Ethbran and the sages of Portown

No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom.

            -The Symposium        

            I decided that I wanted to put sages in my Portown campaign but Holmes does not include rules for sages and I didn’t really like the way that Blackmoor handled sages. Blackmoor presents sages as scholars in a guild. They seem to be designed as a money sink on the PCs, which makes sense. Massive amounts of treasure is needed to gain levels in OD&D and DMs need to give the players something to spend it on or the players find perverse stuff to spend the money on (not necessarily sexually perverse, but the players will use the money to upend social order). The sage is kind of a dm screwjob. It is an NPC that the players are eventually going to need that is designed to cost them a lot of money and annoy them. Naturally the players are going to want to kill these sages, so Blackmoor states that sages can give powerful curses and that all sages know each other and players that kill one sage will not be able to get another.

            That is not the type of DM screw job I like. This is the type of DM screw job I like:

The Philosopher

Level Title	HD	XP	Chance to answer question	Chimera threat
1. Student	1d4	0	5%	0%
2. Sophist	2d4	2,500	10%	0%
3. Epistemologist	3d4	4,000	20%	0%
4. Metaphycisist	4d4	8,000	30%	0%
5. Nihilist*	4d4	12,000	20%	5%
6. Stoic	6d4	34,000	40%	0%
7. Structuralist	7d4	68,000	50%	0%
8. Philosopher	8d4	136,000	60%	5%
9. Sage	9d4	272,000	80%	10%
* No typos, nihilists regress.

Philosophers save as magic users but get -2 on all saves vs. poison

The philosopher is an NPC character class obsessed with the pursuit of wisdom from first principles. When a philosopher reaches the 9th level they become a sage. A sage is no longer obsessed with the pursuit of Wisdom because they have obtained an understanding about the basic principles of the universe and time. Because of this they are seldom willing to answer questions unless the players can give the sage a new question, never asked before.

Sages however will have students that follow them around:

 1d6 students

                         1d4 Epistemologists

                         1d2 Metaphycisists

Answering Questions 

All questions fall into 5 categories

5 Totally pointless theoretical questions

4 Questions Related to the metaphysics of the universe

3 Questions related to the metaphysics of the dungeon/underworld

2 Questions about the mundane properties of the dungeon/underworld

1 Questions about anything else.

Sages will only answer questions in categories 5 and 4. Nihilists will not answer questions in categories 5 and 4.

Philosophers from levels 1-5 will answer a question for 3d6 * 10 * their level in gold. Structuralists and Stoics will demand magic items that they have never seen before. The power of the magic item is unimportant, but it must be novel.

Name Level Philosophers and sages demand potions of forgetfulness to stop the chimeras from forming in their skulls.

Philosophers will answer a question by engaging in a long drawn out questioning of the asker until they arrive at the answer themselves.

ELBRATH: Well, then, consider and try to explain what is the meaning of 'better,' in the matter of making peace and going to war with those against whom you ought to go to war? To what does the word refer?

LEOMUND: I am thinking, and I cannot tell.

ELBRATH: But you surely know what are the charges, which we bring against one another, when we arrive at the point of making war, and what name we give them?

LEOMUND: Yes, certainly; we say that deceit or violence has been employed, or that we have been beset by Chaos.

ELBRATH: And how does this happen? Will you tell me how? For there may be a difference in the manner.

LEOMUND: Do you mean by 'how,' Elbrath, whether we suffered these things justly or unjustly?

ELBRATH: Exactly.

LEOMUND: There can be no greater difference than between just and unjust, Law and Chaos.

(The Education of Leomund the Bold Adapted from Alcibiades I)

The player asking the question must make wisdom checks equal to the category number. For each failed wisdom check the DM rolls the philosophers chance to answer question. If the Philosopher fails the player arrives at a false conclusion. The higher level the philosopher, the more likely they will enjoy talking to a fool. Nihilists enjoy talking to fools the most because they are at a point in their journey where they no longer see a meaningful distinction between right and wrong conclusions.

How philosophers get xp           

Philosophers get experience from 2 main sources, debates and answering questions.

            1 Debates.       Philosophers love to debate each other on the nature of reality so I have made convoluted rules to determine how many experience points a philosopher gets for debating. There is of course a convoluted set of rules governing debates that has little relation to other rules. Here are the rules:

1.     Only Sophists, Nihilists, and Structuralists can win debates. Other debates are considered symposiums where ideas are exchanged in a collegial manner.

2.     Philosophers can only debate once a week.

3.     Pick a category for the debate using the 5 categories above any category the rules about certain levels not answering questions does not apply to debates.

4.     Calculate the experience each participant will get from the debate: Base Reward * category * level of interlocutor/level of philosopher * rhetoric modifier.

5.     Here are level modifiers:

Level	Base xp Reward	Rhetoric Modifier
1. Student	50	1d4
2. Sophist	100	1d6
3. Epistemologist	200	1d8
4. Metaphysicist	400	1d8
5. Nihilist	100	1d12
6. Stoic	500	1d8
7. Structuralist	600	1d10
8. Philosopher	800	1d10

6.     A sage gains no xp from debates. In fact a sage cannot gain xp as they have already experienced everything having deduced it metaphysically from first principles.

7.     If you need to figure out a winner for the debate, compare the level modifier rolls. The highest roll wins. Anyone except another nihilist who loses a debate against a nihilist has their experience reward halved as they begin to doubt the nature of truth

2. Example.  In the time when Ethbran was a stoic she met a man, Bazarov. He smirked derisively at the world and went about he market stealing. Ethbran confronted him one day as he walked away from a grocer’s stand with a pomegranate.

“You should return that pomegranate,”

“Why?”

They argued for six hours. A crowd gathered. Eventually Bazarov was hauled off for theft. Ethbran was left in the market crying.

In this exchange Bazarov, a nihilist and Ethbran a stoic are arguing about a category 1 question. Bazarov is level 5 and Ethbran is Level 6. Bazarov rolls a d12 and Ethbran Rolls a d8. Bazarov gets 6 and Ethbran gets a 4.

So to calculate Bazarov’s xp you multiply 100(bass reward) * 1(category) * 6(Ethrbran’s level)/5(Bazarov’s Level) * 6(Rhetoric Modifier)  = 720xp

To calculate Ethbran’s xp you multiply 500 * 1 * 5/6 * 4 = 1664 and then you divide by 2 because she lost the debate. So you get 832xp.

            3. Experience from answering questions. When a philosopher answers a question they get xp equal to the category of the question * their base xp value * their rhetoric modifier. They get half xp for delivering wrong answers except for sophists and nihilists who get double xp for wrong answers.

The Philosospher’s Curse

A sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure—all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?

            -The Republic

When someone kills a philosopher they are cursed. They can find no other joy or fulfillment other than the pursuit of knowledge. They can gain no xp by any means until they become a philosopher themselves and obtain the level of the philosopher whom they killed. They must stop being whatever they were before and find a teacher that they can follow. Remove curse will not work and a wish spell will have dire consequences.

Once the player becomes a philosopher their hit points a reset to that of a first level philosopher. the Once players achieve the level of the philosopher killed they may return to their former class from where they left off and regain their former hit points. They also retain their philosopher class abilities.