Calder

Partner: Hosea Best Friends: Jude, Theo, Omri Relatives: Nachum, Diana Elemental Alignment: Shadow Alignment: Chaotic Good MBTI Type: INTP Theme Song: The Man Who Sold the World Name meaning: Likely Scottish. "Rough waters."

Pronouns: He/Him/His Role: Cursebreaking Professor, Archivist Likes: Sweets, old stuff, organization Dislikes: Laziness, feeling unhelpful, new technologies Hobbies: Piano, baking, arts-and-crafts Hoard: Antiques "A person should always view himself as if the entire world depends on him."

A brilliant, skilled cursebreaker, Calder prefers to call himself an "archivist." What he means is that certain items, especially old and sentimental items, are partial to nasty Shade infestations and collections of dark magic, and he's taken it upon himself as his life's work to locate these items and neutralize them. As he's gotten older and unable to take down these magical infestations like he used to, Calder's accepted that he might need to adjust to a bit of a quieter life, though how "quiet" his life could ever be is quite the question. As one of Home's associate professors, he's taken quite the shine to his students in Helheim Hall, and is very protective of his family.

- Biography
Calder hatched in the Tangled Wood, but he says he didn't really grow up anywhere. He hatched an orphan, and he bounced from orphanage to orphanage and from Flight to Flight. His magic developed quickly and prodigiously, and he quickly outgrew his teachers wherever he wound up. Acknowledged as a magical prodigy before he'd even grown into his wings, he also got a bit of a big head along with his growing talent. He is a very successful cursebreaker, extremely skilled in dispelling dark magic, and he has amassed a massive collection of cursed objects, which he affectionately refers to as "the archives." He wound up at Home quite by accident, but he's glad he did. Along with taking on a few cursebreaking apprentices, he's been able to settle down with a family of his own, something he never thought he'd be lucky enough to have.

- Life at Home
A dragon who's not great with formality, Calder is usually known by his nickname, Aldie, by his family, his friends, and his students. He's a little uptight and high-strung but never stiff or intimidating, and his students warm up to him quickly. Aldie most enjoys working with gifted pupils, but he loves teaching younger residents the basics of the trade as well, making him a very versatile professor who can enjoy pretty much any class. An expert in jinxes, hexes, curses, and just about any other type of dark magic you can think of, Aldie's classes also include classes on magical nullification and amplification (he's the only professor to specialize in this very difficult branch of magic). He can't be coerced into teaching classes on them, but he loves baking and playing the piano, and he's been known to take on a few piano students at a time, and his cookies are sought-after delicacies at Home's functions.

- Relationships
Not a very approachable dragon but one who is likable and endearing in his own way, Calder is beloved by Helheim Hall students, by his family, and by his friends on the faculty board. Though he's somewhat selective with the students he accepts into his advanced classes, he's very close with his two most gifted pupils, Armoni and Chadwick, and trusts them not only to help him with new cases but also enough to send them on their own for easier cases. Aldie believes that cursebreaking is a poorly-respected art, and he sees it as his duty to train up the next generation to be better than he was. When he's not teaching, Aldie loves spending time with his husband Hosea, their son Nachum, and their daughter Diana. Aldie and Hosea are both dragons who tend to be workaholics, and they count on each other to remind themselves to take some downtime. Their friends say that Hosea and Aldie were simply made for each other, with Hosea softening Aldie's rough edges and Aldie keeping Hosea grounded. The two dote on their two adopted kids, and although Aldie can be a bit on the protective side, he knows his Nachum's magical skill will outstrip his own one day and is training Diana to be a cursebreaker like him one day, though his protectiveness can sometimes get on her nerves. Aldie's slow to trust and very wary by nature, which can make other dragons slow to warm up to him, but once he does trust you, he's loyal to an absolute fault. One of his more surprising hobbies is a deep love of gaudy arts-and-crafts, and Hosea says his bedazzler is probably in his top three favourite possessions. Both his kids and Armoni and Chadwick own much-treasured headlamps and other cursebreaking tools with their names lovingly bedazzled on them by Aldie.

- Personality
Calder is a dragon who has loved and lost plenty, and he can be overly secretive and wary. When they first met, Hosea told him that he'd never seen a dragon who keeps secrets as compulsively as Aldie does. Used to being ridiculed for his profession, he's still working on being able to open up about what he does and the items in his archives, but nothing makes him happier than telling interested students his stories. Often coming across as gruff and irritable, he's often lost inside his own head and has trouble breaking himself out of his thoughts. He has a many-track mind and is always thinking, if only in the back of his mind, about whatever new puzzle he needs to solve. Aldie has trouble maintaining a work-life balance, and would easily work himself to death given half a chance. A very protective dragon by nature, he often worries over the dragons he feels responsible for, and though he won't say it in as many words, he really cares about them - even if he only shows it when he's nagging at them to eat more. He's finally getting comfortable with passing on the torch to his cursebreaking students, and though he's devoted his life to helping keep Sornieth safe, he's content with doing his part as a professor to protect and better this little slice of Sornieth he's got.