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As I clutched the long-sought scroll in my hands
my face fell, and my heart with it,
as I continued to read.
My hopes, my dreams, my life's quest
were shattered, like an inix egg against a stone.
I dropped the scroll to the desk
and spent many long hours contemplating
what I would -- what I could -- do now.
-Drekkar Daevon
Tyrian Noble & Free Wizard
The player of a wizard (ie -- one who has the Sorcery skill, see the "Skills of Survival" section) must choose whether their character is a preserver or a defiler, and must make this choice prior to the beginning of gameplay as it will fundamentally affect the way their character utilizes magic.
Defilement, persumably the older of the two paths, brings a wizard great power quickly, at an equally great cost to the world at large. A defiler is a wizard who takes as much energy as they desire in order to cast their spells without caring about the damage done to their surroundings, leaving the nearby plant life and soil ashen and dead.
Preservation, though, whatever it may lack in great power, does not wither the world with its use. A preserver is a wizard who takes only as much energy from the environment as is needed for their spells, taking care to return enough of it to the plant life and the soil of their surroundings to leave them unharmed.
Once made, the choice is difficult to change. Full details on preservation and defilement are in the "Paths of Wisdom and Power" section.
As should be apparent, Athasian wizards obtain and utilize the life-force from living things to power their spells, drawing specifically from plants (animals and other creatures can only be drawn from by powerful sorcerers). The mechanics under which this works is detailed in the "Athasian Spellcasting" section.
However, unlike the normal SAGA rules, wizards cannot just create any effect they wish from thin air, they must first know the correct forms of invoking a particular effect. Athasian wizards are required to have actual magical knowledge -- the words, gestures and materials necessary to cast a specific spell, which shape the energy into the desired form.
Sorcery teaches the basic principles behind magic which make necessary the use of
words, gestures and materials, though not teaching the exact components themselves.
See the "Spells and Incantations"
section for more detail.
Rare upon Athas are those wizards who draw their energy from sources not of the world itself, but of the world of shadows or of the dead, or after the defeat of Rajaat and the death of many of the Sorcerer Kings, those who draw their energy from the Cerulean storm itself. See the "Wizards of Athas" section for further details.
Finally, there are those rare wizards who have learned the ways of powerful enchantments which combine magic and psionics and whom embark upon long, difficult paths to ultimate power or enlightenment. See the "Sorcery & Advanced Beings" section for more information.