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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9735062" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Kinda-Sorta. It establishes that Divine Magic and Nature Magic are fundamentally different forces to Arcane Magic within the world. By creating this separation, it casts Arcane magic, as a whole, as a specifically unnatural and "Dark" form of magic.Which reinforces the idea of Defiling as default and the Sorcerer Kings being deeply, unrepentantly, evil. Also the whole "Sorcerer Hate" that floats around the setting where arcane casters are specifically hunted down and killed by common people because of their defiling ways. And, of course, the WORD "Defile" has tons of negative implications. Helps to establish that, yes, Arcane magic is -bad-. And you can use it in a way that is less bad, but you always have the choice to use it in an evil way. Personally I always felt that was -cool-.You're not entirely off. Balance was far less of a concern for 2e than 5e. However: I don't -really- care?There is a point, and it's a weird point I'll grant you that, where a setting's entire identity is based on intentionally employed imbalance. Whether that's rolling 4d4+4 for character stats or having Preserving be strictly mathematically worse than defiling. Is it fair? No.But the unfairness is rather the point. Arcane magic on Athas -is evil-. It is a tool of the Enemy. You -can- use it, at a price. Or you can play a Psion and bypass that problem entirely.We're both free to have our opinions on things, thankfully. I personally prefer the differentiation of magic rather than making it all exactly the same, which is the direction WotC went with.Oh, for sure! I literally posted EVERYTHING there is for 4e's Campaign Setting on the events of the Defiling War.2e went into a little bit more detail. By which I mean dozens of pages of more information.</blockquote>

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