Rime of the Frostmaiden: Hangul
Chaotic neutral* outlander lizardfolk druid
A lot of this is inspired by a great post on Goblin Punch.
https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html?m=1
As a reptile in cold weather, Hangul is out of its** element. Hangul comes from a naturally forested area, where they learned from the druid Nataalsha. Nataalsha’s views on non-druids were very extreme, and she often opposed local lords and elf leaders about the right way to live with nature. After a time, Nataalsha sent Hangul away to a desert, where they learned about plants and animals that survived with minimal resources and how to live independently+. After nearly two years, Hangul returned to the forest, only to see that local human lords and elven leaders had driven the dangerous forest animals away, cut back the more invasive plants, and generally turned the wild forest into a tended game preserve where the nobles and rulers could hunt at their leisure¥.
Hangul found Nataalsha in one of the few groves that remained and committed to helping, but Nataalsha said Hangul wasn’t ready. She told Hangul to travel to still another harsh environment and learn to adapt, as that would make it easier to fight back against the invaders.
Hangul and Nataalsha lit the game preserve on fire as a send off for its journey to Ten Towns€. Then Hangul set out on its journey.
In Ten Towns, Hangul has spent a significant time isolating itself emotionally in what warmth it could find, which tends to be public houses and taverns. The druid has been studying other divine and arcane magic and how they interact together in an effort to adapt to the cold and become stronger. It feels some shame in spending so much time in town with the soft, “civilized” inhabitants, but has found some potential allies and is slowly preparing to move against such feeble creatures.
Basically, Hangul is a druid on a dark path, wanting to fight against the destruction caused by civilization but not having enough resources to do so. It particularly hates creatures like dogs, who it sees as betraying their kind and actually loving those who enslaved them. It may sneak out during the night to try to kill domesticated animals or free those who are still wild at heart. It has serious concerns about the polar bears the group recently met. If that’s too extreme for a character in this campaign, it could sneak out and use Speak With Animals and Animal Handling to help animals learn to survive and overcome the softness of civilization.
My idea for the character is having it grow to trust others more and more, finding more in common with them and gradually trying to help the inhabitants survive the harsh climate. Maybe some of the animals will persuade it to be more tolerant of the local residents.
* But not chaotic stupid. Hangul is neutral in that it is aligned with balance with an emphasis on nature rather than good or evil, and chaotic in its focus on the wild overcoming the trappings of civilization.
** Hangul doesn’t relate to ordinary gender classifications; like many of its species, it changed its gender during development in the egg and finds that males and females of a species are often equally capable. It obviously knows that some animals have different sexes and reproduce in certain ways, but also knows that some species don’t conform to such classification. Sometimes male animals get pregnant and have children, and some animals change sex during their life. Hangul doesn’t even know what gender it would be in other species’ terms. I may refer to Hangul as “she,” “he,” “it”, or “they” interchangeably, and Hangul may get confused and refer to others as “it” or by the wrong pronouns.
+ Hangul has the Outlander background.
¥ Think of it as turning an untamed savanna into a golf course.
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