Various places in Endless Night describe "guards": at the gates, and as street patrols in the random encounter table. I'm wondering who these are, given the lack of city government.
I see four possibilities, but I'm curious which one(s) the designers had in mind:
(1) One of the Great Houses (presumably Rasivrein or possibly Vesidyre) is in charge of city patrols and of the heavy military needed to protect Zirnakaynin from the continual outside assaults mentioned in the sourcebook. This would seem to give that House too much power relative to the others.
(2) The Great Houses conjointly supply the military. If so, it must have an internal command structure, and it would be interesting to know where that's based (Ileccinoc, I suppose) and what it's like, as it's a weakness in the House system.
(3) There isn't a standing military--the Houses raise their own forces in case of an attack. The "patrols" on the streets come from whoever has power in that bit of town--Vesidyre in the Pale Market, Caldrana in Rygirnan, crime bosses in various areas not under tight control. I don't know where the gate guards come from in that case.
(4) There really is a city bureacracy capable of posting guards, even though it lacks House status. Presumably it's a kind of headless hydra, with low-level power and authority but totally at the whim of the Council of Widows.
I went with a combo of (2) and (3). Guards at the Gates rotate among the Houses (currently it's Vesidyre), as do guards at key internal locations needed to staunch riots or major attacks. But every "neighborhood" has someone in power, and that person or group also patrols their turf. My PCs are living in Orvignato's turf, and see his enforcers pretty often. Not far from them is the much more heavily policed Market with Vesidyre enforcers; a little further away is Sinocoscriel with a local crime boss who in fact reports secretly to Vonnarc.
(It really matters in our game; my player has gotten very political in Zirnakaynin.)
Mary
(3) There isn't a standing military--the Houses raise their own forces in case of an attack. The "patrols" on the streets come from whoever has power in that bit of town--Vesidyre in the Pale Market, Caldrana in Rygirnan, crime bosses in various areas not under tight control. I don't know where the gate guards come from in that case.
This is the way I read (and pictured) it. Basically, all houses have patrols in the streets at the same time; in an area where a given house has lots of influence, there will be more patrols from that house. Some areas might never see a single soldier from House X, because they're too insignificant to that house's purposes or too close to another House's power base.
The gate guards might come from a specific house, but they might as well be a mercenary company that has been tasked by the city's ruling elite to guard the gates at all times.