Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Explorers shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Explorer may update it to do so.

Explorers

The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already an Explorer may make a blog post making clear their wish to be an Explorer (plural form Explorers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become an Explorer.

An Explorer may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Some Explorers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Explorers who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation.

Idle Explorers

If an Explorer is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Explorers in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Explorers ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Explorers are not counted as Explorers . The combined term “Idle Explorer” can be used to refer to Explorers who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Explorers.

If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Explorer, then that Idle Explorer is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.

When an Explorer is unidled, if they went Idle in the same Dynasty, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the Explorer Idled in a different Dynasty), the Explorer is given the default value for new Explorers, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render an Explorer Idle if that Explorer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Explorer has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle an Explorer if that Explorer is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Explorer who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first vote following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it.

Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Explorer, known as the Narrator. If there is no Narrator, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before an Ascension Address has been posted. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Explorer may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

Votable Matters

A Votable Matter is a post which Explorers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

Each Explorer may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. An Explorer's Vote on a Votable Matter is the last valid voting icon that they have used in any comment on that Votable Matter. Additionally, if the author of a Votable Matter has not used a valid voting icon in a comment to the post, then the author’s Vote is FOR. A non-Explorer never has a Vote, even if they were an Explorer previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If an Explorer other than the Narrator casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Narrator. When the Narrator has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Narrator's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

A Votable Matter is Popular if any of the following are true:

It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST. Exception: Proposals which would change the text of a Core, Special Case or Appendix rule if enacted cannot be Popular on this basis.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

The number of Explorers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.

Enacting and Failing

Votable matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When an admin resolves a votable matter they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.

A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Proposals

Any Explorer may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Explorer already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When an Explorer casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Withdrawn, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Narrator may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Narrator casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Narrator later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

It is Popular.
It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular.
It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

If a Proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending Proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are immediately applied in full; the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the Proposal.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Explorers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Explorer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Explorer may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular.
It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If an Explorer (other than the Narrator) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

An Explorer's vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Group may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered..

A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Explorers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Narrator has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Explorers, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Explorer who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Explorer who posted the DoV becomes Narrator, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Narrator must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming an Explorer who was not the last dynasty’s Narrator, in which case the passing Explorer ceases to be the Narrator and the Explorer so named becomes the Narrator) or start a new dynasty by completing the following Atomic Action:

Make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Narrator's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if an Explorer's behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a Proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining. Explorers should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.

A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Explorer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Explorer and any Idle Explorers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Explorer, defined here as the controlled Explorer's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Explorer was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
An Explorer should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
An Explorer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
An Explorer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Explorer.
An Explorer should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
An Explorer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Explorer should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
An Explorer should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. An Explorer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
An Explorer should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
An Explorer should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause an Explorer to achieve victory.
An Explorer should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.

All Explorers and idle Explorers should be aware of the BlogNomic Community Guidelines. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Explorers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Grillin'

Barbecue, Barbeque, BBQ, Barbie, Braai and Grill are all considered to be synonyms as per the rule Spelling and Formatting.

Banewood Mansion

All Explorers are located in Rooms within Banewood Mansion, exploring new Rooms and interacting with what’s there. The Narrator will process Turns and update the results in Banewood Mansion.

Mansion Map

The Mansion Map, displayed as an image in this rule, is a graphical represention of the Rooms that the Explorers have discovered and those Rooms’ Connections. All of the Rooms’ Connections are tracked in this Map.

Directions are North, South, East, West, Down and Up. North, South, East and West are the horizontal directions. Up and Down are vertical directions. North is the opposite of South, East is the opposite of West and Up is the opposite of Down.

Each Room may have Connections to other Rooms (each such Connection having a Direction), but may not have more than one Connection in the same Direction. If one Room has a Connection to another, then the second room automatically has a Connection back to the first in the opposite Direction, unless otherwise stated.

Two Rooms are said to be on the same Floor if one can be reached from the other by following only horizontal-direction Connections. A Room is said to be Established if it has at least one Connection. If a pair of Established Rooms are not on the same Floor, a dynastic action cannot cause them to be on the same Floor.

Turns

A Turn consists of two states: Explorers Phase and Mansion Phase. The Explorers Phase is first, followed by the Mansion Phase. At the end of the Mansion Phase, the next Turn begins.

The current Turn state is tracked in Banewood Mansion at the top.

Explorers Phase

While the state in Banewood Mansion is set to Explorers Phase, any Explorer may do any of the following any number of times by editing their state in Banewood Mansion:

Change their Planned Action
Drop an Item they are carrying, into their Location
Use an Item that was already held by themselves at the start of the current Explorers Phase

While the state in Banewood Mansion is set to Explorers Phase, any Explorer may do any of the following any number of times by privately informing the Narrator:

Change their Ploy to any specific Planned Action, or to nothing

Explorers may not do any of the above during the Mansion Phase.

Mansion Phase

If the Narrator has not done so in the past 36 hours, they may change the Turn state to “Mansion Phase”.

During the Mansion Phase, the Narrator may (if they have not already done so during the current Mansion Phase), Reveal the Consequences as an atomic action with the following steps:

Edit the state to “Mansion Phase” in Banewood Mansion
For each Explorer whose Ploy is not nothing, consider their Planned Action to be that Ploy for the remainder of this atomic action
In the order in which the Rooms are listed in Banewood Mansion, for each Explorer in that Room, carry out any Malfeasances that the Explorer is taking and any Effects that occur as a result of that Planned Action
In the order in which the Rooms are listed in Banewood Mansion, for each Explorer in that Room, carry out non-Malfeasance non-Movement Planned Action that the Explorer is taking and any Effects that occur as a result of that Planned Action, as well as any ongoing Effects that apply to the Explorer
In the order in which the Rooms are listed in Banewood Mansion, for each Explorer in that Room, carry out any Movement Planned Actions that the Explorer is taking and any Effects that occur as a result of that Planned Action. Where that Movement Planned Action is Flee, treat it as if it was Walk for this step.
In the order in which Explorers moved in the previous step, for each Explorer that has the Flee Planned Action and had their Location changed in the previous step, carry out their Flee Planned Action as if it was Walk for this step and any Effects that occur as a result of it. This should be skipped for that Explorer if the Connection in that direction for the Room they are in leads to a Room they were in at any point previously during this phase.
Repeat the preceding step until no Explorers moved during it. The Narrator is permitted to exit this step at any time during it if they feel it is non-productive to continue, such as if there is a non-trivial loop that will take extensive time to complete.
If the mood is Frightening, each Explorer with Flee as their Planned Action loses 1 Sanity for each Room they both entered and left during that action, to a minimum of 0.
Increase Dread by 1 for each Ploy, Planned Action carried out as part of a Malfeasance, or Supernatural Action to have taken place in the current Mansion Phase, plus or minus a random value between -1 and 1 inclusive (to a minimum of zero).
If Dread is less than 47, set the Mood to “Calm”. If Dread is between 48 to 121, set the mood to “Uneasy”. Otherwise, set the mood to “Frightening”.
If, during the preceding step, the Mood changed to something other than “Calm,” then: remove each item named Flashlight that is held by an Explorer from that Explorer; for each such Item, add it to a randomly-selected Room using a privately-generated random selection method; and set all Circuit Breaker values to “Off” as if by the Planned Action Flip Breaker X, where X is each existing Room.
If exactly one Explorer performed a Summoning Attempt this turn, that Explorer achieves victory unless another Explorer performed a Disruption Attempt in the same Room or a Room Connected to it this turn.
If the Explorer currently Possessed by Katastrophe is in the same room as the Black Cat, then that Explorer ceases to be Possessed by Katastrophe.
If an Explorer is the only Explorer in a room, and the Black Cat is also in that room, and if this Explorer did not cease to be Possessed by Katastrophe in the previous step of the current atomic action, then any Explorer currently Possessed by Katastrophe ceases to be Possessed by Katastrophe, and the Explorer in the same Room as the Black Cat becomes Possessed by Katastrophe.
If The Black Cat’s Location has not changed since the beginning of this Mansion Phase, the Narrator may choose a direction and make The Black Cat Walk in that direction by moving it to the Room in the indicated direction if such a Room exists. This is a Supernatural Action.
Apply all Drawbacks from all Items in the gamestate.
Select three different Items defined by subrules of the rule “Items”, at random, and place each one in a random Room.
Submit a blog post with the category Story Post summarizing the Actions and Effects that have occurred so far in this atomic action
Set all Ploys to nothing, and the Planned Actions of all Explorers to Rest

If the Narrator has Revealed the Consequences during the current Mansion Phase, they may change the Turn state to “Explorers Phase”.

During the Reveal of Consequences, by default, all Actions and Effects (“Events”) occur simultaneously, regardless of the order of Explorers listed in that room or the Events applied. If the simultaneous resolution of two or more Events would result in any conflict of ambiguity of outcome then, for each distinct Conflict, those Events are resolved as per the following prioritised list, working down the list from top to bottom until all conflicts are resolved:

If any conflicting Events are being carried out or instigated by an Explorer whose Advantage is Fast, then that Event occurs first. Any conflicting Events being carried out or instigated by Explorers with the Slow disadvantage happen after all other conflicting Events.
If multiple conflicting Events modify the same gamestate variables, the Events in a Room that have “remove” or “subtract” as part of their text are processed before other Events in that same Room.
Any Event is chosen to occur before the others by the Narrator, secretly at random.

For all random selections made during the Reveal of Consequences, the Narrator is not obligated to use the Dice Roller and may choose to determine the random roll secretly.

Secret Passages

During the Mansion Phase, if an Explorer’s Ploy or Planned Action without a Ploy is to Walk or Peek in a direction where their Room has no Connection, the Narrator may Expose a Secret Passage prior to Revealing the Consequences. They add a Connection to that Room in that direction, and either creates a new Room to serve as the other end of that Connection or connects it to an existing room.

If the Narrator declines to Expose a Secret Passage for a given Room-Direction pair when they would be allowed to, they shall not Expose a Secret Passage for that Room-Direction pair during any subsequent Mansion Phase, and should notate on the Mansion Map that the direction has been checked in that room.

Possession

The spirit of an ancient demon called Katastrophe haunts the Mansion. At any time it may Possess either nobody or one Explorer, defaulting to nobody, privately tracked by the Narrator.

When Katastrophe Possesses an Explorer, or ceases to Possess an Explorer, the Narrator should inform that Explorer privately.

Any Explorer currently Possessed by Katastrophe is under no obligation to honor any informal promises they have made with other Explorers, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to lie to and betray other Explorers in order to achieve any possible advantage. An Explorer is under no obligation to honor any informal promises they made while they were Possessed by Katastrophe, regardless of whether they are still possessed, but when they break such a promise while not Possessed by Katastrophe they should disclose that they were Possessed by Katastrophe when they made it.

If an action available to the Narrator is defined as being Supernatural, then an Explorer Possessed by Katastrophe may privately urge the Narrator to perform that action, optionally including instructions to perform it in a particular way. The Narrator should attempt to meet this request, while that Explorer remains Possessed by Katastrophe. While an Explorer is Possessed by Katastrophe, the Narrator may not take Supernatural Actions that this Explorer has not urged them to take.

Persistence

Certain facts, once learned by Katastrophe, remain with the spirit as it possesses different bodies.

When the ruleset defines a piece of Persistent Information, that information, when learned by an Explorer who is Possessed by Katastrophe, becomes part of the Katastrophe Korpus. The Katastrophe Korpus is privately tracked by the Narrator and should be relayed to any Explorer who becomes Possessed by Katastrophe as soon as that event takes place.

The following is Persistent Information:

Any Malfeasances discovered through requesting information while Possessed by Katastrophe, as per the rule Malfeasances
The locations of any Traps set by an Explorer who was Possessed by Katastrophe at the time the trap was set

Explorer Actions

The available Planned Actions for an Explorer are:

Rest
Peek, together with a direction
Walk, together with a direction
Flee, together with a horizontal direction
Grab, together with an Item
Chant

Resting adds 1 to the acting Explorer’s Sanity if the value is not already 10. If the room is Lit, it causes the Narrator to publicly reveal any Malfeasances in the room. If neither condition is satisfied, it has no effect.

Peeking causes the Narrator to privately disclose to the Acting Explorer any additional information that would be available to them if they were in the Room in that direction (if such a room exists). If the Acting Explorer is holding a Lit Flashlight while peeking into a Dark Room, this includes information that is only publicly available for Lit rooms. If there is no Room in that direction, the Narrator shall instead privately disclose their current Room’s Malfeasance or lack thereof to them.

Walking moves the acting Explorer one Room in the indicated direction if the Room the Explorer is in has a Connection in that direction with a Room.

Fleeing moves the Explorer as described in the rule Mansion Phase.

Grabbing causes the Acting Explorer to pick up an instance of the named item, if one is present in the Taking Explorer’s Location.

Chanting is a Summoning Attempt (with all the defined effects thereof) if the one performing it holds at least three Fragments and is Pure of Heart, and a Disruption Attempt (with all the defined effects thereof) if it’s not a Summoning Attempt. An Explorer who is not possessed by Katastrophe is Pure of Heart if they have either never been possessed by Katastrophe or are holding a Blessed Item. An Explorer who is possessed by Katastrophe is not Pure of Heart.

The default Planned Action is Rest.

Planned Actions are not considered to be Movement Planned Actions unless otherwise declared to be so in the rules. Walk and Flee are Movement Planned Actions. A planned action of “Move” together with a direction is considered to be synonymous with a planned action of “Walk” together with that direction.

Summoning Attempt

As the last step of an Explorer performing a Summoning Attempt, 1 Fragment is removed from the performing Explorer and added to a Room randomly chosen by the Narrator’s private dice roll.

Atmosphere

There is a private nonnegative integer variable tracked by the Narrator named Dread, defaulting to 0. There is a publicly tracked variable named Mood, defaulting to “Calm”.

Explorers

Explorers have the following tracked fields:

Items, which is a field that can contain any number of Items that are defined by the rules. It defaults to containing no items.
Location, which is a Room (as described in the rule Banewood Mansion). If either no rooms are defined or no default location for explorers is defined, Foyer is considered to be a valid room and is considered to be the default.
Planned Action, which is as defined in Explorer Actions.
Sanity, which is a non-negative integer with a maximum value of 10. It defaults to 10.

Each Explorer may also have a Ploy, tracked privately by the Narrator. An Explorer’s Ploy may be a Planned Action, or nothing, and defaults to nothing.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Each Explorer may have an Advantage and a Disadvantage, which are publicly tracked. An Advantage, if set, must be one of the following:

Strong
Fast
Wise
Lucky

And a Disadvantage must be one of the following:

Weak
Slow
Rash
Unlucky

If an Explorer has no Advantage and no Disadvantage, then they may set their Advantage and their Disadvantage simultaneously, at any time, so long as the state in Banewood Mansion is set to Explorers Phase. An Explorer may not set their Advantage and their Disadvantage to be any pair that are both designated by the same number in the above list (for example, no Explorer may be both Strong and Weak).

An Explorer located in the Room named Gymnasium may set their Advantage and their Disadvantage simultaneously, at any time, so long as the state in Banewood Mansion is set to Explorers Phase and their Advantage becomes either Fast or Strong.

An Explorer located in the Room named Library may set their Advantage and their Disadvantage simultaneously, at any time, so long as the state in Banewood Mansion is set to Explorers Phase and their Advantage becomes either Wise or Lucky.

Sanity

If an Explorer’s Sanity is less than 3 at any time, they involuntarily drop all held Items including Cursed Items, and their Ploy and Planned Action becomes “Rest” and cannot be changed until their Sanity is 3 or greater.

Rooms

There exists an ordered list of Rooms, which are publicly tracked. Every Explorer has a publicly tracked Room they are in, defaulting to the Foyer. Every Room has the following qualities:

A unique flavour text Name by which it may be referred to
A list of Items which are in the Room, defaulting to no Items
A list of light sources in the room.
Optionally, a Room-Bound Malfeasance, which must be a Planned Action that can only be performed in that Room when it is Dark.
A string value named Circuit Breaker where the valid string values are “On” or “Off”, defaulting to “Off”

All of the qualities of a Room are publicly tracked, except for its Malfeasance which is privately tracked by the Narrator.

If an Action “requires light/darkness”, it may only be performed if the actor is in a Lit/Dark Room, respectively; if this condition is not fulfilled the Action instead does nothing.

When a Room is added, the Narrator may optionally add Lightbulb, Unlit Lightbulb or Moonlight as a light source for it, may optionally add a defined Malfeasance as its Malfeasance, and may optionally set its Circuit Breaker to “On”. If the rules refer to a named Room but no Room exists with that name, then the Narrator must privately roll a six-sided die before creating a Room: on a roll of 1, the Room must take one of those referred-to names.

Lighting

A Room is said to be Dark if either its list of light sources is empty, or if all light sources within the list begin with “Unlit “. Otherwise it is Lit. Adding or removing the Unlit prefix is referred to as unlighting or lighting it respectively, and a light source can only have at most one instance of the Unlit prefix.

Electrical panel

There is the Electrical Panel in the Banewood Mansion, whose Location (which is a Room) is publicly tracked and is set to the value “Unknown” by default. During the Mansion Phase, the Narrator may set the Location of the Electrical Panel to an existing Room only if the current value is “Unknown”.

If an Explorer is in the same Room as the Electrical Panel, they gain access to a special Ploy named “Flip Breaker X”, where X is the name of an existing Room. “Flip Breaker X” requires light.

When executing “Flip Breaker X” as a Planned Action, follow these steps:

If the Circuit Breaker value for that Room was “Off” at the beginning of the Mansion Phase, change it to “On” and light all lightbulbs in that Room.
If the Circuit Breaker value for that Room was “On” at the beginning of the Mansion Phase, change it to “Off” and unlight all lightbulbs in the Room.

Malfeasances

A Malfeasance is a type of Planned Action that is associated with a room, role or specific Explorer.

Malfeasances come in three types: Room-Bound, Role-Bound or Item-Bound.

A Room-Bound Malefeasance may only be carried out when the acting Explorer occupies a Room that has that Malfeasance associated with it, and when that Room is Dark. A Role-Bound Malefeasance may only be carried out when the acting Explorer has the relevant Role, and when they are in a dark Room. An Item-Bound Malfeasance may only be carried out when the acting Explorer is holding the relevant Item, but may be carried out regardless of whether they are in a dark or lit Room.

Malfeasances have a flavour-text Name, an Effect which is carried out as the effect of the Planned Action, and Restrictions, which must be met for the Planned Action to take place, and which must include any Role or Item requirements for Role- or Item-Bound Malfeasances. A Malfeasance may also have an associated Defense, which must be one of the possible Advantages, and may have a Hindrance, which must be one of the possible Disadvantages. If an Explorer would choose a given Malfeasance as their Planned Action, but that Explorer has the same Disadvantage as that Malfeasance’s Hindrance, then the Explorer cannot carry out that Malfeasance. Conversely, if an Explorer would be affected by another Explorer’s Malfeasance, but the former Explorer has the same Advantage as that Malfeasance’s Defense, then that Explorer is not so affected.

A Room’s Malfeasance is privately tracked by the Narrator. At any time, an Explorer who is possessed by Katastrophe may privately ask the Narrator what the Malfeasance is in the room that they current occupy then the Narrator should truthfully respond at their earliest opportunity.

Possible Malfeasances are as follows:

Malfeasances
Name	Type	Effect	Restrictions	Defence	Hindrance
Kidnapping	Room-Bound	The acting Explorer and the named target Explorer are moved to the named other Room	An Explorer other than the actor, in the same Room as the actor, and another target Room must be named	Strong	Weak
Set a Trap	Room-Bound	The Trap associated with this room is Set and will trigger on the next eligible Explorer to enter the room, as per the rule Traps.	The Trap associated with this room is not already Set.	Fast	Rash
Sudden Distraction!	Room-Bound	The acting explorer creates an opportunity to pickpocket the named explorer. They take the chosen Item from the Items of the named explorer, should that item exist there.	An Explorer other than the actor, in the same Room as the actor, and they have a non-cursed Item that the actor chooses.	Wise	Slow
Disguise as a Box	Room-Bound	The Explorer turns invisible. For as long as they are at most one connection away from the room with this Malfeasance, their location is privately tracked by the Narrator rather than tracked publicly (the Explorer in question may privately request to the Narrator to know their own position and the Narrator should truthfully respond at their earliest opportunity.) When the Explorer is two or more connections away from that room, the disguise seems out of place and their Location immediately should be revealed by the Narrator.	N/A	N/A	Unlucky
Divination	Room-Bound	The acting Explorer is told at the beginning of the next Explorer Phase the exact location of the Black Cat	N/A	N/A	Rash
Kibble	Room-Bound	The Black Cat is moved in the direction stated	A Direction, which may be Up, Down, North, South, East or West	N/A	Slow
Dark Reordering	Role-Bound	The room occupied by the acting Explorer is destroyed along with all connections associated with it. All Explorers and items occupying that room (as well as the Black Cat, if present) are displaced to a connecting room at random. For each room that had a connection removed here (except, of course, the destroyed room), the Narrator may add a new connection to that room if possible. These new connections should be towards existing rooms, and should be made with the intent of both keeping the traversal around the mansion to the various rooms at approximately the same difficulty as before the malfeasance was activated, and keeping rooms within the same general region of the mansion. The Foyer is not able to be destroyed by this Malfeasance.	The actor must be Possessed by Katastrophe.	N/A	Rash
Confounding of Connections	Role-Bound	Add a single Room to the list of Rooms and/or add up to three horizontal-direction connections between Rooms	Must be Possessed by Katastrophe	N/A	Weak
Use Monkey's Paw	Item-Bound	Add to Dread a value chosen by the Actor, to a minimum of zero if reduced. Subtract 1 from the actor's Sanity.	Must be accompanied by a single specified value, which must be between -10 and 10. Must have the Monkey's Paw item.	N/A	N/A

Traps

When a room has a Malfeasance of “Set a Trap”, the effects of this trap are decided by the Narrator at the time that it gains that Malfeasance. It is not a Supernatural Action to set these effects, although it is suggested that the Narrator gives some weight to the requested effects from the Explorer that is Possessed by Katastrophe should they request the creation of a room with that Malfeasance.

The trap can have any number of Effects from this list, to a minimum of one:

Snare: When the trap is triggered, the triggering Explorer’s planned action and ploy are set to Rest and cannot be changed willingly by that Explorer until the end of the next mansion phase. If the mood is not “Calm”, their Sanity is reduced by 2 to a minimum of 0.
Self-locking Doors: When the trap is triggered, until the end of the next Mansion Phase, all connections in and out of the room are treated as if they didn’t exist for the purposes of Movement Planned Actions.
Trap doors: When the trap is triggered, the triggering Explorer is immediately moved through the connection in the direction chosen by the Narrator when this effect was selected, if that direction has a room. If the mood is not “Calm”, their Sanity is reduced by 2 to a minimum of 0.
Poison dart: When the trap is triggered, the triggering Explorer is Poisoned: they are considered to have no Advantages and all four Disadvantages until three entire Mansion Phases have passed, not counting the phase that the trap was triggered in. The remaining duration of any Poison is publicly tracked.

When a trap is Set, it then triggers the next time any Explorer except the one who set the trap enters the room via a Movement Planned Action. At the time it is triggered, it ceases to be Set and the Narrator publicly announces that it was triggered, what its effects are, and which Explorer triggered it.

The presence of a set trap is privately revealed to Explorers that successfully Peek at the room containing it and until it is next Set, that Explorer does not trigger the trap whenever they enter the room. Such Explorers are advised to privately remind the Narrator of their awareness of the trap each time they attempt to enter the room while the trap is set, and the Narrator is advised to privately track a whitelist of Explorers who do not trigger the trap.

The Black Cat

There is The Black Cat in the Banewood Mansion, whose Location (which is a Room) is privately tracked by the Narrator.

Whenever the Location of The Black Cat changes, the Narrator must reflect it on the Banewood Mansion page in the form of “The Black Cat is in X”, where X is:

the name of the Room that is The Black Cat’s Location, if that Room is Lit, and there is at least one Explorer whose Location is that Room;
“an unknown place”, otherwise.

Once each per Explorer Phase, Explorers with the Wise Advantage may privately communicate with the Narrator to say “Here kitty kitty”; the Narrator should respond at their earliest convenience with a message which says “You here a faint meow from x”, which is the direction (chosen secretly at random if there are multiple options) which that Explorer would have to move in to follow the shortest path between themselves and the Black Cat.

Items

Items are objects that can be held by an Explorer. Items have a name and zero or more Properties. Full name of an Item consists of names of its Properties followed by the Item’s name. Names of subrules of this rule are the names of Items defined in those subrules.

Full names of held items are publicly tracked per Explorer in Banewood Mansion.

If an Item is picked up in a Room, it becomes held by the Explorer. It must be removed from the Items publicly tracked for the Room in Banewood Mansion. When the Item that is not Cursed, Blessed, or Uncursed, is picked up using the Grab action, the Narrator must roll a DICE6: if the value rolled is 1 or 2, the Item gets the Cursed Property, and if the value rolled is 5 or 6, the item gets the Blessed Property, otherwise, it gets Uncursed Property.

If an Item is dropped, it is no longer held by the Explorer. It must be added to the Items publicly tracked for the Room in Banewood Mansion. Cursed Items cannot be dropped voluntarily, unless the holding Explorer has the Strong Advantage.

For each Fragment generated during the Reveal of Consequences, the Narrator should secretly generate a random number between 1 and 3; if the result is 1 then that Fragment is moved to a secretly randomly selected room occupied by, or adjacent to a room occupied by, a Lucky Explorer.

Flashlight

When a Flashlight is held, the Explorer holding it can use it by adding or removing the Unlit Property. Each Explorer may hold a maximum of 1 Flashlight at any time. A Flashlight without the Unlit Property may be referred to as a lit Flashlight.

When a lit Flashlight is in a Room or is held by an Explorer in a Room, that Room has an additional light source of Flashlight.

Monkey's Paw

This Item is Cursed.

The explorer who holds this may use the Use Monkey’s Paw Malfeasance.

Fireplace Poker

If an Explorer holds a Fireplace Poker, that Explorer is considered to have the Advantage Strong in addition to any other Advantage they may have.

If the Fireplace Poker is Cursed; they will have the Disadvantage Weak in addition to any Disadvantage they have, and lose the Advantage Strong.

Rabbit’s Foot

If an Explorer holds a Rabbit’s Foot, that Explorer is considered to have the Advantage Lucky in addition to any other Advantage they may have.

If the Rabbit’s Foot is Cursed; they will have the Disadvantage Unlucky in addition to any Disadvantage they have, and lose the Advantage Lucky.

Musty Tome

If an Explorer holds a Musty Tome, that Explorer is considered to have the Advantage Wise in addition to any other Advantage they may have.

If the Musty Tome is Cursed; they will have the Disadvantage Rash in addition to any Disadvantage they have, and lose the Advantage Wise.

Hipflask

If an Explorer holds a Hipflask, that Explorer is considered to have the Advantage Fast in addition to any other Advantage they may have.

If the Hipflask is Cursed; they will have the Disadvantage Slow in addition to any Disadvantage they have, and lose the Advantage Fast.

Fragments

This Item is Cursed.

Whenever Katastophe unpossesses the Explorer that is holding this Item; this item is removed from that Explorer’s inventory.

Only one new Fragment may be created per turn. A Fragment may not be created in a Room which contains a Fragment, or which contains an Explorer who is carrying a Fragment.

Holy Water

This Item is Uncursed.

An Explorer who holds this Item may remove this item from their inventory and change a Cursed Item they hold into a Uncursed Item, or a Uncursed Item they hold into a Blessed Item.

Unholy Water

This Item is Uncursed.

An Explorer who holds this Item may remove this item from their inventory and change a Blessed Item they hold into a Uncursed Item, or a Uncursed Item they hold into a Cursed Item.

Identification Scroll

An Explorer who holds this Item may remove this item from their inventory if this Item is not Cursed and perform the following Atomic Action:

Choose an Untested Item in the Room they are Located in.
Roll a DICE7; if the value rolled is less than or equal to 2 the Item is Cursed and change the name of the Item as Cursed X where X is the item’s name and if the value rolled is more than or equal to 5 the item is Blessed and change the name of the Item as Blessed X where X is the item’s name

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.

Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[Rare]", its Default Status is Inactive, otherwise, its Default Status is Active.

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Explorers” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Explorers, then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Narrator has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Explorers have a valid FOR vote on that Proposal than have a valid AGAINST vote on it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Explorers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Narrator is not an Explorer.

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

The Narrator may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were an Explorer, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Narrator may not cast a vote of VETO on any Proposal whose effect is limited to the dynastic rules or gamestate; any such vote is disregarded for the purposes of proposal resolution.

If the Special Case rule “No Collaboration” is Active, any Explorer may set it to Inactive. (The combo is too strong.)

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Banewood Mansion page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. Narrator may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address, provided that page did not exist at the time the Ascension Address was posted and does not begin with the word “Ruleset”.

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the Narrator is not considered an Explorer for the purposes of this rule.

Explorers may not privately communicate with each other about dynastic gameplay or votable matters that affect the dynastic ruleset or gamestate. Private communications are considered to be anything that any other Explorer could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Explorers (or people who are not yet Explorers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Explorer during the course of the dynasty. The use of creative strategies to circumvent this rule may be considered to be a scam for the purposes of determining whether an infraction of Fair Play has taken place.

A mentor and mentee may still privately converse with each other, but should keep their conversations away from discussing specific gameplay strategy.

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Explorers who were part of the conversation should make a post to the blog disclosing what information was discussed as their earliest convenience.

Mantle Limitations [Active]

The mantle may not be passed, except as a result of a Call for Judgment. (Explorers should also not make deals based on being made Emperor of the next dynasty by other means than achieving victory or being passed the mantle.) This limitation does not apply to proposals that would explicitly award Victory.

Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]

Each Explorer may have an Alliance, which is publicly tracked, and consists of the distinct names of no more than two other Explorers; an Explorer's Alliance defaults to an empty set. An Explorer may change their Alliance as a daily action.

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if an Explorer has achieved victory in this dynasty, has posted a Declaration of Victory which has been enacted, and did not change their Alliance for at least the 48 hours immediately prior to the posting time of their Declaration of Victory: then that Explorer may pass the Mantle to an Explorer who was named in their Alliance at the posting time of their Declaration of Victory.

If “No Collaboration” is active, it does not apply to communications between Explorers who each have the other’s names in their Alliance, nor does the prohibition on deals in “Mantle Limitations” (if it is active) apply to Explorers who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Inactive]

An Event is an official post that meets a type definition in the dynastic rules, if and only if that type definition is specified as defining a type of Event; the type definition must include the following:

A type name, such as “Auction” or “Quest”. A post with the Event type’s name as a tag is an Event of that type, provided it was (legally) posted while the type had a complete definition.
A Response Format, the format by which a comment on that type of Event is classified as a Response for that Event. While other comments are allowed on an Event, only those comments which conform to its type’s Response Format are officially considered Responses. Whether or not a comment is currently considered a Response may change according to circumstances, but comments submitted on an Event while it is Ended can never be considered Responses.

An Event type definition may also optionally stipulate:

Creation Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Event of that type may not be posted. They may include a format for the body of the post.
Ending Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Open Event of that type may not be Ended.
Ending Action(s). An Explorer must do these when they End an Open Event of that type.

An Event is either Open or Ended, defaulting to Open. Except as otherwise specified, any Explorer may post or may End an Event. To End an Event is to make it Ended by submitting a comment on that post saying it is Ended or is being Ended, and then immediately taking its Ending Action(s), if any. Once an Event has been Ended, it may not become Open again, nor may any Explorer End it again.

Bounties [Rare] [Inactive]

A Bounty Notice is a post in the Story Posts - Votable Matter category which broadly requests a single mechanical or ruleset change. Despite its category, it is not a votable matter and any votes on it are ignored. A Bounty Notice may be Open or Closed being Open by default and being Closed when set to the ‘Enacted’ or ‘Failed’ status in the post backend. The Enacted Status should be used for successfully completed Bounty Notices, while Failed should be used for ones that were closed for any other reason

This sentence names, at the end of this sentence after a colon, a single dynastic resource or variable, which is the Bounty Reward Variable for this dynasty: Royal Gift

The Narrator may post a Bounty Notice, close an open Bounty Notice, or change the Bounty Reward Variable in this rule at any time.

If the Narrator believes that one or more enacted votable matters satisfy the demand of an open Bounty Notice, then they may iterate the Bounty Reward Variable of each Explorer (other than the Narrator) who authored at least one of those votable matters and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (e.g. A rule specifying “bananas are blue” cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying “every day is Sunday” will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Imperatives

Can: “is able to”
Shall: “is required to”
Should: “is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Explorer able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.
Daily Communal Action: A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Explorer per day.
Day: References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.
Week: References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.
Weekly Action: If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Explorer able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.
Weekly Communal Action: A Weekly Communal action is a Weekly Action that can only be performed by one Explorer per week.

Other

Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Core Proposal: A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of Admin status from one or more Explorers.
Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
Dynastic Action: An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
Dynastic Proposal: A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.
Effective Vote Comment (EVC): An Explorer's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Explorer's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Explorer's Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, an Explorer may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.
Discord: The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Explorers , as well as people who are not Explorers but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.
Discord Channel: A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Explorers who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).
Flavour Text: If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Explorers are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
Hiatus: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Private Message: A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.
Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Explorers is half the number of Explorers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Explorers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Explorers.
Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.
Rule: Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.
Story Post: A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.
Subject: The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.
Subrule: A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.
Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
Uphold: To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
Vote: The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.
Voting Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.
Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Explorer may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and either no Explorer has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post’s Status must be changed to reflect its status. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post by a New Explorer is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or Ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any Admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Explorer is defined as an Explorer who has been an Explorer for fewer than seven days or an Explorer that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

Representations of the Gamestate

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Explorer's action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Explorer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Explorer feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Explorer, if doing so would not require the correcting Explorer to make any decisions on behalf of the original Explorer.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Explorers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement. The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

An Explorer may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.

The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
The CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.
A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name an Explorer with such access. Only an Explorer with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name an Explorer with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.

If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Explorer making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Explorer making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
When an Explorer performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
If a rule allows the Explorer performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
If an Explorer arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Explorer must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Explorer uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Explorer would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.
Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
Unless otherwise specified, to “spend,” “pay” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” or “pay” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, an Explorer can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Explorers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Explorer only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Explorer (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
An Explorer who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action’s effects are limited to changing values tracked in gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
If a game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Narrator (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Narrator when the ruleset allows it. If an Explorer should already know such a piece of information (in that the Narrator has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Narrator may repeat it to them.

Rules and Votable Matters

If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
If the Admin enacting a Votable Matter reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Explorer A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Votable Matter has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Explorer may delete it from the ruleset.
A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Explorers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
An Explorer may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).

Spelling and formatting

Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g. British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.
Explorers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.
An Explorer may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Explorer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Explorer's name.
If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
When referring to a Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, an Explorer's (or prospective Explorer's ) new name must be between 4 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.

Prioritisation

If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
If a Special Case Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Special Case Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Special Case Rule;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Explorers may Kick each other” and “Explorers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Explorers may not Kick each other);
If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Explorers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Explorers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Explorers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

An Explorer may have another Explorer as a Mentor. Explorers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of an Explorer who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Explorer requests a Mentor, or a new Explorer has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Narrator should select a Tenured Explorer and ask them to take that Explorer on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Narrator should announce it in a blog post. The Narrator should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. An Explorer may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Narrator, any Explorer who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Narrator for the purposes of this rule.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Explorer or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Explorers .
The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Explorer” and “Narrator”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

Explorer (Player)
Narrator (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.

Ruleset 209

Contents

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Explorers

Idle Explorers

Dynasties

Votable Matters

Votes

Enacting and Failing

Tags

Proposals

Special Proposal Voting

Resolution of Proposals

Calls for Judgement

Victory and Ascension

Fair Play

Dynastic Rules

Grillin'

Banewood Mansion

Mansion Map

Turns

Explorers Phase

Mansion Phase

Secret Passages

Possession

Persistence

Explorer Actions

Summoning Attempt

Atmosphere

Explorers

Advantages and Disadvantages

Sanity

Rooms

Lighting

Electrical panel

Malfeasances

Traps

The Black Cat

Items

Flashlight

Monkey's Paw

Fireplace Poker

Rabbit’s Foot

Musty Tome

Hipflask

Fragments

Holy Water

Unholy Water

Identification Scroll

Special Case

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

Dormancy [Active]

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

Dynastic Distance [Active]

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

Mantle Limitations [Active]

Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]

Event Types [Inactive]

Bounties [Rare] [Inactive]

Appendix

Keywords

Imperatives

Time

Other

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Representations of the Gamestate

Orphan Variables

Random Generators

Atomic Actions

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Rules and Votable Matters

Time

Spelling and formatting

Names

Prioritisation