The Lost Hydromancer of Neverwinter

I play in a number of D&D games.  I currently act as a player in two games while serving as Dungeon Master in two other games.  The two games I run as DM are actually interconnected: one game follows the story of a group of ne'er-do-wells in Neverwinter (or, perhaps, Ne'erwinter?) while the other game involves a sort of mercenary company operating out of Waterdeep, the Waterdeep Adventurer's Guild.  I will admit that I have big plans, including at least one absurd cross-over episode.  I have never had the opportunity to have two groups play off of each other and, as it goes, this has been working out reasonably well.

The Neverwinter group recently completed their first big "adventure," the Lost Crown of Neverwinter, written by Erik Scott de Bie.  As a D&D Encounters DM, I have access to all of this pre-generated content.  One of the characters written into the adventure was a genasi hydromancer: Len-Jes, Minister of Trade.  The party first meets Len-Jes at the Beached Leviathan, where she keeps her residence.  Although their involvement with her was minimal, she was an interesting enough character to keep around.  I must really thank Erik for filling that Encounters season with a number of characters that have the opportunity to really stand out in the story.

After the Encounters adventure concluded, the party had another opportunity to meet Len-Jes at a formal party thrown in their honor (for the Heroes of Neverwinter!).  An invasion by undead monsters quickly erupted and the group ran off to find the source.  Due to some schedule conflicts, the fellow playing the party's wizard (a swamp Dryad trained in the art of necromancy who had developed a flirtatious relationship with Len-Jes) would not be available for a few months.  I decided it would be an interesting opportunity to get a friend who had been really interested in playing a chance to play for a few sessions.  To that end, I decided to craft Len-Jes as a player character:

Len-Jes, Master of Trade of Neverwinter.

Wizards have busy character cards.

Now, when Lost Crown of Neverwinter came out, I read the description of Len-Jes and assumed that "hydromancer" was something that would come out in time, much like the pyromancer had via Dragon articles.  I never worried much about it.  Maybe it would be in Heroes of the Elemental Chaos, I figured.  Nearly a year later, with no hydromancer in sight, I found myself somewhat befuddled as I tried to create a hydromancer that fit with what had already been established.

I worked with a friend to try and determine what would best fit as "hydromancer."  The elementalist was a bit too limited in scope; I wanted something with more than just two attacks.  In addition, I was bound by the character being a watersoul genasi.  Len-Jes was an established character in the campaign and I would not feel right having her accidentally become a Deva or something similar.  This meant that I would likely have to use an Intelligence based class to build this character effectively.  Unfortunately, although wizard powers were chalk-full of fire powers, water (or, rather, cold) powers were somewhat less developed.

Eventually, I tweaked around with various builds of the Wizard (mage) and Wizard (arcanist).  Strangely enough, there were some interesting discrepancies between power selection which I found strange; certain things just did not appear on both classes.  I also had never noticed that the Mage had a more versatile spellbook than the Arcanist (as the Mage can trade out Encounter powers as well as Daily and Utility powers).  So, the Len-Jes presented here is an Arcanist, although she does have the benefit of the Blackstaff Apprentice theme (for those wondering why she has too many At-Will powers).  It was a bit of a toss-up but I felt like Arcanist just fit a bit better.

So, I present to you Len-Jes, the third level genasi hydromancer and Master of Trade of Neverwinter.  This character is not necessarily an Encounters friendly character (as she is level 3), but is ready for whatever level 3 adventures you have available for her.  Due to the limitations of the character card format, she has lost the versatility of her spellbook.  She was also made using the "Inherent Bonuses" option, as I would prefer to play no other way.  However, she is a convenient, pre-made level 3 character ready for whatever dungeon nonsense awaits her.