Basic Information
Depending on the context, sage may be either a herb or a person who possesses sagacity (aka. wisdom).
Since the herb is of limited interest for gaming purposes, the rest of this article will consider the type of person.
Sages, therefore are wise and learned individuals who can be sought out by those needing their counsel - whether it be spiritual, philosophical or academic. There is, possibly, some further division here between the Eastern sage, who is generally a hermit, dwelling in seclusion and tending towards dispensing enlightenment and the Western sage, who is generally depicted as inhabiting a library and conducting research on commission, but the two can be blurred into one another.
In gamist terms, the sage will generally be both source and gatekeeper for hidden knowledge within the campaign setting … and may also serve as a quest giver, either by setting trials for the PCs to prove themselves worthy of enlightenment or by sending them out to fetch key research texts that he needs to answer their question. More advanced PCs may also retain a sage in their stronghold whose main role is to probe the histories for clues as to where ancient treasures may be hidden - identifying magic items (and/or figuring out how to get some (safe) use out of them)and assisting with artifice or spell research are also useful roles. Indeed any given sage may well be at least a minor practitioner of magic in their own right, especially in settings where magic is a highly academic pursuit. Conversely, the Eastern Style sage may well be a master of martial arts or more spiritual powers, perhaps including theurgy or shamanistic workings.
A sage, of the "western" variety at least is also an obvious target for the piles of musty books that the PCs recovered from their last dungeon crawl - whether for cash or credit, he is the person most likely to be interested in random ancient literature.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- There is a poem by Edward Lear called The Two Old Bachelors for the benefit of those who persist in being unable to tell one kind of sage from another.