Shamans deal with spirits, Druids deal with nature.

In fantasy settings, they may have a lot of overlap, or might have different abilities entirely.

In Alternate Earth settings, Druids are pretty specific to Celtic lands, being found in Gaul, Iberia, Britannia, Hibernia and Caledonia. Shamans, however, are found throughout the world in many different types of society, including Primitive, Barbarian, Nomadic and Civilised. For example, Shintoism in Japan contains some shamanic practices, as did the religions of Korea and China, the Mongols and Turkic nomads has black and white shamans, Africa has many shamanic practices, as does India, the aboriginals of Australasia have many shamanistic practices, as do the natives of North and South America and many in Siberia and Europe.

So, shamanism is very widespread, with shamans, or their equivalents, in every continent, whereas Druids were located in a single corner of Europe.

No difference except that the druid is usually the white dude. :-)

(shrugs)  They're all priests.  Different cultures attach different names to the position, and the position has various responsibilities, powers, duties and permutations.  One-name-fits-all doesn't, actually.

Quote from: Will;784730I find it odd nobody brings up tribes in the Americas wrt animism?

I figured that was what shamans were patterned loosely on.

Specifically for Shadowrun (at which this question ist probably aimed):

Shamans are a type of magicians defined by following totems, using medicine huts and conjuring nature spirits.
Druids are a tradition of magic that follows reconstructionist/neo-pagan ideas of Celtic magical practices.

Shamans may be Druids, but may also have many other possibilities of magical traditions - or may not follow a magical tradition at all, but rather be eclectic Chaos magicians that borrow tidbits from everywhere.

Druids may be Shamans (for those who lean more towards romantic back-to-nature ideas), but may also be Hermetics (for those who lean more on the intellectual side of the druid as nature philosopher and astronomer).


And then there is also the oddball case of the Elvish Path of the Wheel, which knows the Path of the Druid as a sub-type. Path Druids are a special case that can conjure elemental spirits but Fire, nature spirits of water and instead of totem bonuses gains situational spell-casting bonuses depending on location and season.

A Druid was a sort of shaman or priest, one from a culture more highly civilized than those with which we generally associated the word "shaman."  These terms all refer members of the professional class who live off mankind's need to believe in the invisible.

Of course the most important difference is that they are spelled differently... :cool:

Druids do it in a grove, Shamans do it with spirit?

Though I would say that druid suggests (from my limited reading of Northern European history) a hierarchy passing on specialised knowledge. While a shaman (again from what I have read regarding shamanism and ethnobotany...) is perhaps more of a singular individual in the community.

Druid = class
Shaman = individual

Something like that maybe.

Like Barbarian and a few other things, druid was a particular group in time and space.

'Shaman' is like 'priest' or 'loreteller,' more of a general term for a type of role many cultures/religions and countless variations specific to the area.

Quote from: Will;784445So in almost every important respect D&D druids bear as much resemblance to historic druids as barbarians do. (And I find it amusing that people who get bent out of shape about barbarians don't do so with druids)

Shamans, on the other hand, are a term for a particular kind of role in many animist traditions. They are intercessors between human and spirit worlds, with all that implies (and with local variation).

Reasonably speaking, D&D druids = shamans, and 'druids' would be any class EXCEPT shaman.

The article you quoted seems simplistically to tread druid as synonymous with aes dana, which is like calling every educated man a priest. (In the early Middle Ages, true, few but monks were literate, except perhaps in Anglo-Saxon England, but it's still a false equation.)

To my mind, the key distinction of shamanic religion is that a shaman is rather the master of the spirits than their servant. Yoruba-type traditions such as Voodoo and Santeria seem to me more like Pentecostal Christianity.

Little is known of the ancient druids, but my impression is that they were an organized priestly class in a theistic, sacramental religion similiar to institutions found in civilized societies all over the world.

Shamans are more associated with tribal cultures, but in China (for instance) they continued to fill the more practical needs of the people while priests addressed "higher" matters.

Quote from: soltakss;784747Shamans deal with spirits, Druids deal with nature.

THAT is a nice and easy breakdown for a game!

Quote from: Phillip;785207To my mind, the key distinction of shamanic religion is that a shaman is rather the master of the spirits than their servant.

Interesting. I wonder if the "mastery" over the spirits should come with a cost, aka the spirits aren't really fond of the living bossing them around.

Quote from: Will;785170Like Barbarian and a few other things, druid was a particular group in time and space.

'Shaman' is like 'priest' or 'loreteller,' more of a general term for a type of role many cultures/religions and countless variations specific to the area.

TSR tried to aglomerate the druid into the cleric class once.

Players though seem to prefer the distinction between the two. Which is understandable. Druids as TSR presented them in AD&D were not clerics as it were.

Quote from: soltakss;784747Shamans deal with spirits, Druids deal with nature.

Quote from: Spinachcat;785291THAT is a nice and easy breakdown for a game!

Interesting. I wonder if the "mastery" over the spirits should come with a cost, aka the spirits aren't really fond of the living bossing them around.

I was going to say shamans interact with spirits while Druids worship nature.

Shamans communicate with spirits, bind spirits, summon spirits, dismiss spirits, ask spirits for advice, learn from spirits, bargain for powers with spirits, dominate spirits, go into spirit trances where they can enter, explore, transit, observe, observe from, etc . the spirit (astral) plane, etc., gain spirit guides, provide guidance for others seeking to deal with spirits, and so forth. If there are city spirits, then they would be fair game for shamans, although shamans also may have a totemic spirit, which means they may specialize. They don't deal with infernal or other spirits from the outer planes.

Druids worship and draw power from nature as a whole, rather than personifications of nature (nature gods). This usually is taken to mean they are opposed to technology, but this need not be the case (ants, termites, beavers, etc. seem to be fine, and some of their magic can be analogized to bio-tech). Although there is frequently a distinction drawn between wild nature and nature tamed with civilization, with Druids in the wild nature camp and opposed to civilization.

If memory serves, the original, "monster" presentation of D&D druids (in Supplement I) combined cleric and mu powers and had them devoted chiefly to the protection and advancement of their tribe.

Phillip: that sounds eminently sensible to me.