Welcome to the Dog Days of Podcasting, 2022 season. This year we’re taking part by creating 30 NPCs to use with table top gaming, writing projects, or other creative endeavors. These NPCs are system agnostic, but may include minor suggestions for how to run the characters with a party of adventures and explorers. They are written with a specific genre in mind, but will include notation for how to use them within at least two other realms.
That said, let’s get started.
Today, we’re visiting The Wired Druid, an NPC designed for Sci-Fi Apocalyptic campaigns.
The Wired Druid
XXVI
Their hands gently press against the old oak’s injury. The places where the bark had been stripped look rotten and worn. A wound that would be ravaging against flesh. The moss-covered machine sighed, letting out a whirling noise from their speakers like a mix of trees groaning and a small spinning turbine. The words came next, arcane things, phrased not like language but like formula. Wires spread from the machine’s limb, rippling out in copper waves across the expanse of exposed oaken lignum, and finally releasing the spell in a bright yellow burst. The tree echoed the digital sigh as its bark unfurled, stretched, and enveloped the wound. Wires receded, and the smell of ozone mixed with the odor of wet mud and burnt wood. Satisfied, the machine moved on in search of other tall giants in need of aid.
The Wired Druid is a machine built for the protection of the Edens of this world. Gentle, observant, and wise, they are the immortal factotum of the wilds. Servant to wood and fern. Protector of furred and feathered. They hold no pure dislike for the modern world, but they sour to those who would disregard the wood’s place within it, and scorn those who would harm it. As part machine they know the world more than just bark and bow. They understand how an artificial dam can help the flow of the waters and clean the springs so both microbial and macro life can coexist. They understand some plants might be culled that the fire does not consume the entire valley. Choices must be made with care and consideration.
They can be drawn to help by those who would aid the natural world. Be it to advert a wrong or offer an improvement, all will be weighed with consideration. Deep down they also harbor an inner fear of their own place in the natural world and challenging this notion can lead them to doubts and twisting discouragement.
As a warden of the forest, they know these paths and can aid others through the woods. As a machine, they understand the complexity of the world and can connect to realms far beyond their own to share data. But they are patient and will not act quickly unless their charge is in danger.
In Sci-fi Apocalyptic tables, they are the green ranger, protecting the last remaining grove and trying to restore the emerald to the land.
In ages of legend, they are the clockwork tender, sleeping in the rivers to fill their energy for the next day. They protect these lands not just to help them prosper, but that the druid themselves may live.
In urban fantasy, they are the digital arrival, a spirit of the machine that has possessed various devices through the woods in order to protect them and help them grow.
A champion of the wild, a being of two worlds, the Wired Druid knows not what the future holds, only that they intend to keep both of their loves within it. The trees are mighty and are kept whole by titanium hands. The spark of magic in these batteries will keep them protected for eons to come,
The audio portion of this episode is shared on a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Sounds and music are provided by Syrinscape’s Train Soundset and Under a Fell Black Sky Soundset. Please see the website for individual song and sound usage. The text for this episode is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Have a good time with the character, and let me know if you use them for something.
Until tomorrow.