From the Daskinor thread…
What did Rajaat tell the Champions, to explain why an obviously non-human being was giving them vast powers supposedly intended to make humanity supreme? How did he explain why halflings were spared, without ruining the entire charade?
Maybe something like this ..
"The Pristine Tower is a danger to the whole world. Very long ago, its power mutated humans and halflings into the other races of the world. As the effects progressed, they grew more severe. The first changes were relatively small - halflings to dwarves or goblins, humans to elves or orcs. But then they worsened. The newer forms were far more drastically mutated - tari, pixies, the lizardfolk and aarakocra that aren’t even mammals.
And then creatures like myself began to be born - twisted and unique beings. If things had been allowed to progress, in some far distant time no two beings would be born belonging to the same species - and then life would end, for none new could be born.
But my own unique form, as much as it is a sign of the blight that wracks the world, gave me power. Four thousand years ago I sought out the source of the damage, discovered the Tower, learned of its effects, and contained them.
My power is immense, but it is not unlimited. I cannot destroy the Tower - it is linked to all life upon this world, and cannot be destroyed without the death of all. As long as I remain at the Tower, I can control its effects. You all can study here, live here, without becoming mindless monsters as once would have happened.
But by myself I cannot repair the damage to the world, or even prevent its slow progression elsewhere. I have blocked the poison at its source, but it diffused into the world for thousands of years before I arrived, and out there it still eats away at all life.
This is why I developed magic - a way to take the tainted life energy that flows through the world and shape it to a purpose. This is why defiling is the true and higher form of magic - it doesn’t just tap into the tainted life energy as preserving does, it actually rips out the tainted energy from the land.
Yes, it’s not a clean process - defiling kills the soil and plants in the immediate area - but the damage done is tiny compared to the long term benefit. It’s like surgery, cutting out something that festers. Transform the tainted energy to something else - fire, or lightning, or motion, or matter - and you cleanse the world, one small bit at a time.
But there is another stage to that surgery that must be completed…"