House Miriel

House Miriel
Biographical Information
Leader	Karima Miriel
Motto	From shadows, sight.
Homeworld	Alderaan
Members	Trask Riyelle † Elinari Mier † Ensis Miriel † Karima Miriel Byrech Miriel Xenek Miriel † Auri Miriel Euna Miriel Valen Miriel
Affiliation

The lands of House Miriel were situated on the frozen glaciers of the far north of Alderaan. Bordering many polar lakes, the house managed fisheries as its primary source of income, supplementing it with tourism endeavours for fellow nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie. House Miriel was never a particularly wealthy house, as their fief was lacking in natural resources.

History

House Riyelle

Founded more than 3,500 years ago as House Riyelle, prudent governance by the house has allowed them to hold their land through the millenia. They have traditionally sworn fealty to House Thul after its re-emergence as a major house during the Great Galactic War. The founding member, Euthanne Riyelle, was rumored to have been a rogue agent of the Sith Empire who settled on Alderaan after the conclusion of the Second Great Galactic War, and was granted the house's current fiefdom by House Thul for services rendered during the Alderaan Civil War.

Although the house had violent beginnings, House Riyelle soon adapted to Alderaan's generally peaceful society, becoming active participants in the artistic community that was held in high esteem on Alderaan. The house became known for patronizing sculptors, who would traditionally construct their masterpiece using the medium most commonly available on the House Riyelle lands, ice. These masterpieces and any subsequent ice work by the master sculptors were dutifully maintained by Riyelle retainers in a wing of the Riyelle estate, eventually growing to become a museum for ice sculpture.

House Miriel

About 1,500 years after its founding, House Riyelle was embroiled in a dispute that would change its name to its final form. The discovery of a small lommite vein prompted the family to consult the other noble houses about acceptable methods of extracting the mineral. Another northern minor house, House Mier, caught wind of these inquiries and claimed that the lands House Riyelle currently occupied were unlawfully taken by House Thul during the Alderaan Civil War. House Mier was able to secure the backing of House Alde, which had grown increasingly xenophobic, dredging up House Riyelle's Dromund Kaasi origins to highlight the unsuitability of the house to even hold land on Alderaan. In response, House Thul pledged its support to its vassal house, hindering House Mier from pressing its advantage.

The ensuing feud between House Riyelle and House Mier lasted for several generations, and was both bloody and acrimonious. The lommite mine never materialized, as House Mier was able to intimidate suppliers and contractors from arriving at the proposed mine location. However, the lommite vein was soon forgotten when the murders began. Both sides claimed that the other house started the bloodshed, but the first documented victim was Bail Mier, a member of House Mier's cadet branch who served as a lieutenant in the Mier's private military. Although the Mier started with more resources at its disposal than the Riyelles, the latter's prowess at infiltrating House Mier's organizations wore at the Miers' advantage. Numerous skirmishes broke out between the two families, though the two houses never fully went to war with each other, on account of fear of the major houses backing the other side.

House Riyelle also proved adept at garnering support from other minor houses. Although none of them contributed forces directly to support House Riyelle militarily, many houses denounced House Mier for trying to poach another house's land. The resulting political furore caused some of their private military forces to defect to House Riyelle.

The conflict would end poorly for House Mier, but House Riyelle's willingness to shed blood reduced its standing in Alderaanian opinion. As the feud began to span multiple generations, the body count the Riyelles accumulated amounted to a number much higher than the Miers could manage, and House Mier's growing impoverishment gained them increasing sympathy from the other houses. In addition, House Alde began to make overtures of sending more direct aid to the floundering Miers, and though the Aldes' commitment to action vacillated constantly, it was enough to make the Riyelles apprehensive, particularly since House Thul's military power was declining, opting instead to concentrate more on galactic trade.

Baronet Tyko Riyelle, the patriarch of the house, decided to attempt to end the conflict in a decidedly Alderaanian manner. In a move that has been alternately described as calculating and gracious, the baronet enlisted the help of House Organa to foster his second child, Trask Riyelle, with the aim of infiltrating House Mier and wooing the Mier heir, Elinari Mier, thus joining the two feuding houses in marriage. As House Mier had refused the Riyelle's first overt marriage offer, House Organa helped Trask posed as a common musician seeking a sponsorship. House Mier was under significant financial strain due to the conflict with the Riyelles, but Trask was able to win a spot in the Mier household. Having learned courtly manners in the more urbane House Organa, Trask was able to seduce Elinari quite quickly, but though Elinari did not reveal his identity, getting her to agree to the marriage took seven years. The catalyst for the eventual marriage came when Elinari's father, Baron Bouris Mier, began shopping her to other noble houses, trying to find stronger allies for the fight against the Riyelles. Their love for each other having grown, Elinari could not bear to be separated from Trask, and finally agreed to marry him. When the couple broke the news to Baron Mier, he attempted to kill Trask, but was shot dead by Elinari. Elinari and Trask married, finally putting an end to the centuries-long feud.

House Mier was in shambles by the time it was joined with House Riyelle. However, though all of Alderaan knew that Riyelle had come out on top, Baronet Tyko Riyelle opted not to subsume all of House Mier into House Riyelle, and instead formed a new house combining the two families. Elinari was named Baroness of the new House Miriel, with the former heir of House Riyelle, Trask's elder sister Eucina, stepping aside to become the new house's Master Diplomat. Tyko himself resigned his baronecy, ceding all his holdings to the new house and living out the rest of his days as a philosopher. In doing so, he restored much of Alderaan's regard for the family, and gained much personal prestige.

The Fall of House Miriel

House Miriel remained relatively low-key for many centuries until Alderaan's unilateral disarmament following the Clone Wars. All the major houses scaled down their militaries and retained only peacekeeping or police forces, though most still kept a hidden store of the decommissioned arms, vehicles, and ships. Shielding became the primary defensive avenue, and intelligence services rose to take the military's place as second fiddle to diplomacy. Although House Miriel never grew to become a major house, they had a reputation for fielding some of the best agents, rivaling House Rist. During the period following the Clone Wars, the two houses became major players in Alderaanian politics, often consulting for other houses or serving as advisers. A rivalry developed between the two houses, though it never developed the same intensity as the feuding between House Mier and House Riyelle.

Because of the relatively benign nature of the rivalry, the events that befell House Miriel was a shock to all of Alderaan. The current matriarch of House Miriel, Baroness Karima Miriel, appointed a member of the rival House Rist to be her Master of Assassins, the head of House Miriel's intelligence arm. According to rumor and accounts from House Antilles, the baroness had befriended Bethe Rist when she was not the heir to House Miriel, and was serving as the house's Master Diplomat. Bethe Rist was a ward of House Antilles, and as House Miriel had started pledging fealty to House Antilles a couple centuries earlier on account of House Thul's disinterest in Alderaanian affairs, Karima spent much time at the Antilles estate. Nobody thought much of the friendship at the time, as Bethe was unlikely to hold any position of note within House Rist, and Karima was in service to the head household, rather than its matriarch. However, when Karima's elder brother, Baron Orak, took ill, Karima was recalled to House Riyelle in the event that he was not able to recover from the disease. The baron's condition rapidly deteriorated, causing some to suspect that he had been poisoned, and Karima was named heir in his stead. Byrech Miriel, a cousin from the cadet branch and the former Master of Assassins, took Karima's place as Master Diplomat, and the new baroness tapped her old friend, Bethe Rist, to fill the position.

Most Alderaanians agree that the appointment of Bethe Rist was the catalyst for the eventual fall of House Miriel. However, there is disagreement on whether she was the traitor that betrayed the Miriels or merely the reason for House Rist to take as drastic action as it did against the minor house. Supporters of the former hypothesis believe that House Rist's plot began with the poisoning of Baron Orak, and that they sought to exploit Karima's regard for Bethe to plant an agent in the upper ranks of the rival house. More optimistic Alderaanians believe that Karima and Bethe's friendship was true, and that House Rist was worried that Bethe would give away Rist secrets, or that they reevaluated Bethe's abilities and had come to the conclusion that having her be a part of their rival house would make House Miriel too formidable to contend with. Whichever the case, House Miriel made a critical strategic error: they never considered themselves a threat to the much larger and affluent House Rist, and thus neglected to employ the proper counterintelligence measures against them.

House Miriel's shields were compromised on Year -3 Day 131. House Rist's lands had been cleared of all their paramilitary forces to undertake the operation, but by the time outside observers had noticed this oddity, House Rist's transport shuttles were already descending from orbit to House Miriel's location. Being a minor house, the Miriels had been slower to disarm and still fielded a formidable private army, but the unexpected attack and the Rists' superior numbers largely overwhelmed the minor house's more potent weaponry. House Miriel's forces suffered a high casualty rate, and despite House Rist deploying a large amount of nonlethal weaponry for the attack, more than 20% of the House's people were killed, and only 30% captured. Among the dead were Bethe Rist and Xenek Miriel, House Miriel's Warmaster and Karima's brother. The rest were scattered, including the head family; most of those who fled lost contact with each other, as pursuit by Rist forces allowed the survivors few chances to establish lines of communication.

The aftermath of the attack left both houses crippled. House Rist was criticized for the severity of the attack, which left House Miriel's estate completely leveled. A significant amount of those killed in the attack were not fighters, and in particular there was outrage at the killing of the respected painter Galilahi Alyaris. The other houses shunned House Rist, forcing it to become closed off from the rest of Alderaan. Over the course of the next five years, many of its supporters deserted the house, though rumors exist that the house is still in possession of a large fortune, and have begun to focus their activities off-world. Byrech Miriel, who was at the House Antilles estate during the attack and narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, remained on Alderaan, and dedicated himself to see House Rist brought to justice, attempting to halt their operations and surrender their wealth as restitution to the victims.

Renegade House

Baroness Karima and her family fled from Alderaan space. For several years, they were pursued by Rist agents, and the flight chipped at what wealth the head household had been able to take with them from Alderaan. However, thanks in large part to Byrech Miriel's efforts back home, the pursuit eventually petered off, but the head household was left largely impoverished, keeping little more than a few trappings of their former living. Because the family's resources had declined, a decision was made to send the children off, reasoning that it was much like sending a child off to be fostered back on Alderaan. Auri Miriel, the heir, remained with the Baroness and her husband. Valen Miriel was sent back to Alderaan, now under the control of the Tenloss Syndicate, to be taken care of and trained by Byrech, and Euna Miriel was left in the care of her tutor, Hiram Pickerin.