The Sage

Class document for Adventures Beyond the Mists.

You are the one who has already seen how this goes. Where other heroes roll and hope, you read the dice before they fall and lean on them: you spend hard-won Insight to reroll a bad throw, to nudge a die a single face, or to catch a push the instant before it busts. You keep a small circle, students, a scribe, an old companion or two, and you fight poorly and by choice, because your worth was never the blow you land. It is the disaster you saw coming and quietly rewrote. The thrill is Predict Fate: naming the moment, watching it happen, and deciding that it never did.

At a Glance

• Personal die: 1 at Trained (5-6).
• Signature live now: Predict Fate, Insight. (Second Sight, which turns your foresight on an enemy's roll, unlocks at Level 5.)
• Command Capacity: 2. Detachment Limit: 2.
• Starting Pool: 3 dice (1 personal + 2 attendants).
• Hit Points: 4 base, plus armor.
• Starting Specialties: 3 Advancement Points on the Sage's Level 1 menu, priced by tier.

Flavor

You have read the Mists the way other people read weather.

Everyone in Hynafol feels the mists a little: the prickle before a fight, the wrongness of a place where the dead do not stay dead. You feel them the way a scholar feels a familiar hand in an old manuscript. The mists show you the shape of the next moment, not always, not clearly, but often enough that you have built a life on it. A hand about to be dealt badly. A blow about to land on the wrong person. A door about to open.

You are old, or you read as old, whatever your years. Some Sages are grey loremasters with a library for a mind. Some are storytellers who have learned that the tale you tell shapes the thing that happens. Some are tacticians who have simply seen more battles than anyone else at the table. And some are veterans whose bodies have failed them, who can no longer swing hard or run far, but who can still tell you exactly where the enemy's line will break, because they have watched it break a hundred times.

What all of them share is patience, and a quiet, unnerving certainty. You do not gamble. You wait, you read, and when the moment is wrong you reach out one finger and set it right.

How the Sage Plays

This document assumes familiarity with Core Resolution (the shared Pool, hit ranges, and the bank-and-push loop), Wounds and Fatigue (Hit Points, wound direction, death and return), and Command Capacity (company size and Bond), all in core-rules. Only what is specific to the Sage is detailed below.

What the Sage Is

The Sage is the only class that acts on the bank-and-push loop itself. Every other class works on the dice once they land: the Knight and Skirmisher read patterns in them (Combos), the Squire adds dice to the Pool. The Sage works on the dice before they settle, and on the one moment nothing else in the game touches, the bust.

Hold the Sage against the Squire, because they are close enough to confuse. The Squire adds and completes: a Bump pushes an ally's die up to finish a pattern, making the good rolls bigger. The Sage subtracts failure: a reroll, a nudge, an averted bust, making the bad rolls not happen. The Squire is why an ally's best turn landed. The Sage is why an ally's worst turn did not. Different verbs, no overlap.

The Sage is also the game's Wits anchor. Its foresight is the same tool in a fight and out of one, because Checks run on the same engine, so a Sage is the party's clutch on a locked reliquary or a legendary feat exactly as it is on a killing blow.

The Circle

Starting Command Capacity is 2, rising to 3 at Level 9. This is a small circle and stays one: students, a scribe, a loyal old sergeant, whoever a particular Sage keeps close. The Sage's power was never in numbers. The circle exists to give the Sage a few dice of its own to read and a thin line to stand behind, not to win fights by weight. Its Retainers are whatever the story wants; nothing in the kit assumes a role.

Personal Dice

A Sage rolls 1 personal die at Trained (5-6), the universal baseline. The range is deliberately narrow. A Sage does not win by striking, and nothing in its identity is served by dependable personal offense. What it does with a die is read it, not land it.

Additional dice. The second die arrives at Level 3 and the third at Level 7. Each is yours, rolled from your Pool, and each enters play Untrained, hitting only on a 6, then sharpens up the ladder to Trained (see the Level Table); the Sage never widens past Trained, since dependable hits are not the point. When a die arrives you choose its Source, a Bonded Beast, a Guardian Spirit, a Bound Weapon, or the Killing Art (see Sources of the Second Die): the Source is that die's fiction and a small Trait, live only while its fiction is present, but the die is always yours to roll. A die that begins weak suits a Character who fights poorly by choice.

Hit Points

4 at First Level, before armor, with armor added on top (Light +1, Medium +2, Heavy +3). A Sage is a backline scholar, not a wall, and sits at the Mature Retainer baseline like the Witch, Ranger, and Squire.

Designer's note

The Level 1 Hit Point baseline runs inverse to how much a Company can soak (see character-creation, Hit Point baselines). The Sage keeps a small circle but stands behind it and rarely draws fire on purpose, so 4 sits it with the other thin backliners rather than at the Warden-and-Knight top of the range. [PLAYTEST] Whether a Sage that has spent its Insight and its Predict Fate is too soft in the late rounds of a hard fight is the first thing to watch.

Insight

Insight is the Sage's resource, the measure of how much of the next moment it can see and change. You begin each Combat with Insight equal to your Wits tier: 1 at Trained, 2 at Skilled, 3 at Elite or Renowned. A starting Sage, with Wits Skilled, opens each fight with 2 Insight. Insight does not refill during a fight under the base rules; what you start with is what you have, so spend it on the moments that matter.

Spend Insight on any roll you can see, an ally's or your own, and out of combat on any Check:

• Reroll (1 Insight). After a die is rolled, reroll one die in that roll. You take the new face, for better or worse.
• Nudge Fate (1 Insight). Change one rolled die by a single face, up or down. A 4 becomes a hitting 5, or an enemy's hitting 5 becomes a missing 4.
• Avert the Bust (2 Insight). When a push you can see would bust, the roller stops safely instead, keeping everything banked that turn. The turn ends with its hits intact rather than wiped.

That is the whole menu. It is short on purpose, so a Sage decides where to look, not how to run a subsystem.

Designer's note

Avert the Bust is the marquee spend, because the bust is the engine's core risk and nothing else touches it: a party with a Sage pushes harder, knowing the floor has a net. It is also the most dangerous thing here for the game's feel, so it costs 2 and Insight is scarce. The whole class has to bend fate, not break it. If a table ever feels like "with the Sage here we never bust and never fail," Insight is too plentiful and the numbers need cutting first. [PLAYTEST] the starting Insight values above all.

Predict Fate

Once per Combat, and free, costing no Insight. Before any roll you can see, declare Predict Fate. The roll happens, you look at the whole result, and you choose: keep it, and it stands, or discard it, and it never happened, the roller rolling again fresh. A full-information do-over, once a fight, always in your hand even when your Insight is gone.

At Level 1 you may call Predict Fate on your own roll or an ally's. An enemy's roll is beyond your reach until Second Sight, at Level 5.

Second Sight (Level 5)

Predict Fate may now be turned on an enemy's roll as well. When a monster or enemy leader rolls a strong result, a wave of hits about to fall on your line, you may discard it and make them roll again. This is the Sage's Level 5 signature unlock, arriving where the Knight's Set, the Skirmisher's Pierce, and the Warden's Straight once did, because Level 5 is where each class's defining move comes fully online.

The Long View (Level 9)

At Level 9 the Sage sees further and holds more. You may call Predict Fate twice per Combat rather than once, and your Nudge Fate may shift a die two faces instead of one. The endgame Sage is rarely surprised by a fight and never truly cornered by a single bad roll.

Foresight Beyond a Fight

Because a Check runs on the same bank-and-push engine as combat (see core-rules, Part Seventeen), Predict Fate and every Insight spend work on Checks unchanged. A Sage is the reason a party clears a Daunting lock under pressure or reaches a Heroic feat a lone roller could not. This, with broad Wits knowledge bought from the lore Specialties, is the learned half of the class, and it is why the Sage is the seat no other class fills.

Combos

The Sage reads no class Combos, like the Witch, the Ranger, and the Squire. Its relationship to the dice is manipulation, not pattern-reading: it does not wait for a Straight or a Set to appear, it reaches in and changes what is there. A Sage may still learn to read omens for Insight through the Gather Omens Specialty, but that is a bought option, not a baseline read.

Worked Example

Worked example

A Sage opens the fight with 2 Insight and her free Predict Fate in hand. Her Pool is 3 dice at Trained (5-6) (a Level 9 Sage, so all three personal dice have sharpened to Trained).

Her turn. She rolls 4, 4, 2, a dead opening, no hits at all. She calls Predict Fate on her own roll and discards it: it never happened. She rolls again and the second roll lands 6, 5, 2, two hits. She banks them.

Later, an allied Knight pushes for a Set to trigger his Charge. His reroll comes up all misses, a bust that would wipe the four hits he had already banked. Before it resolves, the Sage spends her 2 Insight on Avert the Bust: the Knight stops safely instead, keeping his four hits. The Charge is lost, but his turn is not.

She ends the fight with no Insight and her Predict Fate spent, having landed almost nothing herself. What she did was turn a dead turn into two hits and save a companion four. That is a good fight for a Sage.

Starting Specialties

The menu a first-level Sage spends its 3 starting Advancement Points on. Costs are the standard Specialty tiers (see character-creation, Starting Specialties): universal picks are open to any Character, picks marked Sage only are this Class's own, and a requirement in parentheses must be met. The prices are built so the 3 points compose more than one way. Spend them on a single build-defining pick, or on one standard pick paired with one minor pick, however the Character reads.

• The Long Memory (1 AP, Sage only): once per session, know one true, useful thing about what is in front of you.
• Glimpse Ahead (1 AP, Sage only): once per session, learn one true, useful thing about what is coming next.
• Deep Insight (2 AP, Sage only): +1 Insight at the start of every Combat.
• Foreseen Answer (2 AP, Sage only): your foresight reaches Checks in full, and you read Combos in them.
• Measured Blow (2 AP, Sage only): one guaranteed strike a fight, for a Character who rarely lands one.
• The Tale Foretold (2 AP, Sage only): hand an ally a full reroll of their opening roll, for 1 Insight.
• The Trusted Circle (2 AP, Sage only): one Retainer in your circle begins play at Bond 2 rather than Bond 0.
• Quick Study (2 AP): borrow a Skill on the fly (see universal-specialties).
• Second Sighting (3 AP, Sage only): a second Predict Fate each Combat, the whole budget spent on foresight alone.
• Foretell the Blow (3 AP, Sage only): spend 1 Insight to warn an ally clear, negating one Hit from an incoming enemy attack.

A first-level Sage cannot afford two standard picks, so the shape of the choice is one 3-AP identity pick, or one 2-AP pick and one 1-AP pick. The four reads the class describes each have a home here: the loremaster leans on Deep Insight or Foreseen Answer, the storyteller on The Tale Foretold, the tactician on Quick Study, and the failing veteran on Measured Blow, with a 1-AP knowledge pick alongside. The Trusted Circle is the Sage who invests in a person rather than a power, one of the circle already a true confidant at creation. The two 3-AP roads both spend everything on foresight and split on where it points: Second Sighting turns it on the Sage's own fights, seeing twice, while Foretell the Blow turns it outward, each read spent to pull an ally clear of a strike.

Designer's note

This menu was repriced to compose. An earlier draft listed one 1-AP pick against four 2-AP picks, so against a 3-AP budget the only legal spend was "one 2-AP pick plus The Long Memory." That made The Long Memory a tax rather than a choice and collapsed the whole decision to one of four. Adding a second 1-AP pick (Glimpse Ahead), and surfacing a 2-AP storyteller pick (The Tale Foretold) and a 3-AP capstone (Second Sighting), opened the budget: a real choice on the 1-AP slot, more 2-AP options, and a single-pick path that matches the Chancellor's Extended Command and the Errant's Never Alone. A later pass added The Trusted Circle, the menu's first Retainer-Bond option and its one investment in the circle rather than in Insight, and surfaced Foretell the Blow as a second 3-AP capstone, so the two capstones split between foresight turned inward and outward. [PLAYTEST] Deep Insight may still be the correct 2-AP pick most of the time, since +1 Insight is a large swing on so scarce a resource; whether the other 2-AP picks compete with it is logged in open-questions, along with the Bond-at-creation pricing The Trusted Circle sets.

Specialty Menu

These Specialties are the Sage's own, bought with Advancement Points through ordinary Advancement rather than from the open menu (see universal-specialties, which also holds the open Sage and lore picks such as Quick Study, Mindlink, and Life Sense). Each reads against Insight or Predict Fate, which is why none is open to other classes. All are [PLAYTEST].

Deep Insight

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You see a little further into every fight than you used to.

Effect. You begin each Combat with 1 additional Insight, on top of the amount your Wits tier grants.

Second Sighting

Cost: 3 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. Once was never going to be enough.

Effect. You may call Predict Fate one additional time per Combat. This stacks with the second use granted by The Long View at Level 9.

Gather Omens

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. A one and a six on the same table are not noise. They are a sentence, if you can read it.

Effect. Whenever a natural 1 and a natural 6 appear together in a single roll you can see (an Extremes, see core-rules, Part Eighteen), bank 1 Insight. This is the only way a Sage's Insight grows during a fight.

Designer's note

The optional in-fight generator, kept off the baseline so a player who does not want the extra bookkeeping never has to track it. Extremes is spotted at a glance, which is why it is the trigger. [PLAYTEST] whether this makes Insight too plentiful in large-Pool fights.

Foreseen Answer

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You have read the ending of this book. You are only helping the others turn the pages.

Effect. On a Check, you may spend 1 Insight to turn one rolled die into a Success. You also read Combos in Checks: a Pair or better rolled during a Check grants a bonus the GM sets by the task, the provisional hook in core-rules, Part Seventeen, made real for the Sage.

The Long Memory

Cost: 1 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You have read it, heard it, or lived it. Give it a moment; it will come.

Effect. Once per session, declare that you know something relevant about a foe, a place, or a relic in front of you. The GM tells you one true, useful fact. Pure knowledge, no roll.

Glimpse Ahead

Cost: 1 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. The next moment is already leaning toward you. You have only to look up and read which way.

Effect. Once per session, before the party commits to a course, name what you are trying to foresee: the danger in the next room, the trap on the road, the temper of the court you are about to enter. The GM tells you one true, useful thing about what is coming, not what is already in front of you. Pure knowledge, no roll, the future-facing twin of The Long Memory.

The Tale Foretold

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You tell them how it goes, and something in the mist agrees, and the dice fall into line behind your voice.

Effect. Before an ally acts, spend 1 Insight. That ally may reroll their entire opening roll once, taking the new result. You are handing your foresight to someone else's hands.

Foretell the Blow

Cost: 3 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You call the strike a breath before it lands, and the one it was meant for is already moving.

Effect. Spend 1 Insight to predict an enemy's next attack. The target of that attack negates one Hit from it, having been warned in time. Protection by foreknowledge, not armor.

Measured Blow

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. You have one good strike left in you, and you have always known which moment it was for.

Effect. Once per Combat, treat your own personal die as an automatic Hit, no roll needed for it. A single reliable point of damage for a Character built to have almost none.

The Trusted Circle

Cost: 2 AP. Sage only.

Flavor. Not a student this season. The one who has stood at your shoulder for years, and would again without being asked.

Effect. One Retainer in your circle begins play at Bond 2 rather than the usual Bond 0 (see companies-and-command, Bond); the rest of the circle starts at Bond 0 as normal. This is the menu's one pick that reads against the Company rather than against Insight or Predict Fate, which is why it fits a Class whose power was always the circle it kept, and it is open here because a Sage's circle is the thing a Sage most naturally invests in first.

Designer's note

The Sage's first Retainer-Bond starting pick, and the first anywhere on the roster, so it sets the game-wide pattern for a "start a Retainer above Bond 0" option (the category floated but never built in the starting-Specialty notes). Priced at 2 as a standard investment, by rough parity with the Chancellor's automatic Bond-2 lieutenants. [PLAYTEST] both the Bond-2-at-creation value and whether 2 AP is the right price for it, logged in open-questions.

This is the Sage's ladder, sharing the Knight and Skirmisher structure: 100 XP per Level (see character-creation, Advancement), odd Levels granting a fixed class benefit and even Levels granting Advancement Points on the 2/3/4/5/6 schedule, plus the 3 starting points spent before play. Command Capacity is small and grows only once, and the personal die sits at Trained, but the shape is the same.

Level	Fixed class grant	AP granted	Cumulative AP (incl. 3 starting)	Personal dice (Hit Range)	Cmd. Cap.	Pool
1	die at Trained (5-6); Predict Fate, Insight	3 (starting)	3	5-6	2	3
2	—	2	5	5-6	2	3
3	Second personal die (choose a Source), enters Untrained (6)	—	5	5-6, 6	2	4
4	—	3	8	5-6, 6	2	4
5	Second die sharpens to Trained (5-6); Second Sight (Predict Fate reaches enemy rolls)	—	8	5-6, 5-6	2	4
6	—	4	12	5-6, 5-6	2	4
7	Third personal die (choose a Source), enters Untrained (6), three-die maximum	—	12	5-6, 5-6, 6	2	5
8	—	5	17	5-6, 5-6, 6	2	5
9	Third die sharpens to Trained (5-6); The Long View; +1 Command Capacity (to 3, maximum)	—	17	5-6, 5-6, 5-6	3	6
10	—	6	23	5-6, 5-6, 5-6	3	6

A full arc to Level 10 grants 23 Advancement Points, the same as the Knight and Skirmisher. The Pool column is the maximum Pool at that Level, personal dice plus a full circle. The Sage tops out at a Pool of 6, small by design, because its power is spent on other people's dice as often as its own.

Designer's Notes

Rationale and open testing questions. Safe for players to read, but written for the designer.

Design decisions

• The lever is anti-variance, and that is the balance knife. A class that removes randomness can drain the thrill from a push-your-luck engine, whose thrill is the risk. The guards are scarcity (Insight starts at 1 to 3 and does not refill), a once-per-Combat free signature, and effects that shift odds rather than guarantee outcomes (one reroll, one face, one saved bust). Bend fate, not break it.
• Low offense is load-bearing, not a weakness to fix. The Sage's control is always paid for by contributing little to the killing. If a future pass makes it hit harder, the control has to get scarcer to match.
• No Combos, on purpose. The Sage joins the Witch, Ranger, and Squire as a class that reads no patterns. Its dice relationship is manipulation, which would double up awkwardly with a pattern read; Gather Omens is the one bought exception.
• Enemy-targeting gated to Level 5. Turning Predict Fate on a monster's roll is the strongest thing the class does, so it waits for the Level 5 milestone, exactly as the other classes' defining moves do.

Testing done and pending

Nothing here has been played. The whole class is a first draft. Specifically pending:

• The starting Insight values. 2 for a typical Sage may be too generous or too thin; this is the first number to move.
• Avert the Bust in live play. Whether a party with a Sage pushes so freely that the bust stops mattering, which would mean the price or the scarcity is wrong.
• Predict Fate on enemy rolls at Level 5. A full discard of a monster's hot roll is a large swing; whether it is fun or merely frustrating for the GM wants a real table.
• Whether the four builds actually read at the table. Loremaster, storyteller, tactician, and failing old veteran are meant to be reachable from one kit; whether the Specialties deliver that or only gesture at it is unproven.

Growth potential

• Insight that regenerates. A high-Level feature could let Insight tick back during a fight, turning the static budget into a renewable one for a veteran Sage.
• A wider Predict Fate. Predicting more than one roll at once, or a standing read that lets the Sage peek before committing.
• More of the four builds, as Specialties. A dedicated storyteller line (handing foresight to the whole party), a tactician's read of Initiative and positioning, a veteran's counter-strike. The current menu seeds each; none is deep yet.
• A Named Focus. Per the game's standing principle that gear grants dice, a Sage's relic might instead discount an Insight spend or widen Predict Fate, tools made cheaper rather than a flat extra die.

Changelog

• 2026-08-09: Unified the combat Hit Range and Check competence tiers into a single ladder (Untrained, Trained, Skilled, Elite, Renowned). Renamed Rabble to Untrained, Veteran to Skilled, Expert to Elite, and the combat Legendary tier to Renowned; the Legendary Difficulty rung is unchanged.
• 2026-08-09: Converted personal dice to the Source model (universal staggering). The second die (Level 3) and third die (Level 7) now enter Untrained and sharpen to Trained up the ladder; each is chosen as a Source. Cap is unchanged at three Trained dice; only the early ramp is staggered. [DRAFT.]
• 2026-08-08: Broadened the Starting Specialties menu to 10. Added The Trusted Circle (2 AP), the menu's first Retainer-Bond pick and its one investment in the Company rather than in Insight, and surfaced Foretell the Blow (3 AP) as a second 3-AP capstone, so the two capstones now split between foresight turned inward (Second Sighting) and outward (Foretell the Blow). Bond-at-creation pricing logged in open-questions.
• 2026-08-08: Repriced the Level 1 Starting Specialties menu so the 3 opening points compose instead of forcing "one 2-AP pick plus The Long Memory." Added Glimpse Ahead (1 AP), and surfaced The Tale Foretold (2 AP) and Second Sighting (3 AP) onto the starting menu, bringing it to 8 options and giving all four flavor reads a Level 1 home. Deep-Insight dominance logged in open-questions.
• 2026-08-04: Created as a first draft. Fills the roster seat left by the deprecated Warden. All numbers and Specialties [PLAYTEST].