Commander Aldric Fenshaw

Human (M) | Age 38 | Commander, 2nd Company, Bergstadt City Militia

Appearance

Aldric is the kind of man who looks exactly like what he is — broad through the chest, clean-shaven, with the permanently sun-browned complexion of someone who runs drills outdoors regardless of weather. He keeps his dark brown hair short and his uniform immaculate. He is objectively handsome in a blunt, uncomplicated way and is entirely unaware of it, which most people find either refreshing or suspicious.

He walks like someone who expects to be where he's going. Not arrogantly — just with the settled certainty of a man who has never had serious cause to doubt himself. So far.

Personality

Aldric is straightforward, organized, and genuinely believes in the institution he serves. He is not naive — he knows the council is corrupt and the militia underfunded — but he has decided that doing the job well within a flawed system is more useful than burning it down. This puts him in quiet, persistent tension with Commander Vornkrecht, whose ledger he knows exists and whose philosophy he half-agrees with and half-fears.

He is well-liked by his troops in a different way than Edda is liked by hers. They respect her. They'd follow him into a fire because he'd already be in it.

Ideal: A soldier's honor is the only thing the council can't tax. Bond: He made a promise to a dying soldier under his command three years ago. He has been quietly keeping it ever since and told no one. Flaw: He believes people are fundamentally decent until proven otherwise. He has been proven otherwise more times than he'd like and keeps resetting.

Background

Aldric was born to a minor merchant family that lost most of its money during a trade dispute before he was ten. He joined the militia at sixteen, lied about his age with the kind of confidence that only works when you're already built like a wall, and never looked back. He made sergeant at twenty-four, lieutenant at thirty, and was given the 2nd Company three years ago.

He got the posting partly on merit and partly because the council wanted a commander in the 2nd who they thought they could manage. They have found him polite, cooperative, and completely immovable on anything that actually matters.

His relationship with Commander Vornkrecht is complicated. They share a genuine mutual respect built on years of working adjacent to each other, a similar view on what the militia is actually for, and a fundamental disagreement about methods that neither of them has ever fully articulated out loud. They get along better than either of them admits.

Skills & Notable Traits

• Tactical Instinct: Advantage on Initiative rolls; proficiency in all martial weapons and medium armor
• Rally: Once per short rest, as a bonus action, allies within 30 ft. who can hear him gain 1d8 temporary HP
• Read the Room: Proficiency in Insight; he is harder to deceive than he looks
• The Merchant's Son: Proficiency in Persuasion; he understands money, contracts, and how people talk around what they mean

Relationship with Edda Vornkrecht

The two commanders share a jurisdictional boundary that has never been formally drawn, which is a source of low-grade friction that both of them prefer to the alternative of having the council draw it for them. They have an informal arrangement — she handles the lower wards and long-standing problems, he handles the commercial districts and incoming trouble — that works until it doesn't.

Edda thinks he's too willing to assume good faith. He thinks she's been carrying the ledger so long it's become a weight she can't put down. Neither has said this directly. Both know the other knows.

They have a standing arrangement to share a drink on the first Tenday of each month at a tavern equidistant from both their stations. They have missed it only twice in three years — once when the city was on fire (literally) and once when they had a disagreement significant enough that neither of them showed up and neither mentioned it afterward.

Hooks & Complications

• The Promise: The soldier who died three years ago had a daughter placed in an orphanage. Aldric has been anonymously paying for her care. She is nine years old and has recently started asking questions about her benefactor.
• Council Pressure: A merchant councilman has been subtly suggesting that the 2nd Company's patrol routes could be adjusted for mutual benefit. Aldric has been politely declining for four months. The suggestions are becoming less subtle.
• Kyo's Shadow: One of Aldric's most reliable informants — a dockworker who passes him word of smuggling operations — has, unbeknownst to Aldric, been managed by Sylvara for over a year. The information is real. The informant is also being used to keep Aldric looking in specific directions and not others.
• The Line: Aldric has never crossed a moral line in his career. He is beginning to suspect that someone has been very carefully ensuring he's never had to — that his clean record has been managed. He doesn't know who or why, and the thought sits badly with him at night.

Stat Block (5e, CR 5)

Use the Veteran stat block (MM p. 350) with the following changes:

• HP: 95
• AC: 17 (chain mail + shield)
• Skills: Athletics +6, Insight +5, Intimidation +4, Persuasion +5
• Rally (Recharge 5–6): As a bonus action, up to three allies within 30 ft. gain 1d8+3 temporary HP
• Soldier's Resolve: When reduced to 0 HP, Aldric can make a DC 15 Constitution save. On a success he drops to 1 HP instead. Once per long rest.

"Vornkrecht keeps a list of every wrong done in this city. I keep a shorter one — the things I'm going to do about it." — Commander Fenshaw, to a militia recruit