Aldric Wynthrop

Aldric Wynthrop leads House Wynthrop in Elmet and holds the title of Arddunor of Rhyfmarc. His family maintains several ancestral ties to the southern kingdom of Gewisse and to the older Kingdom of Wuffa, although they rarely speak of the latter connection because of the dark stories surrounding Wuffa's former nobility. Arddunor Aldric heads a group of nobles who do not share the idealism of Elmet's ruling family and often argue for more pragmatic policies. While it is understood that Aldric and House Wynthrop drive this bloc, they seldom act openly. Aldric prefers to work through intermediaries and pawns, imagining himself a grandmaster of chess who moves pieces on a board only he can see and understand.

Early Life

House Wynthrop has held power for generations, and Aldric was born into immense privilege. His father and uncles ruled most of southern Elmet, and in Rhyfmarc he was treated as little less than a crown prince. His father, Robert Wynthrop, ensured that Aldric had every resource available as he grew, and demanded an education that surpassed even that given to Elmet's heir, Cadwgan ap Llywarch. Indulgence did not mean leniency. Robert held his son to a demanding standard and expected him to speak intelligently on any subject without warning. He arranged frequent tests of Aldric's ability to solve complex problems and personally trained him in strategy, drawing on his own years commanding the southern border defenses. Aldric's youth carried a constant sense of precarity; he could have anything, yet risked everything if he failed to meet his father's expectations.

Aldric thrived under this pressure and mastered every skill and challenge set before him. He became an accomplished strategist and spent many years in direct command of the southern border. In his late twenties he turned his attention to finance, partly as an intellectual challenge and partly as a quiet rebellion against the disdain many Elmetian nobles held for merchants. He viewed the royal family as condescending and self-righteous, and his entrance into mercantile ventures was a deliberate rejection of their belief that only the base and vulgar would concern themselves with coin. He discovered that running a merchant network was no more difficult than managing a military force and soon became the wealthiest man in Elmet, and one of the wealthiest on the island of Ynys.

Leader of the Opposition

In the last five years Aldric has turned his attention to politics. His dislike of the royal family's idealism has grown steadily, and he now seeks to guide the nation along a different path, one defined more by the future than by a glorification of the past. To that end he has placed himself at the center of Elmet's political scene and works to weaken the power of the Brenin in subtle but so far non-treasonous ways. His chief accomplishment has been to gather nobles who share his views and give them a coherent framework for expressing their position. Under his influence they no longer appear dissolute or without honor, but forward thinking and practical. He has reshaped the alternative to the Brenin's code of honor and made it socially acceptable in Caer Brenin to voice a different perspective.

So far Brenin Cadwgan ap Llywarch has found no effective way to counter Aldric's maneuvering. He has always treated adherence to Elmet's founding ideals as self evident and has never needed to defend them, except against foreign powers on the battlefield. Aldric's quiet reframing leaves him without a field on which to fight. He simply finds that his influence at court and within the Awenyddion, Elmet's great council, has diminished. Although he knows Aldric is responsible for this shift in power, he cannot trace the threads the Arddunor of Rhyfmarc is pulling to achieve his goals.