#the druids there were actually weirdly more aligned with the gau drashari despite this being well pre-EXU calamity airing. it was like 2018

[utilitycaster]

Ok I am not maintagging this bc it's a self-indulgent ramble, but a bunch of things I've had floating around in my head led me to a character concept who would have been fascinating and dare I say hilarious option for Team Issylra's guests: an Ashari who is pretending to be a druid, but is actually secretly a cleric.

I've had the desire to run either a game or character where their true class is unknown and the goal is to hide it as long as they can, ever since it took Liam a full episode to realize Dariax was a sorcerer, rather than a cleric, in EXU. Unfortunately this is kind of rough on the battle classes (though Travis managed it with Chetney so idk get good). This sort of collided with two other thoughts, namely, Prism and the fact that she's a highly capable wizard but wasn't seen as such; and the fact that people have wanted characters who were more pro-deity to balance things out. (Personally I kind of like how Team Wildemount ended up unambiguously on the side of the gods and Team Issylra is straddling a line but I do get it.) It also fits into a lot of personal questions I have about the structure of the Ashari. And finally, there's a little bit of Hamid from RQG in here in terms of "I tried to be one thing, turns out I'm another."

Anyway consider: someone from one of the Ashari tribes other than the Air Ashari (ie, not someone Orym knew previously) who struggled with druid magic in their youth but wasn't necessarily inclined towards the other options the Ashari seem to present (fighters) either. While going off on their own, they received a vision or a call from a deity - personally, because I want someone different from the Wildmother for perspective, I think Sehanine or Corellon would be fun; much as I love Erathis I don't think she fits here. They begin to secretly worship this god, and pretend to be a druid. They seemingly struggle taking the shapes of beasts, so everyone thinks they're not terribly powerful, but they somehow developed a real knack for healing and are able to handle some other spells, so they're able to find a niche. Everyone thinks they're like a 3rd level druid who sucks at Wildshape, but actually they're an extremely devout and competent cleric of the Moonweaver and being teleported away is actually incredibly exciting and validating for them. You'd also get to see a wildly different perspective on the Ashari (who I think are like...both unambiguously a force for good, but the imperfections thereof tend to go unexamined, and there's a weird cognitive dissonance about them in a few places within the fandom this campaign) and you could even have them be from Terrah and have some more insight into what was going on there. And mechanically this gets fun because you could go for nature domain and blend in better with druids, but you could also go for trickery (lean into deception) or the moon or twilight domains and just get interesting with spell choice.