What’s the difference between defilers and preservers?
Basically, it revolves around the way these types of wizards
gather the energy necessary to cast spells. Defilers, as
their name implies, corrupt the source they draw energy
from, while preservers keep the source safe and relatively
unchanged. This difference in methods is reflected in
each wizard type’s philosophy and manner.
Defilers absorb every bit of life energy they can hold,
with the result that the land they tap into is leeched and
left barren of nutrients, incapable of supporting plant life.
Plants in the defiled area die and turn to ash when the
life spark is removed. Unlike with natural death, however,
the decaying process occurs in an instant, and nothing
remains within the dead ash to continue the life cycle
– plants killed by defiling magic return nothing to the
soil and don’t revert to life-giving fertilizer when they die.
Defilers, therefore, are vampiric, stealing life energy not
only because they need it to utilize magic, but for the
rush of power it gives them. Basically, defilers take the
quick and easy road to power, caring little that they leave
devastation in their wake.
Preservers have learned a more subtle approach to
magic, one which allows them to return to the land what
they take from it. Preservers focus their wills upon tapping
the energy of the land and its plant life without destroying
the actual life force which imbues it. Their magic is slower
and more careful than that of the defilers. They gently
tap the source for the minimum amount of energy needed
to power their spells, filter it into the form they wish to
use, then release the energy back to its original source.
In this sense, preservers are like birds, culling the nectar
from plants, yet not destroying them in the process. The
bird receives the nectar it needs, but leaves the plant
healthy, allowing it to produce more nectar in the future.
Preservers accept a slower method of learning magic and
of gathering energy as the price they must pay to maintain
the fragile ecology of Athas.