Patricius

Patricius was the Head of Sewers and Waterways and the city comptroller for the City of Neverwinter. Tasked with managing the sprawling subterranean infrastructure of the Jewel of the North, his administrative career was ultimately compromised by a severe gambling addiction that led to illicit alliances, abduction, and his eventual demise.

The Gentleman’s Agreement and the Ring

To mitigate his heavy financial losses, Patricius forged a long-standing, quiet arrangement with Anthony “the Gentleman” Calloway, a prominent half-orc crime lord who operated the Cha-Ching casino in the Beggar’s Nest slums. In exchange for having his gambling debts paid off, Patricius granted the Gentleman’s syndicate secret passage and access through the city’s vast sewer system.

Several years before his disappearance, Patricius acquired a magical ring from a wizard. Rather than paying manual laborers to regulate the city’s aqueducts, he utilized this ring—identified as the Ring of Control Water Elementals—to enslave a water elemental, forcing it to control the sewer water levels at no cost. The pale, opal-blue band granted its wearer command over water elementals, the ability to walk on liquid, breathe underwater, swim at full speed, and cast water and ice spells, such as control water.

Disappearance and Fate

Patricius went missing along with his magical ring. Without his oversight and the ring’s magic to bind the elemental, Neverwinter’s sewer water levels became highly volatile and rose dangerously, causing a loud, echoing rushing sound deep within the subterranean tunnels. Realizing the city’s waterways were failing, the Gentleman—who was short-handed due to wartime conscriptions—offered to trade vital political secrets about the compromised Neverwinter council in exchange for Patricius’s safe return and the recovery of the ring.

A group of adventurers tracked Patricius into the sewers, only to discover he had been captured by Luskan Pirates. Although the adventurers successfully defeated the pirates and the water elemental, Patricius was killed during the skirmish. His ring was recovered, but the Head of Sewers could not be saved.

Aftermath

Desiring to keep the powerful Ring of Control Water Elementals, the adventurers concealed it within a bag of holding and returned only Patricius’s corpse to Anthony Calloway at the Cha-Ching Club. They fabricated a story claiming that the Luskanites had killed the comptroller and made off with the ring. The Gentleman accepted this deception, offering the party half of the promised reward and directing them to Talis the White, who was currently imprisoned.