Sages

The sages, as the other magical races know them, have mystical senses developed to the point they are sometimes called “Third Sight”. They are apparently humanoid and slightly taller on average than humans, but beyond that surprisingly little is known about them physically, because they always wear long robes with hoods that hide their faces, at least in public.

The homeland of the sages is one of the larger islands of Mistsea, though it seems that they live there only as children or when having and raising children. For the rest of their lives they live lives that could be seen as monastic, either in small groups in Mistsea observatories, or, more commonly, travelling alone through the Twilit Worlds like mendicant friars.

The sages’ mystical senses give them much greater insight into the connectedness of all things even than the other magical races, and they are naturally talented at divination. They seem to see things together with with their possible futures, and with a strong sense of the odds of the various possibilities, and with the pasts. So different is this viewpoint that other races tend to have difficulty understanding them: a sage’s words might be intended to a future you as much as a present one, and sometimes the words even seem to be intended for the past!

Generally, sages are welcomed in their travels by other races, and it is the norm to give them food and shelter wherever they go. In some places this is because their advice has been found to be wise; in others it is because bad luck seems to follow when one makes enemies of them.

The sages generally seem to be subtly benevolent, unless one crosses them, in which case they are subtly benevolent, though they achieve this almost entirely through words: they are normally pacifistic, though they have been known to kill without mercy when it was (apparently) the only viable course. Whether they are actually benevolent or are rather engaging in a vast cynical programme of manipulation is a moot point.