Eldrich the Elder

One of the oldest people on the Orathi island, residing inside the inner-city Palisade of Gwyndinas among the war effort's most-protected. He is hiring a small, elite group (4–8 fighters) to attempt to slay one of Laewendas's inner circle — and has interviewed and rejected many groups already, wanting only the "cream of the crop" of infiltrators and fighters. A patron, a potential signatory of the party's Palisade leaving-papers, and the session's major new plot hook.

(Canonical name: "Eldrich the Elder" — a different person from King Aethelric, the rightful King of Rivalon whom Laewendas murdered with his own sword in 1357. Our older notes wrongly conflated the two by titling this note "Aethelric the Elder"; the filename is kept to avoid breaking Sessions 17–44 links, but the man is Eldrich, and in-session NPCs who address him as "Aethelric" (e.g. Mindel at the bridge) are using the wrong name. See Canon Questions.)

Session 17

• Surfaced as a lead when Draak walked up to the inner-city gate looking for signatures; the elite Inner Guard Rowan (whom Drak renames "Ruin") offered the Elder as someone who could both use the party and sign their papers.
• His standing job: hire a capable group to kill one of Laewendas's inner circle; he gauges each group's worth before committing them.
• Draak signed the party up unseen and arranged for Eldrich to watch their next arena fight to judge them; sent the carved party figurines along as a preview "so he can see what he has." Not yet met in person.

Session 18

• The party debated whether he's honest or "trying to manipulate us for his own gains," decided he "seems like a guy that's got the heart in the right place," and took the job.
• The task firmed up — not an arena audition but a sewer errand: descend into the Gwyndinas Sewers to find a mad scientist and buy a blood-related "experiment" for Eldrich, which would make him "a player in the game" (and advance the party toward killing one of Laewendas's inner circle).
• He accompanied the expedition into the sewers in person (Silithane buffed him; "elder to elder" coordination throughout the run), alongside two allied squires from the Session 17 arena draw (Braille and Jallic). The scientist was not reached this session.

Session 19

• Not seen on-screen, but his checkbook closed the deal: the party reached the scientist Dr. Provostinalkov and bought, on Eldrich's behalf, his first sample — revealed to be a Shard of the Autark, the god-slaying material, not the "blood experiment" or anti-aging cure variously assumed. The doctor took everything Eldrich owns (his entire bank account) for it.
• The real product is ~1–2 months from ready; Thalia holds the purchase receipt (and a failed sample shard). The errand counts as ~¾ done — a 1-pip reward, to be formally handed in at the milkshake shop.
• Open question: what an "oldest man on the island" wants with a weapon that can kill the last surviving god (the All-Flame Queen).

Session 21

• The deal closes. At a booth-restaurant lunch he takes the scientist's receipt and the failed Shard of the Autark flake, thrilled — "this has bought much time." Arrives with a bodyguard, Squire Faethlyn, and hands each PC a tub of butterscotch ice cream.
• Three plans laid out: stay in the capital as a fixer/spymaster sending the party jobs; or lead a caravan out to found an Outskirts base (he floats Giffield or Twin Falls, 30–40 miles south of Cathalon); a third plan held back. He's now homeless and chooses to leave.
• Offers to find the party's missing mothers (Magra's mother Vianola Greysong; Thalia's Veilwood mother) by shaking his contacts; declines to formally punish the Venatori who conscripted Lash when she says she's content.
• Won over on the changeling. Told privately about the released changeling and shown its thoughts via Silithane's coin, he resolves to track it down and ally with it through a Varian spy network — and to keep the Shard secret from the Reclamation's suspected traitor.
• Panics at the Varian angle: on hearing the dead lab-intruder was Varian ("Franz Sands Aylwater"), he realizes Varia knows about the doctor and rushes off to extract him at once — successfully. Reappears at Keraford leading the ~15-person caravan the party crosses the wall with.
• Leads the caravan beyond the Palisade in travel armor, having picked up the obvious Varian spy Tycho ("we'll play along"), the navigator Durahan, and the twin sisters Liv & Viv. Refuses to discuss the secret base location in the open ("fear the ears in the trees").
• The journey ends on the Mindel Cromelon bridge ambush, her name muttered with grudging respect.

Session 22

• Talks his way off the bridge. Buys time from Mindel, lays the party's options out plainly, reveals that three of his carts are decoy trash while the scientist's cart "we cannot spare," challenges her to an honorable duel (refused), and bargains a three-cart toll — losing only garbage while Liv & Viv save the scientist's cart by sleight of hand.
• Visibly wounded when Mindel claims his "slain" children are alive; Faethlyn has to steady him.
• Still won't commit to a base — leaves it between Giffield (his favorite, a small farming community), Marmoth, and others near Cathalon; "as long as I'm in striking distance."
• Can't enter the Keep Grow Inn (a famous anti-Laewendas knight would start a brawl), so waits with the parked caravan; takes Jex into the caravan when the militia troop trades her over. Ends the session having lost his only healer (Tycho, killed at the inn).

Session 29

• Reached by Sending. Off-screen since the party vanished into the cave, he's pinged at breakfast by Valmora's 25-word Sending. True to his M.O., he won't reveal his location to "a mysterious voice," but is glad they're alive and says their orders wait where they last met him.
• His caravan made what was meant to be a one-day stop but is reckoned to wait a couple more days, trusting the party to return.

Session 32

• The caravan has reached Ponterford — his horses are tied at the town crossroads and his people (Squire Faethlyn, Liv & Viv) are gathered at the Speak Loudly tavern. The party means to "grill Eldrich on his plans," but he isn't run on-screen this session (the GM lacked his notes). His name is also a running joke — the company's "Aethelric Trading Company" and the Local Bard's threat to compare Jex to "Aethelric" as the height of insufferable nobility.
• A personal tie to Valmora surfaces: she once performed his family's funerary rites (for kin assumed dead in the evacuation, no bodies) and knew her own late husband through him. The party shelves, for now, Valmora's offer to use her once-a-year Speak with Dead to learn whether his "dead" family yet lives.
• His travelling companion the sewer scientist Dr. Provostinalkov is floated as someone who could cut the party's anti-magic meteorite.

Session 38

• Reached by Silithane's Sending at the Speak Loudly (planning attacks on Laewendas's generals over a flag-pinned map of Rivalon, the scientist still well hidden), he agrees to lend blades for the Guardian hunt — "my fighting days have long passed; I've entered my thinking era." He sends two squires, Rowaine and Faethlyn, and sets a test: the party is to tell him which fought better, so he can reward one and punish the other ("I wouldn't want to taint your judgment").

Session 41 (mentioned)

• A ghoul's character reference. The party oaths to vouch the Ghoul of Gythfield into the Reclamation through Eldrich — "a well-known man" who "gets around" — though Thalia warns the Reclamation may still try the ghoul for his tax-collecting. The GM renders the appeal "Aldric, father of Aethelric," a fresh garble of the name.

Session 44

• The war council, on-screen at last. Over a flag-and-chess-piece strategy table (the Speak Loudly closed for privacy), he lays out the next operation: in ~16 days the party travels with him to topple the warband barbarian Knucklebones, who holds Lambert's Crossing — the most fortifiable city in Rivalon, and the one place Laewendas could retreat to and "turn one war into two."
• The route. Up the River Pontar road, then off-road through the great woods north of Cathalon, to the mining town of the Menaggles — replanning from there. Wants to visit a grove on the party's map (he copies their annotations, having not known several sites existed).
• Hands off Ornston Keep. Warns the party not to attack Ornston Keep, whose honour-bound knight serves whoever wears the crown — a valuable future ally once Laewendas falls. Again names Euphemia Fayeth as the mind-twister he won't try to out-strategize, and didn't recognize the "Dr. Vector Volt" / lightning-blood-scientist annotation Thalia floated. Still needs weeks to move "certain people" out of Gwyndinas unseen.

Session 45

• On the road at last. Leads the caravan out of Ponterford on the 16th of New Summer, bound up the river road and into the great woods toward the Menagoles; offers the party first rank "to pierce the first line of defences," riding mid-pack reading a book on horseback behind his knights, Faethlyn, Rowan and the recovering Pavid.
• Leads them to shelter night one — a "predestined" abandoned house off the road — and, day two, lets the party peel off on Clover's undead side-quest, the slow caravan taking the road while the fast-moving party catches up.
• Adds to his to-do list that the party "actually has two horses (bought by Draak)" to name and give personalities.

Session 48 (off-screen)

• Arrived at the Menagoles. His caravan reached the Menagoles ~a week ahead of the party; not met on-screen, but the party spots one of his hired escorts standing guard at the central fountain (recognised from Ponterford), confirming he's here. They defer the reunion as "a downtime activity."
• A shadow of suspicion. Back at New Halfwood, Thanhold's question about who betrayed King Aethelric 40+ years ago — a traitor who'd be ~60 now — leads the party to half-joke that "we only know one old man," i.e. Eldrich. No evidence, but a seed planted; ties to the still-open question of his relationship to the dead King Aethelric.

Session 49 — the war council in person

• Met on-screen at the Menagoles. He has built a hidden war-council base in the back of the Tapped Clapper (off the toilet corridor) — figurine map-table, locked strongbox, hidden cabinet, war-tactics shelves and a bed — guarded by Pavid, with the Doctor (Dr. Provostinalkov) he keeps hidden finally emerging now it's "safe."
• The plan. Make the Menagoles a secure landing point to skirmish the warband barbarian Knucklebones outside Lambert's Crossing ("cut the head off one of Laewendas's snake generals") and — emphatically, four times over — investigate the sealed mines, whose "orcs burnt it" cover story he distrusts. Prefers to deliver plans "all at once to all six" rather than piecemeal.
• The town intel. Relays the vanishing blacksmiths (and a smith's wife) and alchemist, the jail's long-held political prisoner, the food-flow clue, and the recent murder — but won't dig into them piecemeal.
• The Helmnack sigil. Recognises the crest Magra draws (from the Session 47 grove skeleton) as the Helmnack family's craft, and names the missing blacksmith Horonir Helmnack, a lesser noble of a line that anciently claimed one of the Tors.