Mages and Sages

The position of mages in Aerdy is an important one. There are fewer independent mages here than elsewhere. Education is mostly restricted to the children of privi leged families, and thus many mages are nobles and landholders and have alliances within their royal houses. Also, landholders generally do their best to recruit and maintain mages within their households. The Aerdi have too strong a recollection of the importance of mages in warfare, and they struggle to make sure they have some wizards of their own.

Given the increasing strife of the Great Kingdom under the House of Naelax, local rulers will go to some lengths to "persuade" mages to join their service.

Also, wizards of Aerdy tend to specialize in aggressive magic, being specialist invokers, conjurers, and necro mancers. Obviously, this is not always so. However, the long history of combat mages tends to channel both the training of apprentices. Obscure, arcane, and subtle magic—the arts and crafts of the illusionist or the enchanter—are not so highly regarded. Expert diviners are an exception, since they are valued as spies.

One consequence of all this is that sagacious and learned societies of wizards are very few and far between in Aerdy. This is not the place to come if one seeks wizards steeped in arcane lore.

Likewise, sages tend to specialize in more pragmatic areas of research. This is exemplified by an exchange between a naive student attending the University of Rauxes, who asked a friendly-looking old sage who was the resident expert on myconids and intelligent fungal life. The sage's reply was, "Stuff fungi! I've got a new explosive powder to test. Get out of my way." Sages in Aerdy cities will be more likely than usual (add 10-20% to Dungeon Master's Guide Table 61, page 107) to have the following fields of study as areas of expertise: Alchemy, Astrology, Chemistry, Cryptography, Engineering, and Geology. They are less likely (subtract 5-20% from same table) to have the following as areas of expertise: Art, Metaphysics (save for the Nine Hells), Music, Myconol ogy, Philosophy, and Sociology.

There are no sage groups akin to the Sagacious Society of Nyrond in Aerdy.