britian scenario I'm writing is the backstory to
the Druids. I'm not going into it here, but there are two kinds: white
robes and black robes. Guess which ones are the good guys?
For the Druid AB, since it does involve communing with nature spirits,
I'm basing it on the shamanic ritual-appeasement system. A Druid will
roll their Faith:druid while conducting a ritual. If they take time to
prepare for the ritual and make the TN, they get a certain number of
appeasement points to use. These points can be stored for use to cast
magicks, a sort of miracles or favors for druids. The magicks (I'm
compiling them) include your standard healing, combat and other spell
types. If you don't use your appeasement points by dusk, you lose 'em
all, and have to perform your next ritual by dawn the next day. Since
druidic rituals are bound by certain factors: time of day, seson, etc.
to follow nature's directive, they can't cast on the fly like hucksters,
blessed or even shaman. Thus, they must ask the nature spirits for
appeasement at certain times.
If a druid has a few appeasement points left over and he wants to save
them to cast after dusk (most Deadlands activity is at night) he must
partake in another ritual called sacrifice.Targets for sacrifice (I've
written tthis down) include small birds, to squirrels, to goats and
cows. And yes, there are humans, but while this offers the most zing for
casting the most magick spells at night, it also runs the risk of
drawing a manitou and corrupting the druid. Too many of these sacrifices
and you'll have to switch the white robe for a black one and join Lord
Cleyburne's gang of black magicians.
I'm interested in learning what other people are doing to develop a
Druidic AB.

"Marshal" Eric