Born to be a Druid?

by Shayalyn

When I was a child, I was never much of an "outdoor girl,"
as my dad liked to put it. In the configuration of my sporting, outdoor
family, I was the anomaly. I liked to read, and I also liked my privacy.
I spent a good deal of time locked in my room with a book while my parents
and brothers were out waterskiing or enjoying some other outdoor activity.

As I look back, my bookish nature seems to contrast with my MMORPG class
of choice, the druid. Druids are all about nature and the great outdoors.
You don't get to be a tree-hugger without hugging some trees. But, even
though my dad never classified me as an outdoor girl, and even though I
was never much like the rest of my family, I've always felt in tune with
nature. In fact, the most profound moments of my youth have to do with things
I experienced outside in the world: being mesmerized by the sight of the
aurora borealis flickering in the midnight-blue sky, or feeling a surge
of adrenaline as I watched storm clouds come rolling over the horizon, or
even just leaning up against a tree and feeling the whole universe seem
to hum around me.

When I first started playing Everquest, my first MMOG, it took me a couple
attempts at other classes before I settled on the one I was born to play.
I tried a bard first, because I liked the idea of being a minstrel and
storyteller. The bard made it to level 6 before I moved on to another
class. I lasted for all of 13 levels as a mage, but something about playing
a squishy finger-wiggler didn't feel as strategic as the game I wanted
to play…and I didn't much care for running around in a dress. (What
can I say, I've always been more of a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl.) Then
I created a druid.

I have to admit, though, that I didn't really know what tree-hugging
druids were all about when I first started playing her in EQ. All I knew
was that they were powerful manipulators of natural forces, and that sounded
fun to me. I figured that if my role-playing character could blast a foe
with fire, or call down lightning from the sky, or charm an animal companion
to do her bidding, then I'd be a happy girl. I made my druid a wood elf
because it seemed a logical choice, and because I liked the way wood elves
looked. I named her Shayalyn. As I got more into playing with my druid,
I found that I was a one-woman machine capable of just about anything.
And I had to think on my feet if I wanted to play her to her fullest advantage.
I fell in love with my druid, and for the next 66 levels I scarcely looked
at another class. The rest, as they say, is history.

I think the thing that most appealed to me about playing an EQ druid
was that I was independent and self-sufficient. I could take care of myself
when I got in trouble. Sure, I couldn't stand toe-to-toe and melee against
an enemy, but I had many other ways to make him pay. I could slow his
movement or stop him dead in his tracks while my damage-over-time spells
chewed away at his life force. I could also blast him with direct damage,
or stun him with a devastating gust of wind. I could snare multiple foes,
group them together, and call down lightning from the heavens until they
perished. (There really is something about watching four MOBs fall simultaneously
into a lifeless heap that stirred my baser instincts.)

And, while I didn't need anyone to succeed alone in the wild, I was also
a staunch ally in any adventuring group. I loved being the Jill of all
Trades that could either rain down damage on our enemies, or protect and
heal my team, or hold crowds of monsters at bay that would have pulverized
us if not for my quick reactions. I was versatile, in control, and never
bored.

When I began playing Shayalyn, I immersed myself in the lore and took
on the role of a druid wholeheartedly. I hugged the wolves in the Greater
Faydark forest, for they were my friends. I mourned when someone slaughtered
a bear. I would only harm an animal out of necessity or self-defense,
and I honored them by using their hides to craft leather armor (although
I was always a lousy tailor). And then a something happened: I began to
evolve until suddenly I wasn't role-playing so much as actually feeling
the part. Cities became places of confinement that I only spent time in
when absolutely necessary--I preferred the wilderness, with the wind in
my hair and the sun on my skin. In game, I felt like a free spirit, and
the world was my playground.

The druid class has captured my heart, and in every MMO I've tried since
I've played a druid, or the next best approximation. (City of Heroes was
a challenge, but I even managed to design a character that looked like
a wood elf and had skills similar to a nature-loving druid.) It really
isn't the skill-set druids generally have that draw me in now, it's the
mind-set. I know that in Vanguard I'll be laying down some nature-inspired
savagery in the form of direct damage spells, and probably doing a lot
less healing…but I'll still be a druid, and that's what matters to
me.

It may sound strange, but playing a druid in EQ somehow guided me to
where I am now in the real world. I recognize myself in the druid class--fiercely
independent, with a need to be in control of my life and my surroundings.
The more I embraced the role of a nature-loving tree-hugger in the games
I loved, the more I came to realize that I loved it because it was already
a part of who I am. I realized that, for a period in my life, I'd forgotten
my childhood wonderment of the natural world as I threw myself into the
complexities of being an adult. But my little wood elf, made up of nothing
more than pixels, brought about an awakening. I began to appreciate the
universe around me once more, and to revel in the experiences found in
nature. I started taking my kids on hikes in the woods (I may have actually
hugged a tree while I was at it, too). I found a renewed concern for the
environment and wildlife. Once again, I was sitting outside on hot summer
nights, feeling the electricity in the air, smelling the ozone, and watching
lightning dance across the sky.

Maybe I wasn't the sporting outdoor girl my dad had been hoping for.
Maybe I spent a little more time indoors than the average kid, immersed
in books and writing. But nature has never been far from my heart; in
fact, it's been a part of me all along. Turns out there's a tree-hugger
in this bookish indoor girl after all.


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Karen is H.D.i.C. (Head Druid in Charge) at EQHammer. She likes chocolate chip pancakes, warm hugs, gaming so late that it's early, and rooting things and covering them with bees. Don't read her Ten Ton Hammer column every Tuesday. Or the EQHammer one every Thursday, either.

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