Considering the Northern European influence of Skyrim, I think it would be far better to have druids and witches as the indigenous magic users. Of course there would be a few imperial mages here and there. I'm no expert at the lore, so are there druids and witches in Skyrim lore wise? Time for some Earth magic. :bonk: Warpspasm.

No.
Witch is the feminine form of mage.
Druid is... no. Just no.
And while we're at it, there are no dwarves either.

I can see witches, but there aren't to many earth magics to support Druids and true witches. Shamans are more appropriate to Nord culture I think.

Better to stick with mages

Fixed it for you. And I'm pretty sure we'll have at least some reference to druids (probably a bunch of whacked out followers of Hircine and Kynareth). I do hope we have shamans, like in Skaal! If they do druids or witches, though, I hope they do fantasy ones (real ones lead to political incorrectness and flame-wars).

eh im still waitin on necromancy first, but yeah pretty much what the above has said about druids

Witches fit with the lore.

No it isn't there are male witches. I never mentioned dwarves. Druids were the spiritual leaders of the Europeans.

Daggerfall had a number of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Witch_Covens, the most powerful being the Glenmoril Coven; they also appear in Bloodmoon as the Glenmoril Wyrd. There are a scattering of other witches or perceived witches in Morrowind, there may be some in Oblivion too but I don't recall off hand. I think there's a good chance of seeing witches in TES V . . . however I'm not aware of any magic group anologous to European Druids.

In medieval Scandinavia, witchcraft/magic was the realm of women. Druids were more celtic/British Isles. However, I would like to see "Bear Shamans" or "Wolf Shamans" as obviously TES does not have to follow history or mythology strictly.

A bear cult would be cool. Wasn't there something similar in ancient Scandanavia (Finland perhaps)?
So that could be somewhat druidic.

Correction, druids were the priest-class of Gaulo-Celtic paganism.

Sorry, I should have specified, before Christianity. :facepalm:

I think Nordic magic was more in the form of folk magic...charms and spells using herbs and other plants. Shamanism isn't right in the sense that it wasn't really spiritual. Druidism isn't right, in the sense that it wasn't attuned to gods of nature.

More like hedge witches...very local and unorganized. A lot of it sounds like old wives tales.

The point was more along the lines of they weren't generally European. Druids would have been restricted to the Celtic lands of France, western Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and the British Isles. You wouldn't have found German or Viking or Slavic or Roman or Saami druids, though they may have had individuals with a similar function. Point is, while the Nords have a moderate Celtic influence, shaman would better suit them, I think. The Nords don't seem to have the sort of organized religion that a priest-class suggests.

Thanks for the input. I stand corrected. :thumbsup:

Witches may be in it, due to it's proximity to High Rock

I just think that in Skyrim the magic sects ( whatever you want to call them ) should feel darker and more primeval, closer to nature. In Oblivion it all felt a bit bright and imperial if you know what I mean. :shrug:

It would be wonderful for some guy to ask you to pick mushrooms, so he could feed them to his reindeer and, well you know the rest.

Or a witch so that she could apply them to her broomstick. :ahhh: