Sage: spending years learning the lore of the multiverse. Scouring manuscripts, studing scrolls, and listening to the greatest experts on their subjects.
Squalid. You live in a leaky stable, a mud-floored hut just outside town, or a vermin-infested boarding house in the worst part of town. You have shelter from the elements, but you live in a desperate and violent Environment, in places rife with disease.