[Neus]

TYRMELA

Sigil: A pair of hands or claws with Zeran horns for fingers reaching towards each other. House Tyrmela's sigil symbolizes several things; their 'reach', politically speaking, as well as their willingness to join hands with others. House Tyrmela has grown strong by joining forces with many. Despite this positive message, many find the Tyrmelan sigil intimidating.

Colors: Blue, gold, white.
The dazzling, clean colors of House Tyrmela catch the eye of many, and are even often used as part of interior decorating in Tyrmela owned social buildings (bars, inns, etc.) The colors symbolize how the Tyrmela's success has been made; having friends across the blue seas, even in places of Gold, and covered in white snow.

Heirloom: The Given Word
A stunning golden ring with a polished black shard of Zera's carapace in the middle, engraved with the symbol of a claw. It is both a beautiful piece of jewelry and a sigil stamp that is used to mark documents and contracts with House Tyrmela's 'signature'. It was carried by House Tyrmela's heir apparent, but after the assassination attempt on them, both the heir and the heirloom have not been seen in Alstalsia.

Karen Tyrmela, the Zeran head of the house, wears a similar looking replica on her finger.

Size: Massive
The Tyrmela are everywhere, although in terms of size on their home continent, they barely rank in the middle. The true size of the house lies outside of Alstalsia, with them having many investments and businesses on every continent you can imagine, although many are not immediately obvious. The actual size being spread out make them one of the most difficult houses to judge in terms of power and wealth.

Stronghold: Highrock
Located in the capital, where the central military forces are garrissoned, House Tyrmela use this ancient castle as their home simply because it is the most convenient way to stay close to the council chambers where they do a lot of business. There are few pleasures such as your political rivals being forced to travel long distances when you only have to walk as far as your backyard.

Values:
House Tyrmela is a very hard house to grasp the values of. On the one hand, they favor stability and avoid pointless conflicts, and strive to guide the other houses to do the same. On the other hand, for that reason, they can also be very controlling, often interfering with the affairs of other houses uninvited. Many also question the Tyrmela's motives, thinking that they only do so in order to grow their own power.

While they are not overtly questionable, morally, as some believe House Suran is, they are nonetheless not treated very warmly within Alstalsia by the other noble houses due to this.

History:
House Tyrmela was originally a small house with little influence. Because of that, many of its members sought greener pastures outside of Alstalsia, and over time, this built up a base of support that almost no other noble house had, as many of them operate only within the confines of their home continent. When Karen Tyrmela became the head of the family at age 19, House Tyrmela's position would begin to rapidly rise.

Often praised for her cleverness, by this time, Karen had already been married to an influential foreigner as part of a bid to expand House Tyrmela's external influence. Harland Manwell, who took on his wife's family name, became Harland Tyrmela. Although many consider his wife Karen to be a much more intelligent person, Harland is no fool, and his ability for debate is legendary.

Thus he was given the House's seat on the council, where he has on more than one occasion made the other noble house heads look foolish, something the prideful Zerans tolerate even less due to it coming from a foreign human. This is often cited as one of the major reasons why Karen and Harland's human son was targeted for assassination.

One evening, an intruder had managed to sneak into Highrock, and found its way to the heir apparent's chambers, where he was studying some magical formulae. Shocked, he could barely defend himself against the assailant, but through some miracle his would-be assassin's footing was lost and they fell through the high tower's window to their death. Their son's disposition apparently changed after this, understandably, given his life was at risk.

Fearing this would happen again, the son was moved to the safety of one of House Tyrmela's allies outside of Alstalsia secretly. However, they have promised retribution in kind should they ever learn the identity of those who hired the assassin...