By: Woodwose, Thor, Dragoncat, Brace of Pistols, Moskal, and Raddu.

Who is that lone hermit you meet in the wastes? Perhaps they’re a defiler, or close to it. Take your pick…

The Blightbringer

Description: An itinerant defiler who roams the wilderness, leaving a trail of barren, lifeless land in their wake. They revel in the destruction they cause, viewing it as a testament to their power. Motivations: Obsession with destruction, nihilism, and the demonstration of their superiority through devastation. Tactics: Wandering and defiling vast swathes of land, attacking settlements and natural oases, and drawing power from the desolation they create.

The Mad Arcanist

Description: A defiler driven to insanity by their own power and the whispers of dark, ancient knowledge. Their experiments often involve horrific rituals that result in the mutation of creatures and further ecological destruction. Motivations: Pursuit of forbidden knowledge, madness, and a twisted sense of curiosity. Tactics: Conducting dangerous magical experiments, creating monstrosities, and seeking ancient relics and lost arcane lore.

The Cult Leader

Description: A charismatic defiler who leads a cult of fanatical followers. They use their magic to inspire fear and devotion, often promising power or salvation in exchange for service and loyalty. Motivations: Desire for worship, power through influence, and manipulation of followers for personal gain. Tactics: Establishing secretive cults, performing public displays of power to enforce loyalty, and using followers as pawns in their schemes.

The Ravager (elven raider, templar behind enemy lines, slave tribe arcanist, desert recluse)

Description: Uses arcane power like a scalpel, withering what their enemies hold dear. Motivations: Protecting their tribe/settlement, wiping out intruders, scavenging resources. Tactics: Defiles for asset-denial, to intimidate caravans, and to empower lightning-fast raids.

The Execrated (elven exile, sole survivor, deserter)

Description: Cast out for their gifts, unappreciated, or hunted; bitter and twisted. Motivations: Use defiling to (re)gain power/status, exact petty revenge, or escape capture/execution. Tactics: Avoids using their power unless they are confident of success/escape, and hits decisively. Will flee quickly if things go sideways

The Natural

Description: A ignorant defiler who never learned to control their inherent talent for sorcery, draining the life away from the terrain around them as naturally as others breath. Not understanding their own power, some may elect to do very little sorcery out of fear of punishment by the authorities or ostracization from their communities. Motivations: Obsessed with their natural talents but fearing being discovered, they may be willing to take up preserving magic if taught it. Tactics: Concealment of their activities in their communities they inhabit, using home grown plants to fuel their powers in secret.

The Unrequited

Description: This mage is no defiler - rather, they are a preserver who has cut all ties with the Veiled Alliance over ideological differences. Perhaps they were too bloodthirsty for the Alliance’s leadership, or too timid, or too keen on bending to the sorcerer-kings, but whatever their reasons for leaving, they’re too dangerous to be left unaccounted for. Motivations: Proving the Alliance wrong; could potentially be talked into returning. Tactics: They conceal their magic whenever possible, still recognizing the value of discretion and anonymity. They refuse to use defiling magic, though whether it’s out of ego or pragmatism varies by the mage.

The Myrmeleon

Description: This is a defiler who has successfully infiltrated a Veiled Alliance cell and works to undermine it from within. The presence of a myrmleon is certain to result in the cell’s destruction by the sorcerer-king’s templars - if not by the direct intervention of the sorcerer-monarch themselves. Motivations: Many, ranging from fear of their sorcerer-monarch master, to hunger for more spells, to sheer spite and hatred. Tactics: These defilers go out of their way to pose as preservers, using resources provided by their handlers to disguise their magic use. They employ wands and scrolls whenever possible, resorting to their defiling magics when all else has failed.

The Unmerited (noble prodigy, imposter templar, test subject)

Description: Received power without wanting it, maybe inheriting a magical/cursed item or being forcibly blessed with arcane/psionic power. Perhaps they even managed to inadvertently receive the bond of a templar to their sorcerer-monarch. Motivations: Eliminate anything holding their metaphorical leash, start a new life, maybe even cut off their powers. Tactics: When not hiding, wild, reckless, untrained displays of power or alternatively timid underpowered use of abilities they don’t quite understand.

The Shadowy Recluse/The Unseen Threat

Description: Moving amongst the shadows of a ruined city, this defiler knows the power of secrecy and deceit. When threatened, they strike quickly and decisively, vanishing before their enemies can mount a response. Motivations: Autonomy, acceptance, revenge. Tactics: This spellcaster uses a combination of darkness and illusion to remain unseen while assaulting adversaries with their spells.

The Awakened

Description: He doesn’t believe that Athas is the real world - believing it to some kind of simulation or dream. He is the center of the world and his death is the end of the simulation. Motivations: He wants to return to the real world. Tactics: Experiments with psionics. No remorse because everything else is a false entity. Will flee quickly, because only his life is real in this world.