Branched from the “Alternate Athasian History” thread by WingofCoot, because I don’t want to clog that.
Me:
Tangent: In a way, arcane magic on Athas is druidry-by-theft. Both draw their power from the land itself, but while a druid makes friends with the land, a defiler rips his power from it, and a preserver takes what she needs.
WingOfCoot:
On the tangent: I’ve wondered about that. Do druids draw from the land in the same way that preservers do? Given that they use the same elemental spheres as clerics, I had kind of figured that their power was ultimately elemental (even if indirectly, like templars: I think all the “priest classes” in the 2e sense have an ultimately elemental source). I see the spirits of the land as being something like metaphysical trees, with their main presence (their “trunk and branches”) on Athas but their “roots” reaching into the elemental planes.
So, here’s some thinking on this:
Spirits of the Land may well have their roots in the elemental planes, and express it through the land itself… plants, animals, soil, sky. All are aspects of the elements, given concrete expression on the Prime Material.
Wizards, in one possible view (not saying this is canon, just a way of looking at it), draw on the power of the Spirit of the Land via those expressions, specifically the plant (and, to a lesser extent, animal) life. They use, in effect, the expressed power of the elemental planes to power their spells… but they do it in an off-label way, if you follow the metaphor.
A cleric taps directly into a given element; they’re less versatile because of that, but they are explicitly getting the power by permission.
A druid casts a druid spell in line with the will of the spirit of the land, as shown by the elemental spheres they have access to. They draw power from the land to express the land, as it were, just as grass draws power from the soil to express itself; a druid spell is, in effect, completely natural, expressing the will of the land through its chosen representative, and the (spirit of the) land itself is the licensed distributor of elemental power.
An arcane spell takes energy from that grass, but it doesn’t use it to express what the land wants… it is a tap on the hospital power line that runs a bitcoin harvesting darkweb server. Preservers pay for the power; defilers just take it. Because they use the power however they want, they don’t necessarily do it in the way the land wants… they can cast spells at complete odds with the will of the elements and land, because they’re just using power, not receiving it under contract from an authorized dealer.