House Coalitions: Although there are technically 150 seats, many of these seats fall under house coalitions, wherein several lords have sworn allegiance to a single lord or “patron”. The main benefit of a patron accepting allegiance from another lord is his vote on the council. The largest house coalition belongs to house Blackswan with 21 seats. House coalitions do not hold any sort of legal weight and are sworn verbally. Technically, a lord in a coalition could decide to vote on his own – differently from his patron– but he would be risking a lot, as the contract between him and his patron would most certainly be broken. This is to say nothing of the loss of reputation amongst his peers.

Often, lords from coalitions do not even attend legislative sessions and leave the voting to the patron to decide. Depending upon how much power a patron has among a coalition, he may not even discuss votes before they occur with the lords of his sub-houses. Conversely, there are many patrons who must scheme and bribe the members of his coalition to agree to his voting decisions, as it is always the prerogative of the coalition to break their contract at any time.