The Druid is an elusive magician at peace with nature. Since he cannot deal with most opponents even if he gets a weapon, he must operate alone, avoiding and hiding from monsters and running from them at need. He needs to win without combat, if possible.

Chits

Stats

Weight/Vulnerability: Light

Spells: Two Spells (Type II or Type VIII)

Starting Gold Value: 10

Special: Concealment (roll one die for Hide rolls), Peace With Nature (turn Sound and Warning chits face down)

Start: Inn

Ally: Bashkars

Friendly: Lancers

Unfriendly: Order, Shaman

Enemy: Woodfolk

Strategy

The Druid can make Grey magic with his II chits. There are three Grey Type VIII spells - Poison, Guide Spider or Octopus and the ever-useful Remedy. If you take Remedy and GSO as your starting spells, you can go looking for treasures and spells and be sure to have enough colour magic to be able to read runes safely. However, a case can be made for Whistle For Monsters. The Druid can enchant a mountain tile, which will then provide plenty of Purple to cast WFM. Sound chits can be moved to and from tiles, which will certainly help when trying to locate and loot treasure sites. Taking Remedy and Whistle, with VCs in Spells (1), Treasure (2) and Gold (2) may be doable.

The Druid should enchant Valley tiles to provide Grey magic, and reduce the load on his chits. If he wants to take Stones Fly, then he will have only one or two Grey chits available at any time. By forgoing Stones Fly, he can get three chits, but he can run out of them very fast. If he is going to be Reading Runes a lot, it would be far better to do so in an enchanted Valley tile where Grey magic is plentiful. Don't make the mistake of doing it in the Bones V tile, as you don't want to be unexpectedly ambushed by Ghosts.

The Druid has Peace With Nature as a special ability. This is a double-edged sword. He will not be attacked by any monsters other than the T monsters guarding the treasure sites. Most of these monsters he can either Hide or run away from. Watch out for the Octopus and the Imp, which can really ruin the Druid's day. The common wisdom is that the Druid should go looking for treasure sites on his own, but perhaps it would be advantageous to team up with a heavy-hitter like the Berserker in order to deal with them. Nothing is more annoying than failing a Hide roll and running away from a Dragon only to have to keep on trying to Hide and sneak back to its Lair. With bad luck this can go on for several turns before you get a go at the treasure site. And just forget about trying to Loot the Pool. Don't even bother. Unless of course you take Guide Spider or Octopus as a spell...

Possible sources for spells: Scroll of Nature (2xII), Black Book (2xVIII), Eye of the Idol (1xII), Beast Pipes (1xVIII), Altar (1xII), Statue (1xVIII), Shaman (1xII) unfriendly.

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