AD&D's Most Expensive and Irritating NPC

No NPC embodies the Gygaxian maxim that dealing with NPCs "should be expensive and irritating" quite like the sage.

Like the spy, the sage is a special class of expert hireling which follows its own bespoke rules and procedures. Also like the spy, their main gameplay function is the recovery of information on behalf of the player characters. They are the "encyclopedias" and "computers" of the AD&D milieu:

Each sage has a chosen field of study (their major field), expertise in two to four special categories within that field, and some knowledge of one or two other fields of study (their minor fields):

Intuitively, the higher one rolls on the above table, the better the sage, with a roll of 91 to 100 indicating a sage with knowledge of four special categories in their major field of study as well as knowledge of two additional minor fields of study.

A sage's major and minor fields of study are determined by rolling on the table below:

Let's say I roll d100 and get a result of 76, which is a sage with knowledge of three special categories in their major field and knowledge of two additional minor fields. I next roll 53, so the sage's major field of study is humanoids and giantkind. I then roll 66 and 38, so the sage also has minor knowledge of physical universe(s) and demi-humankind. Tragically, there are no subtables to determine the special categories known to the sage, but there are eight listed under humanoids and giantkind, so I'll roll 3d8. I get 5 (legends and folklore), 4 (languages), and 3 (history).

Whether or not a sage knows the answer to some question is based on whether the information is within one of the sage's fields of study or special categories, as well as the nature of the question (general, specific, or exacting):

As you can probably imagine, determining whether a question is of a general, specific, or exacting nature is left to the judgement of the DM:

Here's where we get to the good stuff. In order to conduct their studies, sages require no fewer than four rooms (living quarters, a study, a library, and a workroom) and a total of at least 800 square feet of space for all their materials. The DM is specifically instructed to "make a point of asking for far more than is actually needed", with the example sage specialized in flora requesting an additional root cellar, greenhouse, fungi beds, and several acres for growing plants:

800 square feet is is eight 10' squares or 16 5' squares, so it's not a lot of real estate on a sheet of graph paper, but one can imagine a sage with even just the bare minimum amount of space required occupying at least an entire floor of a tower in, say, the player character's stronghold.

You can roll to determine the sage's ability scores, alignment, and hit points:

As you can imagine, sages have high Intelligence and Wisdom, average Dexterity, and slightly below average Constitution and Charisma. For some reason, they tend towards average Strength (11.5, the same as if you rolled 3d6), but with a higher minimum score (8). They also have 8d4 hit points before Constitution bonuses are applied, which is the same as an 8th level wizard! They are most commonly Lawful Neutral or Neutral in alignment, and most rarely Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Good.

Interestingly, sages are capable of casting spells, and which spells they can cast is determined by a die roll (d4+2 to determine the maximum level of spells, from 3rd to 6th) and their fields of study:

This also suggests that 70% of sages have clerical abilities, 20% have druidical talents, and 10% have magic-user or illusionist abilities (referring back to the table for determining fields of study).

My hypothetical sage with knowledge of humanoids and giantkind, physical universe(s), and demi-humankind is a natural fit for clerical spellcasting abilities. I roll 5 on d4+2, so they can cast up to 5th level spells and will know 1d4 spells of each level. Like a magic-user (or even a cleric, if you choose to take to heart a brief aside in OD&D), a sage's spells are "contained in various source books." This is thematically excellent and evocative, and is maybe the only (?) mention of druid spells being written down somewhere, which is neat.

I'm less sure what to make of the assertion that sages cannot cast "Spells such as bless, chant, prayer, commune, raise dead, commune with nature, and contact other plane." The prohibition against raise dead makes enough sense, as - if no one in the party is capable of casting it - the player characters are expected to pay out the ear to get an NPC to cast such a spell for them. The commune spells and contact other plane are thematically within the sage's wheelhouse, but their inclusion on the list makes some sense, as their use undermines the very purpose of the sage (and makes it far too easy for them to retrieve knowledge on the party's behalf). If other basic spells like bless, chant, and prayer are forbidden, it raises the question: What spells exactly are sages supposed to be allowed to learn? I wish the DMG offered some guidance on that front, but alas.

Note that, because the sage is the most annoying NPC in AD&D, they "will tend to keep [their] spell knowledge as highly secret." The player character is only providing employment and room and board, after all - why should the sage be upfront with them about their abilities?

The next paragraph is not especially remarkable, but take note that sages are all middle-aged to venerable in age:

We'll come back to that in a moment.

Only certain classes can hire sages:

The notable exclusions from the list are magic-users, illusionists, clerics, druids, and monks - which, aside from monks, are the very classes to which sages kind of sort of belong. Perhaps this indicates another aspect of the sage's particularness - they cannot bear to be in the employ of someone with abilities similar to or greater than their own.

Any character can "consult" with a sage (which will later be referred to as "short-term employment"), but any character of the aforementioned eligible classes seeking to employ a sage on a long term basis "must have a stronghold with ample space for the sage" (the four 200-square-foot rooms mentioned above, at the very least) and must be willing to employ the sage for the rest of the sage's life! Very demanding, these sages.

Sages are found only in large towns and cities:

How many sages might be found in such a place? We can work backwards to figure that out. If you have a means of identifying what character-type NPCs live in your settlements, you could decide that any middle-aged to venerable magic-user, illusionist, cleric, or druid in the area capable of casting 3rd to 6th level spells is available for employment as a sage. Using my B1 sandbox as an example, I might decide that Sigismund, a 7th level magic-user, is a sage.

You can then keep working backwards to determine such a sage's fields of study. Sigismund, as a magic-user, would presumably major in supernatural and unusual studies, with minor knowledge in other fields.

I'm fascinated by the assertion that sages belong to an informal "Brotherhood" (but note that they're not all assumed to be men), and that all sages in the area will know about the employment of a sage. The sages are hanging out at the forums, gossiping about all the dumb questions you ask them!

A player character who consults with a sage is employing them on a short-term basis, which is limited to one week's time. After which, the sage is unavailable for one month, because sages don't like to waste their time with "foolish questions" (especially if the fools aren't offering lifetime employment and room and board):

The one-week restriction on short-term employment will affect the sorts of questions a sage so employed will be able to answer, which we will get to later. Note that this service costs at least 100 gold pieces per day!

Sages employed on a permanent basis are also incredibly expensive, costing 400 to 2,400 gold pieces per month:

The "initial material expenditure" represents the purchasing of "reference works, experimental equipment, and so on." The minimum amount (20,000 gold pieces) allows the sage to answer specific and exacting questions at just 50% "efficiency" (unclear to me if this is referring to time spent researching the answer to the question or the sage's actual ability to find the answer). 60,000 gold pieces gets the sage to 90% efficiency, and only after 100,000 gold pieces are spent does the sage operate at 100% efficiency:

The player character can spend additional gold to increase the sage's question answering ability in the general and specific areas. The player character can spend up to 25,000 gold pieces to increase the sage's knowledge outside their fields of study by up to 5%, up to 50,000 gold piece to increase their knowledge in their minor fields of study by a like amount, up to 300,000 gold pieces to add three minor fields of study, and 200,000 gold pieces to add a major field of study! 

Payments are made up front. Increasing knowledge requires a month of game time per percentage point, and adding a field of study requires 2 years of game time. If the player character dares ask a question of the sage during this time, "all is lost" - the sage completely "forgets" all they have learned so far, and presumably demands more money and more time to begin their studies again.

Discovering information takes time, and this is determined by the type of question asked:

A sage can answer a general question in just a few minutes, but specific questions require hours, days, or even weeks. Exacting questions require days or weeks of time. Remember that a sage employed on a short-term basis charges a 100 gold piece fee per day in addition to the costs shown on this table, and that they will only accept employment for a week's time. Thus, the specificity of question which a sage so employed can answer is greatly limited.

There is a chance that answering the question will require more funds, if for example the sage must travel to some town or city for materials. There is also a small to good chance that the reference material is readily at hand, meaning that no additional expenses are incurred:

It is always best to find a sage who has knowledge of the relevant special category of study, but especially so if the sage is being consulted on a short-term basis.

One especially irritating characteristic of the sage is that they will "continue a fruitless search" for knowledge even if a question can never be answered positively:

This sounds as if the sage is not aware that the question is impossible to answer and is simply trying their hardest to find the information, but I choose to interpret it as the sage deliberately wasting the player character's time and money, because it fits my narrative that these NPCs are being annoying on purpose.

Researching a fruitless line of inquiry will always take the greater part of the maximum time required, but at least the sage will only charge half the usual amount for their ineffectual services:

I really like the image of the sage sitting and looking wise for 4 to 6 minutes before simply saying "Yeah I don't know."

Let's say the player characters seek out a sage to consult on a question of an exacting nature. The sage agrees to try to find the answer for them, but will only spend one week doing so. The subject is one of the sage's minor fields of study, so they demand 1,100 gold pieces per day to research it. I roll 5d8 and determine that it will take the sage 23 days to find the answer, so it is impossible for them to do so in the timeframe given. After a week, the sage meets with the party, shrugs their shoulders, and demands their payment of 3,850 gold pieces (half the agreed upon amount). Money well spent! And no, the sage will not try again or spend another week continuing their research. They have more important things to do. See you in one month!

This is my favorite part. After spending more than a day researching the answer to a question, the sage requires time off (1 day for every 3 spent working - quite the PTO policy):

If you bother the sage during their R&R time, they demand additional days off for the intrusion! Until you give them their time off, they will (presumably, deliberately) take the maximum amount of time and require the maximum amount of gold expenditure to answer any questions. The sage has excellent work-life balance, and the Brotherhood, while apparently informal, is presumably a strong and demanding union. Good for them!

Before you start to sympathize with the plight of the sage, let me add that they are also racist:

In a world of scammers and jerks, these guys really are the worst of the worst. You do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them"!