I am a big fan of not so nice druids.

I had a Cyradia druid a while back (Len) that I really poured a lot in to. He waxed a little towards evil, mostly because he would relentlessly kill anything orderly, would not group with good aligns, and if anyone gave him guff he would kill them. At the same time he didn't really have much in his RP about being naturely or neutral.

I guess the imms could see that I wasn't just trying to be a ####, and that I was really putting a lot of effort in the character, and so they tried to warn me nicely that I was slanting evil and only took away a couple naturey powers. As time went by they took a little more, until I could see that ultimately my RP wouldn't work for a fully powered druid - and I gave up.

So I'd like to ask for ideas about how you might play a non-outlander, non-nice druid in an appropriate way, but in a way that is like a darker more vengeful, more murderous, nasty ghost of the trees.

Among the points of discussion:

Cabal, if any.
Who to follow.
Possible backgrounds.
Allies.
Enemies.
Manner and personality.

and probably most importantly,

how said character would not be better as an evil shaman.

Not precisely what you wanted, but figure since Baltherias was my evil druid, I might as well give you my views of his. He was Outlander, but more than anything, it was a combination of being an Eshval druid, and the development of his own role.

Given that druids are about balance, but that 90% of druids always seem to lean towards the nice side, Baltherias felt they were doing a disservice to nature. Everyone loves bunnies and flowers, but people feared and hated spiders and wolves, etc.

In order to act as a balancing force compared to other druids, Baltherias took it upon himself to act somewhat as an avatar to that in nature which is dark and feared. Overall, I'd have to say Baltherias tended towards creepy, but not so much murderous. In the end, he still strove to help people find understanding and acceptance with all things in the wild, rather than a focus of murder.

This is almost the evil version of what I did as Ravenoth (Maran Druid).

Originally, he was aiming towards Scion and was also a follower of Cyradia. His take on destruction was still naturey however, and as his character panned out, Amora eventually sought the scarab temple and such. This was mostly due to Cyradia's guiding hand and ultimately was probably the best course for Amora.

I would have to talk to my brother to get the details on all the background for Amora, but she played the darker side of nature and though druids have done that for scarab before, she held to a more sophisticated view of it all. The previous successful druids of scarab before her that I knew of were more "Beast-like" than humane.

She didn't really have too many allies at all, since she was scarab.