So here's the dilemma, My party lacks an arcane spellcaster. One of my pcs plans on hiring one to accompany them, with the intent to eventually take them as a cohort with leadership. Other than the Bard Amekio, are there any other spellcasters that appear in the campaign who arent evil and villany?
Some groups have recruited Lyrie. The guy in charge of the Turandarok Academy is a wizard; you could bring him out of retirement. You could also make Brodert Quink a wizard and serve as both caster and Exposition Man. Or just invent someone.
Never thought of Lyrie. Most likely though she won't survive my group. Inventing someone is probably most likely but my players were interested in someone who actually had some attachment to the campaign.
Making Brodert Quink a wizard is actually an interesting thing to do, but puts you at risk of losing him, then making it harder for the party to find information on Thassilon until they reach Mokmurian's library (in FotSG).
Otherwise, may I suggest one of the NPCs I've created for my S&S group as a possible cohort? Her name is Gaige Firehair, she's a gnome conjurer freshly graduated from Korvosa's academy and her passion is for ancient empires (Ghol-Gan in my campaign, but it's easily changed to Thassilon). She's very talkative and curious.