House Alderé

A once-proud noble family with large holdings in the Eastern regions of the Kingdom, the Alderé family is now disgraced and almost dispossessed thanks to a treason scandal that saw almost all Alderé possessions confiscated, and James Alderé, the Alderé patriarch, imprisoned for life.

The family survives, as a moderately successful merchant holding. The family colours are steel and crimson, with Alderé uniforms using a similar colour scheme. These are rarely seen nowadays, however.

Before Scandal
The Alderé household claims a long history in Rouel, tracing its ancestry back to several prominent generals in important wars in Rouel's past, hence the family colours of steel and crimson. Before the family scandal, the Alderé was a large weapons supplier, largely providing small arms for the Rouel military, as well as holding vast mercantile interests all over the Kingdom. Just before the family's downfall, the Alderés were looking to make a serious foray into the world of politics as well.

Treason, Scandal, and Downfall
In the leadup to the Rouel parliamentary elections, James Alderé was the leading candidate over the opposition candidate, Gerard Antraigues. However, his electoral chances were ruined by allegations by his brother, Richard Alderé, that James had connections with the SSC, and had plans to support the SSC's efforts to annex nations, and eventually their invasion of Rouel. These claims seemed ridiculous at the time, especially so as Richard was Antraigues' brother in law, who had chosen to enter the Antraigues famly succession, but it still derailed James' electoral campaign, leading to Antraigues' narrow victory.

The claims continued to seem ridiculous, until Richard produced documents that contained explicit proof of Alderé arms shipments being given freely to SSC mercenary groups fighting in the SSC's wars of annexation. The documents, as well as the presence of the weapons, proved genuine, and the once-ridiculous claims suddenly seemed less laughable. When a final letter of James' was produced, allegedly offering support to SSC mercenary groups in the case of an invasion, the resulting uproar was great enough to see James charged and imprisoned for treason, and the vast majority of the Alderé assets were confiscated by the Rouel government. Many of these assets fell conveniently into the lap of the Antraigues, leading to suspicions of corruption in the proceedings, though no investigation has supported such claims.

Post-Scandal
Under the auspices of James' eldest son Matthew, the Alderé family managed to scrape together its meagre assets and form a reasonably sized shipping and trading guild. The event has torn the family apart internally though, as the four Alderé siblings who remain within the family holdings disagree over the next appropriate step for the family. Matthew and Joel Alderé believe the family ought to denounce their father as a traitor, while Joseph and Margaret Alderé believe that the whole disgrace is an elaborate lie that should be overturned, so the Alderé family could return to its rightful place of power, with Richard and the Antraigues brought to justice. Joseph Alderé has since left the household to join the military, and Matthew has assumed the mantle of family leader.