PROLEGOMENON

ALDRICH MONTGOMERY

Aldrich Montgomery (not to be confused with Morgana) is a young human living in UV-00282 Liverpool.

They keep their light brown hair neatly parted, and well trimmed in the back, ending it just above their shoulders. Aldrich's eye color is green, and they wear square-shaped darker green glasses to help them see. Their skin is slightly tanned, and their face is square shaped, though rounded a bit. They're usually wearing a striped purple button-up shirt, gray slacks, and purple shoes.

Their screen name is their real name, 'Aldrich M.', and they type in a very proper style. Their avatar is a silhouette of a wizard hat, with a star in the middle cut out.

When their friend Diego Suaviter's birthday hits in late 2020, their friends make a mobile game that takes the players to another universe. This leads to the events of PROLEGOMENON, where Aldrich is the next player in after Rhett Miller and Reed Miller.

PERSONALITY

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Aldrich has a very proper air to them, given their lavish upbringing in a well-off family. Even online, they type with proper case, punctuation, and grammar - and are always quick to correct others for any misuse of large words. They're quick to bend when pressed, making them come off as kind of meek and a bit wimpy. This isn't helped by their interest in TTRPGs, fantasy settings, and MMORPGs, which they're always happy to babble people's ears off about if given the chance. When it comes to social skills, Aldrich has mastered the art of being polite, though they flounder when it comes to genuine connection. Despite this, Aldrich does have a few close friends, such as Amada Trejo and Diego Suaviter, the latter of whom they have a crush on.

They spend a lot of their free time offline LARPing in their local fantasy scene, and they use a lot of their funds on building carefully detailed cosplays of their favorite characters. Aldrich tends to be a little bit timid, and has trouble speaking up directly about their wants and needs. They're still capable of being pretty catty when they want to be, though, especially if they know they won't experience any sort of consequences for their words.

Aldrich has a lot of complexes around their sexuality and gender identity, which makes them experience a lot of guilt about their feelings towards Diego. During the course of PROLEGOMENON, their pronouns change to they/them strictly, and their identity goes from being a nonbinary man to a nonbinary woman.

TIMELINE

Pre-PROLEGOMENON

Born as the only child to their parents, Aldrich has a silver spoon in their mouth from the moment they come home from the hospital. Their parents are two very successful lawyers, whose biggest client is Cherry Thaxton's family company - leading to Aldrich and Cherry meeting and becoming friends very early in life. As Aldrich grows older, they gain an interest in fantasy roleplay, and meet Sofia Suaviter through an online forum.

After being added to the group, Aldrich introduces their own MMORPG guild to the party - Dina Becher and Jesse Lakatos, who would become additions to the group eventually as well. Sometime around this point, Aldrich and Amada start dating as well, though this relationship does not last very long at all. Their breakup is very amicable, and Aldrich and Amada remain close.

When Aldrich becomes an adult, they get a job working a desk jockey position at their parent's legal firm. In their downtime, they start working on building little mechanical robot things, which they then toss Cherry's way to program. Some of these projects are fun, though most are just idle work to keep hands busy.

PROLEGOMENON

SPOILER

RELATIONSHIPS

Diego Suaviter

Aldrich has a big crush on Diego, which they feel incredibly predatory for at the beginning of PROLEGOMENON. While they have trouble figuring out the reason why they feel so bad, they're able to ignore it somewhat when they spend time with Diego, so they try their best to hang out with it as much as they can. The two have a habit of staying up all night, playing video games together in the quiet, just enjoying each other's company.

SPOILER

Amada Trejo

The two used to date, and their relationship - while over - ended on good terms for both of them. Amada's always been very supportive of Aldrich, which they appreciate. They're glad that they didn't drift apart after breaking up, and they aren't sure where they'd be without Amada's good friendship. They do their best to look out for her in turn.

SPOILER

Dina Becher

While they had known Dina for a long time (longer than most other members of the friend group, to be honest), they never really reached out to it often or talked to it in any substantial way outside of their late night MMORPG sessions. They're kind of intimidated by Dina, though as they grow closer to it through PROLEGOMENON's events, they understand why it's so closed off and try to meet it in the middle.

By the end of the comic, Aldrich has helped Dina out tremendously, and the two are good friends when the story finishes.

Cherry Thaxton

They've known Cherry almost their whole life, as the two were playmates even as toddlers. Cherry knows exactly which buttons to push to get under Aldrich's skin, and they feel mew pushes them a little too often. However, at the end of the day, they're glad to know Cherry, and find mew's dedication to mew's projects almost inspiring.

Someday, they hope, they'll be able to wrangle Cherry into taking at least one of these fantasy games seriously. They think mew would be a perfect rogue.

The Players

Aldrich has a polite and amicable relationship maintained with the rest of the players, and has no qualms DMing other members of the friend group. While they aren't exactly bosom buddies with everyone else in there, they still know people well enough to be able to read what they'll think or respond to things with.

They try to keep people coordinated and focused, though with limited results - they don't exactly command respect from everyone.

TRIVIA

Aldrich's parents being lawyers is a background lifted from an old concept for Arthur Taron of Deadheading.

They are a vegetarian by choice, and find eating meat to be nauseating to them.

Despite how proper and polished they present themself, Aldrich truly believes magic is real with their whole heart.