Doric

Doric was a tiefling druid and a member of the Emerald Enclave based in the Neverwinter Wood in the late 15 century DR.

Description
Doric had red hair, horns, pointed ears, and a tail. She typically dressed in green-and-brown leather armor, pants, and boots.

Personality
"So you make plans that fail?"

- Doric to Edgin.

She was described as honorable, but she kept an emotional distance to protect herself from other people and her own powers.

Possessions
She fought with a slingshot mounted on her left forearm.

Relationships
Doric was born to human parents, and had one biological sister who was also human. Doric's parents locked her away in the attic after her sister was born.

Among the wood elves, Doric became fast friends with an older elven girl named Torrieth. The duo went on hunts together, and developed a strong bond over the years.

Doric made several friends among her fellow initiates at the Emerald Enclave, including the human boy Leander, a black-haired girl named Cassa, and her closest comrade, the firbolg Jowenys. She formed a close bond with Enclave group's only other tiefling, Open, who served as the camp cook.

Abilities
"I...I wild shaped into one. That's how I got it to follow me. It followed another owlbear."

- Doric, explaining her powers to Open.

With a druid's wild shape ability, she could shapeshift into a variety of creatures, such as a horse and even a snowy owlbear. Though this was unusual, she could do this because she believed owlbears not to be monstrosities but natural creatures, after she observed them in their lairs and caring for their chicks.

As a tiefling, Doric had natural resistance to flames and other forms of intense heat. Similarly, she could eat all types of "food" that was entirely inedible by most humanoids, including coal, tree bark, and even ash.

Early Life
Doric was born a tiefling to human parents in a village on the Sword Coast, south of Neverwinter Wood. But her parents shunned her for her demonic heritage, even to the point of locking her in the attic of their house. At the age of six, when her parents sired a second, entirely human child, Doric became increasingly bothered by their favoritism for her sibling. When Doric finally came face-to-face with her sibling, her parents drugged her and took her into Neverwinter Wood and abandoned her, thinking she would die there.

Even at such a young age, Doric learned to fend for herself in the forest, foraging and hunting small game. It was there that she met her guardian nature spirit, a forest-dwelling snow owl. One day, a great storm wracked the Neverwinter Wood, and Doric was swept up in a raging current. Fortunately, Doric was rescued by her future guardian, Liavaris. Liavaris and her fellow wood elves offered Doric a home in their village. She found an adopted family and friends among them. However, her tiefling traits and growing druidic powers still set her apart from the wood elves and rangers of the village.

From Elves to the Enclave
"You do have a keen understanding of animals and an empathy for them that goes beyond what rangers feel. I think, and Fenjor agrees, that you should train as a druid."

- Liavaris, to Doric.

One day, Doric went with Torrieth and other elven rangers on a hunt in Neverwinter Wood. After the group had successfully caught one deer, Torrieth and Doric were attacked by a bear. In a moment that surprised both friends, Doric rapidly developed an empathetic bond with the bear, and calmed it down enough that it left them in peace.

Liavaris and other senior elves thought it bast that Doric was trained in the ways of the druid. She visited a glade that housed some belongings of the elven clan's previous druid―Liavaris' aunt Sunmuir―and prepared for a journey south to the Ardeep Forest, to meet with representatives of the Emerald Enclave. Doric, Torrieth, and the ranger Fenjor traveled south, stopping in the town of Helm's Hold, before the aspiring druid split off from her friends. During her travels, Doric met a young sorcerer named Simon, and helped a village with their problematic well. She finished the last leg of her journey asea, aboard a small skiff that sailed south past Waterdeep.

Training With the Enclave
When Doric arrived at the Ardeep, she immediately impressed the Enclave's druids, and was granted a place among other druid initiates. Together they learned wilderness survivor skills—of which Doric was already quite proficient—combat training, and began to tap into the primal magic of druidism. Doric learned she was quite advanced at transforming into animals, an ability known commonly as wild shape, and took on the form of a mighty bear, the same beast whom she had bonded with some weeks prior. Though she advanced as a druid and in her powers, Doric faced conflict with fellow initiates and her own beliefs.

There was a call to action among all the Enclave druids when heard reports of a large wildfire raging through the Ardeep. Doric and other druids that were naturally protected from flames made their way to a forest village that was in the way of the fire's path. She and her fellow student Leander did their best to save some of the townspeople, but encountered a terrified and enraged owlbear. The fearsome monster killed the young Leander, and Doric was forced to take action. Combining the bear form she had previously taken, along with that of her snow owl nature spirit, Doric wild shaped into a snowy owl bear herself, and managed to truly empathize with the monstrous creature whose home was imperiled.

Doric was troubled by the encounter but remained dedicated to helping the druids in their continuing mission to maintain the balance of nature and civilization.

Return to Neverwinter
Shortly after the vigil for Leander, Doric received a letter from her elven family in the Neverwinter Wood. They requested aid from Doric and other elves of the Enclave, to help turn away the growing logging operations that sprang up on the outskirts of the forest. The new Lord of Neverwinter, Forge Fitzwilliam, painted the wood elves as enemies of the city. Having abandoned sensible logging practices, he dispatched loggers who cut ever deeper into the woods.

Doric and Jowenys made their way north, traveling across land, by sea, and even via portal, to reach the wood elf village in the Neverwinter Wood. Doric received a warm welcome from her adoptive family, and quickly set out to scout the logging camps with elven rangers. Rather than merely scout, the druids and rangers harassed, harried, and disrupted the human logging camps.

She returned to Neverwinter Wood to fight against Lord Fitzwilliam's loggers and soldiers. When one of the wood elves was captured by the soldiers, who'd tied her to a tree and threatened to pull her apart by means of a rope tied from her feet to a horse, Doric had already wild-shaped into the horse. She then transformed into an owlbear to defeat the soldiers and rescue the wood elf. During this, she encountered Edgin Darvis, Holga Kilgore, and Simon, who recruited her to aid them in their quest to steal Forge Fitzwilliam's fortune from Castle Never. She agreed to help in order to save her people, though she doubted their capabilities.

Background
Doric is played by actor Sophia Lillis. She was confirmed to be a druid via a promotional video played at the San Diego Comic-Con 2022's Tavern Experience and to be a tiefling by Christopher Perkins and Todd Kenreck in an official Dungeons & Dragons video discussion on the movie trailer, here. The name was also reported as 'Dorig', apparently after being misheard.

In early drafts, Doric was to have pointed canine teeth, but these were later removed. Nevertheless, a set of false teeth was made for Lillis and sent to her after production was complete. She said, "Which I have not touched. I don't know what to do with it."

While druids traditionally cannot wild shape into owlbears in D&D rules, this was considered and included by writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley on the basis of "Rule of Cool". The Druid's Call provided an explanation for Doric's ability, perhaps due to her unique perspective.

Appearances

 * Film & Television
 * Honor Among Thieves
 * Novels
 * The Druid's Call • The Junior Novelization • The Quest Begins • Heroes Unite!