A human wizard who approaches the arcane with enough confidence to sometimes outpace his own caution. Divination gives him Portent — the ability to roll dice at dawn and slot predetermined results into moments that matter. This did not help him during the Shadow Road crossing, when a fireball of his own making briefly ended his participation in the journey. He was revived. His companions noted, with the restraint of people who have been through a lot together, that Portent applies to others’ dice, not to consequences one has authored.
At the Shadow Fey palace, Aldric faced the accounting for that fireball directly. Summoned before King Mago over the destroyed wardstone, he did not deflect or apologize his way through it — he inspected the damage, understood what the stone actually was, and repaired it. Improved it. Ten-Pound Hammer accepted the work. This is the best possible outcome from a problem you caused yourself, and Aldric reached it through exactly the scholarly instinct that made the problem possible in the first place.
The appointment as Reader of the Lower Court was not something Aldric sought, but he carried it. When Billoc the mute goblin stood accused of theft with his hands bound — rendered voiceless in the most literal way by a system apparently uninterested in his defense — Aldric saw the problem clearly. Free the hands, hear the testimony, find the absence of proof. It is the kind of legal reasoning that requires less cleverness than simple attention, and Aldric paid it. Billoc walked free. In a court where status is everything, Aldric arrived this session deep in debt and leaves it at seven, which suggests he is beginning to understand what this place actually rewards.