[✗] Blight Healing Lore Revision

[Wolf Druid Ouity 1461]

Blight Healing Changelog

 

This edit is an attempt to refine blight healing roleplay (which currently has no real method or uniformity in any guide) and to incorporate more unique ideas and style into Druid RP. This change list’s primary objective is to promote ritualistic roleplay in the Druids and snuff out Mary Sue-esque glowing green mists of Xan

 

Blight Healing will now predominantly done through weather effects. This, from undefined. In RP, the called upon weather is imbued with strong natural energies which override the taint the Druid attacks. Druids can still blight heal though direct contact with the (diseased/dying/sometimes dead) thing (using their own “natural energy”, but overall will use this new method. This change is a double edged spear, to give Druids back an ability that was once theirs, and to give it longevity and purpose. With this change, weather control is not just a frivolous tack-on, but a meaningful part of Druid RP that will be the center of most cleansing rituals.

 

Rain, wind, even lightning and the resulting fire all have strong connections in symbolism to cleansing and renewal. It’s the perfect conduit to perform such an action, and it replaces rather out of place blight healing of the past, such as the use of green mist and glowing eyes, which overall felt out of place and out of touch when compared to the rest of Druidic magic as a whole.

 

While I understand that Weather Stone lore has recently been submitted, I’m personally not a fan of that route because it makes the magic exclusive rather than inclusive, and allows certain Druids to horde the power.

 

Below is an outline of the proposed power and ability of each group/tier

 

Solo Druid:

T1, T2: A gentle gust of wind clears some taint

T3: The Druid can conjure a mild gust

T4: Strong wind

T5: Gale/drizzle

 

Note: Strength of effect is proportional to the amount of taint cured.

Disclaimer: There is room for creativity here. It doesn’t have to be rain. Healing snowstorm?

 

Group: (tiers written are cumulative. Hence, Tier 10= two tier five Druids

T8: Strong rain

T10: Heavy storm. Lightning and thunder begin at this tier

T15: Monsoon potential (this being only achievable with 3 maxed out Druids or a host of lesser ones.)

 

T30: (Maybe 25?) Hurricane

 

An excerpt from the journal of Wolf Druid Ouity

 

In the history of the Order, many great feats become lost in the fog of time. It is up to each Attuned to remember that which we see, that our preservation of knowledge may help our kin when their own skill fails them. Many a lost art has fallen into the dreary smog of memory, but so too have many great strides been made in our understanding of our gifts.

 

The Aspects manifest in many forms, and it would be foolish of us to claim that we have discovered all their secrets. Even in the clouds themselves, from the sun above, the Aspects’ radiance seems to bestow itself upon the world. For is it not true that from the sun comes the greatest potential for life? In the rain, does not the promise of growth come? Many Druids look at their gifts as linear and exclusively affecting that which breathe, crawl, swim, fly, and breed. I ask you brothers and sisters, does not the world itself breathe with its gusts of wind? Does it not weep for the dry fields and the thirsty creatures? Does it not lash out in anger with great, thunderous yells? There is something here greater than us all. A world too big for many Druids to comprehend, yet one that encompasses each of us in turn. Thus, if we view the world as one great creature, are not the clouds, the winds, the sky itself the domain of the Aspects? Every river, every stream, every rock on the shoreline? As Druids, it is our duty not just to observe and preserve, but also to understand that which we hold so dear, for doing so casts new light on our purpose and how we might fulfill it.

 

-Wolf Druid Ouity Deathsbane, Heirophant

Father Grove, Larueh’lin

Vailor

 

Red lines:

 

-Druids cannot use weather as a combative effect. It takes a long, undisturbed period for a Druid to call upon the skies, and in that time it would be incredibly simple for an enemy combatant to react.

-Weather CAN be used outside of explicitly healing blight, but only in incredibly rare circumstances. There’s not often a good point to changing the weather, and the effort required means that a Druid wouldn't use it unless they had to. Read: A Druid wouldn't call some wind to fly a kite or impress their friends.

 

 

 

Further thoughts:

 

 

I came to this idea in sort of a roundabout way. I got curious about how other people blight healed. In my day when we first created the idea of subtypes, it was all about touching things or wind sweeping blight away. Stuff like that. When I asked around, I got a lot of really weird, nonuniform answers about how other people do it, and when I looked on the guide, I found virtually nothing about how blight healing is actually supposed to take place. I'm all for the creative, loose interpretations, but I also think it's a bit silly for people to have such radically differing ideas on blight healing. I keep bringing up the green mist, but in my opinion, that sort of thing doesn't have a place in Druidism. We don't summon magical green, glowy mist. That's almost the last thing that pops into my head when I think "nature."


Personally, I've always used wind as my character's method to blight heal, and it never really struck me until I started down this path that I'm technically a dirty little lore breaker because "weather control" isn't part of the Druidic arsenal. Well, it's just my opinion, of course, but I think that weather is a very good medium for blight healing to be used from because

 

A: As of right now, the subtype is totally undefined. You guys both say "nobody has a problem with the way it is!" but I'm willing to be you can't tell me what a canon blight healing looks like. I can't tell you and my character's arguably the most experienced one on the server, because canon blight healing hasn't been defined in any way whatsoever. In fact, allow me to spare you a trip to the Druidism guide.

 

Quote

Blight healing is a most noble ability of the Druids.  Lands afflicted by blight, or plague, disease and death, decay or magical scarring are given new life, and in the place of the infertile soil there is verdure.

 

B: I think Blight Healing is a good match for weather control because blight healing is already one of the only "supernatural" abilities a Druid has. IE, they are not actively controlling a plant or an animal when they use the subtype. They are directly purging taint form wherever it's fallen. The fact that we're already influencing the nonliving when we use the subtype makes adding weather control a more comfortable change.

 

C: Weather control is something I think a lot of us want, but it's hard to justify giving Druids the power to summon a random rainstorm. This gives weather control purpose, function, and a unique and useful place in the Druidic arsenal while helping us clean up one of our more dubious subtypes.

 

As for the weather stones, I just think it's kind of clunky as a medium to introduce weather control to. In that system vs this one, a Druid must actively find, acquire, and maintain possession of what I imagine is a rather rare artifact. I don't think it's a stretch to say that when you compare that to simply having it as a subtype that any Druid can learn without any particular resistance, you would find weather control as accessible for many more people, and serving a far more useful purpose than blowing doors open. Yes, this change makes individual blight healing a little weaker, but rewards a strong group presence. It's meant to encourage rituals, gatherings, and to reward groups of Druids for banding together to go questing. 

 

Aight, none of you guys like the sacrificing thing, I'll scratch it. Really more of a concept that I wanted feedback on than anything. 
 

[Space 2332]

Sacrifice bit seems like it should go, for the same reason they messed with natures healing-- That's more a 'necromancer' type thing, sort alike using living beings life force or whatever.

[Wolf Druid Ouity 1461]

Just now, Space said:

Sacrifice bit seems like it should go, for the same reason they messed with natures healing-- That's more a 'necromancer' type thing, sort alike using living beings life force or whatever.

More of an idea than a concrete, but if you think of Druidism in the sense of "Druids attempt to draw the Aspects' attention to something," be it a branch, root, or bird, the idea of sacrificing something rare or special in order to gain notice is something that I think is fascinating and that would see interesting RP.

 

Thanks for the comment though, I'll see what other people think.

[Zindran 322]

I'll put in my two cents and say that this looks neat, and might be able to make Blight Healing more effective against larger areas of taint, and I feel that a small amount(roughly 1 or 2) of shamans are able to taint a big portion of land while it takes 4, maybe 5 druids to come and heal it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(not gonna forget the +1 )

[drfate786 1639]

I always found taint clearing a bit OP, a druid shouldn't be able to remove taint without causing some sort of drawback. Any lore should have draw backs, if he is creating a storm then that storm should destroy everything else along with the taint, or maybe the aspects will demand a sacrifice or maybe take some of the druid's lifeforce...

 

Edit: Also, if they only clear a bit of the taint then the taint should be able to spread back to that cleared patch.

[Mephistophelian 972]

A bit too close to shamanism, in my eyes, but I applaud the fresh take on Blight Healing. I still believe Druids should stick to plants & animals, and leave weather control to the Shamans.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

I'd appreciate if we stopped trying to deny things because they resemble other things as if every piece of lore on this server has to be a beacon of standalone originality which bares no similarities with anything else in this world.

[max. 1173]

I like it but I don't like the sacrifices

[MajesticOwyn 334]

As someone who is only recently a new druid and has only witnessed a couple blight healing sessions, this proposed change actually makes me pretty excited. Rather than just healing the land with a wave of mist, this adds a much more interesting way to healing, and one that can be creatively expanded upon far more. You can only do so much visually with the current method.

As for the issue of Shamanism, I'll touch on what I posted in the Weather Stone topic. Druids should  have control of more than just plants and animals. Warcraft druids can harness the power of plantlife, animals, lunar/solar, weather, etc. I do not know much of shamanism, but from what little I know, this addition here isn't anywhere on the level of what a shaman can do. I do not see why some magics cant overlap, so long as it makes sense. and is written well.

For sacrifices, I love it. Please keep it in. My character comes from a religion where we do human/animal sacrifice for ritualistic purposes, and no Druid I have talked to seemed bother by it. We already send Dedicants off to go hunt animals for tasks, and many druids hunt and sacrifice as it is. I think it adds more depth. Think how fun it would be to go on a hunt for a unique animal alongside other Druids. I support it 100%

Overall, I think this would make blight healing more interesting, and it places weather control in a role far more appropriate, rather than just tacking it on to Druidism other than to say we have it, as Ouity said. +1

[Wolf Druid Ouity 1461]

4 hours ago, drfate786 said:

I always found taint clearing a bit OP, a druid shouldn't be able to remove taint without causing some sort of drawback. Any lore should have draw backs, if he is creating a storm then that storm should destroy everything else along with the taint, or maybe the aspects will demand a sacrifice or maybe take some of the druid's lifeforce...

 

Edit: Also, if they only clear a bit of the taint then the taint should be able to spread back to that cleared patch.

Well, Druids are the only ones on the server (besides Ascended maybe?) who can do it. Imagine a world where a necromancer dumps a bunch of taint in the town square and you just had to deal with it until the next map change. The capacity to troll would be surreal.

 

Sure, a storm'll kill some plants. That's the nature of the beast. A powerful hurricane would uproot trees and cause massive destruction. The idea is that Druids will have to make hard decisions like that when faced with some wild situation where a hurricane would be the answer. I doubt that level of this ability would ever be used for that reason.

 

We don't deal with life force.

 

The taint shouldn't be allowed to spread, that would be OP as ****. Somebody could dump taint in some corner of the map, modreq every day to have it expand on its own and consume everything. No thanks.

 

4 hours ago, Mephistophelian said:

A bit too close to shamanism, in my eyes, but I applaud the fresh take on Blight Healing. I still believe Druids should stick to plants & animals, and leave weather control to the Shamans.

There are like 8 classes of magic that blight heal, two that shoot fire, two that see into the future, and god knows what else. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow two very similar branches of magic to have an overlapping subtype that is used in two unique ways by both groups. Shamans use their weather control primarily for combat from what I've observed, and call upon it in a way that would be totally different from ours, and with totally different behaviors and uses. This is a change that I've been considering for a few months now, and frankly I think that "cleansing weather" is by and far one of the most common sense ways to make this happen. When Druids Blight Heal, they're not controlling plants, they're directly healing them, it has nothing to do with most normal Druidic powers (controlling life to do things). There's definitely a "supernatural" element to it which, in my opinion, is portrayed much better by weather than by the green mist that seems to be very common.

[Mephistophelian 972]

4 minutes ago, Wolf Druid Ouity said:

Well, Druids are the only ones on the server (besides Ascended maybe?) who can do it. Imagine a world where a necromancer dumps a bunch of taint in the town square and you just had to deal with it until the next map change. The capacity to troll would be surreal.

 

Sure, a storm'll kill some plants. That's the nature of the beast. A powerful hurricane would uproot trees and cause massive destruction. The idea is that Druids will have to make hard decisions like that when faced with some wild situation where a hurricane would be the answer. I doubt that level of this ability would ever be used for that reason.

 

We don't deal with life force.

 

The taint shouldn't be allowed to spread, that would be OP as ****. Somebody could dump taint in some corner of the map, modreq every day to have it expand on its own and consume everything. No thanks.

 

There are like 8 classes of magic that blight heal, two that shoot fire, two that see into the future, and god knows what else. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow two very similar branches of magic to have an overlapping subtype that is used in two unique ways by both groups. Shamans use their weather control primarily for combat from what I've observed, and call upon it in a way that would be totally different from ours, and with totally different behaviors and uses. This is a change that I've been considering for a few months now, and frankly I think that "cleansing weather" is by and far one of the most common sense ways to make this happen. When Druids Blight Heal, they're not controlling plants, they're directly healing them, it has nothing to do with most normal Druidic powers (controlling life to do things). There's definitely a "supernatural" element to it which, in my opinion, is portrayed much better by weather than by the green mist that seems to be very common.

 

I think you slightly contradicted yourself when you said 'only ascended and Druid can do this' and then 'there are eight types of magic the can blight heal'. Unless you were talking about something else, of course.

 

Regardless, whilst your point is very valid, I still don't feel it is fair. I'll try to express why: Whilst many magics might indeed have the same end goal, the means of achieving this end goal are usually very different. For example: both muun preists and cognants have some sort of way of telling the future. The end result is the same, but the means of achieving this end result are very different. We must note, however, that neither end result uses a technique that another magic already has (cognatism doesn't summon spirits to try understand what might happen in the future; instead, they have revelations). Now we look at this. Whilst the end result may indeed be the same as another magic (removal of blight), we can see the the technique of your magic is also the same as another magic. So it is, in essence, two 'similarities' of other magics. In the spirit of keeping things original and enjoyable, redundancies are best kept to a minimum, no?

 

Well, I tried to explain myself. I know it likely won't help change your mind, but if you can see my point of view and reasoning then my goal was achieved!

[Mephistophelian 972]

If I might offer an alternative that is just as fresh and new, but doesn't involve the infringing of other magics:

 

Perhaps involve animals in your blight healing? A Druid or group of Druids could summon a collection of animals to essentially scour the land of blight, spreading it so thin that it naturally dissipates. For example: some warthogs arrive at the location of a tainted patch of land and begin digging away. Eventually, they have cleared the infected topsoil, which worms and other creatures would aid in spreading further. The more these animals 'process' through the taint, the more they can deal with it, perhaps by having the Druids channel their blight healing capabilities through the animals themselves!

 

Whilst my suggestion may not be top notch, I hope you get the point; it isn't too difficult to come up with different techniques or 'methods' to reach a similar end point.

[Sky 0]

I only have a couple problems with the revision. Firstly, for what purpose is the revision? Blight Healing has been going well, and nothing about the way that it is performed seems to be needing changing in my opinion, it's fairly straight forward as it is, and it'd be odd that one-day a druid using blight healing is capable of performing these minor miracles, seems odd to me. Also, the sacrifices make little sense to me, nowhere in the past has druid's been given gifts, blessings, or boons, from sacrificing animals of any kind and it shouldn't start now, it's not even a strong point of druidism (Sacrificing that is, sure some druids do it but it's not something that we need to do). Finally you say that the lore I wrote is too exclusive, which can be seen as true (please read through the posts, I explained that it wasn't written purely for them to pop out of the wood work but instead because there is a stone in circulation) but that aside, how does this become inclusive? I mean, some people complain that they don't have Blight Healing, when all they have to do it find a teacher, and yet they still somehow not find a teacher, how will this be more inclusive? Unless you mean inclusive for all Blight Healers.

[Corvoo 562]

First off, I will say that this is neat. It's an interesting take on healing blight, and how we'd do it. But I'm left asking myself over and over, why? Why do we need a revision to blight healing, when plenty of people are happy with the way we currently do it? Sure it may not be the most popping and in your face sort of way to heal blight, but it works, and plenty of us have fun with it. In a lot of ways, this seems to make individual blight healers a bit weaker, unless I'm misinterpreting something here. 

 

I want weather control in some way to come back, I really do. But if we're going to change a subtype to fit around it, I don't think blight healing is the subtype to change. 

 

Apologies if I'm not getting my thoughts across quite clearly here... Hopefully what I'm trying to say is getting across alright. 

 

 

[Wolf Druid Ouity 1461]

22 hours ago, Sky said:

I only have a couple problems with the revision. Firstly, for what purpose is the revision? Blight Healing has been going well, and nothing about the way that it is performed seems to be needing changing in my opinion, it's fairly straight forward as it is, and it'd be odd that one-day a druid using blight healing is capable of performing these minor miracles, seems odd to me. Also, the sacrifices make little sense to me, nowhere in the past has druid's been given gifts, blessings, or boons, from sacrificing animals of any kind and it shouldn't start now, it's not even a strong point of druidism (Sacrificing that is, sure some druids do it but it's not something that we need to do). Finally you say that the lore I wrote is too exclusive, which can be seen as true (please read through the posts, I explained that it wasn't written purely for them to pop out of the wood work but instead because there is a stone in circulation) but that aside, how does this become inclusive? I mean, some people complain that they don't have Blight Healing, when all they have to do it find a teacher, and yet they still somehow not find a teacher, how will this be more inclusive? Unless you mean inclusive for all Blight Healers.

 

19 hours ago, Corvoo said:

First off, I will say that this is neat. It's an interesting take on healing blight, and how we'd do it. But I'm left asking myself over and over, why? Why do we need a revision to blight healing, when plenty of people are happy with the way we currently do it? Sure it may not be the most popping and in your face sort of way to heal blight, but it works, and plenty of us have fun with it. In a lot of ways, this seems to make individual blight healers a bit weaker, unless I'm misinterpreting something here. 

 

I want weather control in some way to come back, I really do. But if we're going to change a subtype to fit around it, I don't think blight healing is the subtype to change. 

 

Apologies if I'm not getting my thoughts across quite clearly here... Hopefully what I'm trying to say is getting across alright. 

 

 

 

To respond to both of you at once, I came to this idea in sort of a roundabout way. I got curious about how other people blight healed. In my day when we first created the idea of subtypes, it was all about touching things or wind sweeping blight away. Stuff like that. When I asked around, I got a lot of really weird, nonuniform answers about how other people do it, and when I looked on the guide, I found virtually nothing about how blight healing is actually supposed to take place. I'm all for the creative, loose interpretations, but I also think it's a bit silly for people to have such radically differing ideas on blight healing. I keep bringing up the green mist, but in my opinion, that sort of thing doesn't have a place in Druidism. We don't summon magical green, glowy mist. That's almost the last thing that pops into my head when I think "nature."

Personally, I've always used wind as my character's method to blight heal, and it never really struck me until I started down this path that I'm technically a dirty little lore breaker because "weather control" isn't part of the Druidic arsenal. Well, it's just my opinion, of course, but I think that weather is a very good medium for blight healing to be used from because

 

A: As of right now, the subtype is totally undefined. You guys both say "nobody has a problem with the way it is!" but I'm willing to be you can't tell me what a canon blight healing looks like. I can't tell you and my character's arguably the most experienced one on the server, because canon blight healing hasn't been defined in any way whatsoever. In fact, allow me to spare you a trip to the Druidism guide.

Blight healing is a most noble ability of the Druids.  Lands afflicted by blight, or plague, disease and death, decay or magical scarring are given new life, and in the place of the infertile soil there is verdure.

 

B: I think Blight Healing is a good match for weather control because blight healing is already one of the only "supernatural" abilities a Druid has. IE, they are not actively controlling a plant or an animal when they use the subtype. They are directly purging taint form wherever it's fallen. The fact that we're already influencing the nonliving when we use the subtype makes adding weather control a more comfortable change.

 

C: Weather control is something I think a lot of us want, but it's hard to justify giving Druids the power to summon a random rainstorm. This gives weather control purpose, function, and a unique and useful place in the Druidic arsenal while helping us clean up one of our more dubious subtypes.

 

As for the weather stones, I just think it's kind of clunky as a medium to introduce weather control to. In that system vs this one, a Druid must actively find, acquire, and maintain possession of what I imagine is a rather rare artifact. I don't think it's a stretch to say that when you compare that to simply having it as a subtype that any Druid can learn without any particular resistance, you would find weather control as accessible for many more people, and serving a far more useful purpose than blowing doors open. Yes, this change makes individual blight healing a little weaker, but rewards a strong group presence. It's meant to encourage rituals, gatherings, and to reward groups of Druids for banding together to go questing. 

 

Aight, none of you guys like the sacrificing thing, I'll scratch it. Really more of a concept that I wanted feedback on than anything.