Rampager's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer

Rampager's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer sits on the table like a snapped-off tide that stayed, a slender thing of old drift and bright intent. The frame is carved from soft driftwood, its grain running in wavelike ripples that glow faintly where the lamplight hits. The wood wears a satin sheen, warm to the touch, as if the ocean itself had lacquered it with a breath of salt. A pale aquamarine core sits at the heart, a crystal that catches every shaded corner and throws back a cooler blue with every tilt of the hand. Around the grip, fine runes are etched with a patient blade, spirals and droplets that seem to swirl when you peer too long. A rough leather thong threads through a carved notch, suggesting this focus has swung from ship deck to market stall, always ready for the next horizon. Its appearance is a study in paradox: the wood is soft and forgiving, yet the piece feels tempered by long nights at sea, as if storms themselves lent their patience to its creation. The Hydromancer suffix hints at a lineage, a purpose forged by water-wielders who learned to coax memory from a wave. Lore, whispered among traders and old-timer sailors, suggests the focus was shaped by a rampager whose path threaded through reefs and wrecks, a figure who learned to bend a gale into a guiding current. The hydromancer’s craft—the way water remembers, shifts, and returns—seems to live in the focus’s blue glow. Touch the core and you feel a pulse, the pulse of tides, of currents moving unseen beneath the surface. In the hands of a practiced elementalist, this focus becomes more than a talisman; it is a tool that folds the world’s weather into a steady thread. The Rampager's Soft Wood Focus of the Hydromancer channels water attunement with a quiet economy: it sharpens the efficiency of hydro-based arts, heightening the healing cadence, widening the protective shield, and giving the user a subtler control over how droplets and currents spread through the field. It doesn’t shout; it waits for the moment to release a measured spray or a curling bank of mist. Placed with a Rampager’s set—built for brisk, forceful offense—the focus helps balance the push of raw power with the inevitability of the sea’s pull. It’s the kind of artifact that makes a storm feel possible to steer, if you know the language of water and will it into line. On the market, the Saddlebag Exchange hums with a low, steady bargaining. Traders lean in, eyes narrowing as the glassy surface of the focus catches a flash of blue and a rumor of demand. A broker will tell you the going rate sits around a gold or two, occasionally dipping when a storm of other wares floods the stalls, occasionally rising when a Hydromancer’s circle needs a trusted focus. I watched a young buyer haggle, naming a price; the vendor countered with a smile, tapping the soft wood and offering a trade that sang of both copper coins and silver threads. In the end, it wasn’t just a price that changed hands, but a story—the memory of water, tethered to driftwood, ready to be carried forward by whoever buys it. So the focus rests again, glowing with a calm, blue-lit resolve, as if listening for the next call of the tide, waiting for the next traveler who believes in steering weather with a patient hand and a calm breath.