Ruleset 219

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Wizards 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. This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.

If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Wizard may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Duel Sheet page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Wizards

A human with access to the blog who is not already a Wizard may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Wizard (plural form Wizards); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Wizard. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

A Wizard may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Some Wizards are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Wizards 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.

A Wizard may cease to be a Wizard at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Wizard in this way may not become a Wizard again within the following two weeks.

Idle Wizards

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

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

When a Wizard 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 Wizard Idled in a different Dynasty), the Wizard is given the default value for new Wizards, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Wizard Idle if that Wizard has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Wizard 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, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Wizard during the current and subsequent dynasty. 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 a Wizard if that Wizard 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 Wizard who would be Unidled has become 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 Wizard, known as the Battle Master. If there is no Battle Master, 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 Wizard 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 Wizards may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

Each Wizard 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. A Wizard'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-Wizard never has a Vote, even if they were a Wizard previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Wizard other than the Battle Master casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Battle Master. When the Battle Master 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 Battle Master'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.

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

• The number of Wizards 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.

Tags

Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag).

Votable Matters making changes to the Core Rules, the Special Case Rules or the Appendix Rules require any of the following to be true for each such change in order to make that specific modification to the ruleset:

• The Votable Matter has the appropriate Tag or Tags for that change: [Core] for Core Rules changes, [Special Case] for Special Case Rules changes and [Appendix] for Appendix Rules changes.
• The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
• The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Wizard 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 Battle Master may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Battle Master casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Battle Master 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 Wizards actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Wizard feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Wizard 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 a Wizard (other than the Battle Master) 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.

A Wizard'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 Wizard 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 Wizards, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Battle Master 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 Wizards, 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 Wizard 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 Wizard who posted the DoV becomes Battle Master, 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 Battle Master must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Wizard who was not the last dynasty’s Battle Master, in which case the passing Wizard ceases to be the Battle Master and the Wizard so named becomes the Battle Master) 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 Battle Master'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.
• Optionally change the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”.

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 a Wizard'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. Wizards 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 Wizard within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Wizard and any Idle Wizards. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Wizard, defined here as the controlled Wizard's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Wizard was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Wizard 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.
• A Wizard should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Wizard should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Wizard.
• A Wizard should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Wizard should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Wizard should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
• A Wizard 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. A Wizard must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Wizard should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Wizard should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Wizard to achieve victory.
• A Wizard should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.
• A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Wizard or Wizards to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
  • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
  • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

All Wizards and idle Wizards 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 Wizards are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Wizards

Each Wizard has a publicly tracked non-negative integer number of Stars, which defaults to the Lode of all other Wizards.

The Lode of a specified group of Wizards is a number equal to the total number of their Stars, divided by the number of Wizards in that group.

When a Wizard (the “Returner”) is unidled having been previously non-idle in the dynasty, the Lode of all other Wizards is compared what the Lode of all Wizards was at the point immediately after the Returner last went idle: if the first Lode is higher, the Returner’s Stars are increased by the difference between those values; if the Lode is lower, the Returner’s Stars are decreased by the difference. If any action would cause a Wizard’s Stars to be below 0, that action sets the Wizard’s Stars to 0 instead.

Each Wizard has a number of High Marks, which by default is zero

Spells

Spells are defined as subrules of this rule, with the name of the Spell being the name of the subrule and rest of the spell information being tracked in the subrule itself. The definition of a Spell may have:

• a cost
• a set of inputs
• a speed
• a set of traits

and must have:

• an effect

If a spell has a cost, the cost is deducted from a Wizard’s stars when they cast the spell, unless they have fewer stars than the cost, in which case they are considered to have cast Fizzle instead. Adjustments may be made to the cost of a spell, such as through a spell specifying a variable cost depending on the input, or Gewgaw or Special Styles. These adjustments effect the cost that a Wizard pays during this step, but do not effect the cost of the spell as listed in its definition. If a spell has no cost, its cost is considered to be 0 but may be still be adjusted. The cost of casting Fizzle is always 0 and may not be adjusted.

A spell’s speed is a non-negative integer. If a spell does not have a speed defined, its speed defaults to 1. Any action that would lower a spell’s speed below 0 instead sets it to 0.

Each Spell has a Charm, which is by default 0. The Charm of each Spell is publicly tracked on the gamestate tracking page.

If a Spell has Traits, the Traits are a list of one or more Personality Traits.

At any time, any Wizard or the Battle Master may sort the subrules of this rule by the Speed contained in each subrule, from highest to lowest, with tied Speeds being sorted alphabetically by subrule name.

Snipe

Inputs: The name of another Wizard participating in the current duel and the name of a spell other than Snipe or Fizzle from the spell list for the current duel

Effect: If and only if the named Wizard has selected to cast the named Spell in this duel, then a) consider the named Wizard to have selected the Spell Fizzle instead, and b) increase the Stars of the Wizard casting this Snipe Spell by 3.

Speed: 100

Traits: Selfish

Magical Armor

Effect: If the Wizard that cast this spell didn’t previously during Wizard Duel X-1 or Wizard Duel X-2(X being the current duel number), then that Wizard is not affected by any spells casted during Wizard Duel X.

Traits: Reclusive

Speed: 90

Misdirection

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring, which is adjacent to that of the caster.

Effect: For the remainder of this Duel, if the Wizard casting this Spell is in a targeted position for the Input of any other Wizard’s Spell, the targeted position is changed to the Input position.

Speed: 10

Traits: Reclusive

Synergy

Speed: 5

Effect: The next time a Spell is cast this Duel which directly targets the position this Wizard is in, also apply the Effects of that spell to the position of Wizard who cast it.

Defrock

Cost: 2 if the Robes of the Wizard in the targeted position is a Special Style, otherwise 0

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: The Wizard in the targeted position’s Robes becomes Plain. For the remainder of this Duel, they don’t lose stars from the effects of Burn spells.

Speed: 2

Traits: Belligerent

Disarm

Cost: 2 if the Staff of the Wizard in the targeted position is a Special Style, otherwise 0

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: The Wizard in the targeted position’s Staff becomes None. For the remainder of this Duel, if they cast a spell targeting a position in the Wizard Ring they instead target the position one more than it (wrapping back around to the first position if needed).

Speed: 2

Traits: Belligerent

Gust

Cost: 2 if the Hat of the Wizard in the targeted position is a Special Style, otherwise 0

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: The wizard in the targeted position’s Hat becomes None. For the remainder of this Duel, they don’t lose stars from the effects of Doom Cloud spells.

Speed: 2

Traits: Belligerent

Trim

Cost: 2 if the Beard of the Wizard in the specified numeric position is a Special Style, otherwise 0

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: The Wizard in the targeted position’s Beard becomes None and pays 1 Star to the Wizard casting this spell. If the Wizard in the targeted position does not have at least 1 Star, their Beard is still set to none but no payment is made.

Speed: 2

Traits: Belligerent

Burn

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: The wizard in the targeted position loses 3 stars. Their neighbors lose 1 star

Traits: Belligerent

Doom Cloud

Cost: 1

Effect: Every other Wizard participating in the Duel loses 2 Stars.

Traits: Belligerent

Fizzle

Fizzle is excluded from random selections to be removed from a Wizard Duel’s spell list as long as the spell Snipe remains on that spell list.

Effect: The Wizard casting Fizzle is disappointed.

Gather

Effect: Gain DICE3 Stars

Traits: Selfish

Gift

Inputs: A numerical position in the Wizard Ring which is not the position of the Wizard selecting the spell

Effect: The wizard in the targeted position gains 3 stars

Traits: Benevolent

Glam

Inputs: A Type of Style (Hat, Robes, Staff or Beard), and a numerical position in the Wizard Ring

Effect: If the Wizard in the targeted position of this spell is Fresh, nothing happens.

Otherwise, compare the Style of the input type held by the Wizard casting this spell and the Wizard in the target position for this spell. If one of the casting Wizard or target Wizard’s Style of that Type dominates the other Wizard’s Style of that Type, give the Wizard with the dominant style 2 stars and take 2 stars from the Wizard with the non-dominant Style

Traits: Belligerent

Greed

Effect: If no other Wizard selected the Greed spell this Duel, gain 5 stars

Traits: Selfish

Meditate

Cost: 5

Inputs: The name of a personality trait

Effect: The specified personality trait of the wizard casting the spell is reduced by 1.

Spotlight

Effect: If this Wizard is Unique, they gain 5 stars.

Traits: Selfish

Unify

Effect: All Trendy Wizards gain 1 star.

Traits: Benevolent

Upgrade

Cost: Depends on the Style chosen from the Inputs; Hat (Cost: 3), Robes (Cost: 5), Staff (Cost: 5), Beard (Cost: 5)

Inputs: One of the Style types of Hat, Robes, Staff, or Beard

Effect: The Style of the Wizard casting this Spell is changed to the Special Style corresponding to the type chosen in the Inputs.

Traits: Reclusive

Siphon

Effect: If any Wizards other than this Wizard received any Stars from one or more Spells this Duel, other than Siphon, the Wizard among them with the lowest-numbered position in the Wizard Ring loses 1 Star, then this Wizard gains 1 Star. This Wizard can also receive Stars from other Spells and still trigger this Effect.

Speed: 0

Traits: Selfish, Belligerent

Duels

A Duel consists of a Number, A Wizard Ring and A Spell List. Duels are either Open, Pending or Resolved and are by default Open.

A Wizard Ring consists of the names of the Wizards (including possibly Idle Wizards) who are actively participating in a Duel, as well as their numerical position in the ring (starting at 1). Each Wizard is considered to be neighbors with the Wizards numerically adjacent to them in the ring (so Wizard in position 4 is neighbors with Wizards 3 and 5). Additionally, the Wizard Ring loops so the Wizard in position 1 is adjacent to the Wizard in the last position and vice versa.

The Spell List is a link to a wiki page which contains the spells available to cast in that duel, as well as a separate section which contains the achievements that a wizard can possibly unlock during that duel. The spell list for all duels is considered game state.

The Battle Master is permitted to publicly announce which Wizards are yet to select a spell for a given duel, but may not reveal any details about what spells Wizards have selected for casting other than to the Wizard who made the selection.

Creating A Duel

If there is no open or pending duel and no Wizard has met the criteria for achieving victory under the rule ‘Achievements’, the Battle Master may Schedule a Duel by performing the following atomic action:

• Set the Duel Number to be one higher than the previous duel number or 1 if it’s the first duel
• Set the Wizard Ring to be all Wizards, ordered randomly (the Battle Master may make this determination using a private method of their choosing)
• Randomly roll DICE6. On a 2, 3, 4 or 5, randomly select 1 Gewgaw to affect this Duel. On a 6, randomly select 2 different Gewgaws to affect this Duel, rerolling duplicates, or if there are only 2 Gewgaws to select from, select both.
• Clear the contents of the wiki page titled “Wizard Duel Spell List X” where X is the duel number
• Set the contents of the wiki page titled “Wizard Duel Spell List X” where X is the duel number to be the current spell list in the ruleset, with a separate section that contains the current list of achievements and their criteria.
• Randomly choose a spell that is not mentioned in the effect of any Gewgaws affecting this duel from the wiki page from the previous step, and remove it from the spell list on that page.
• Make a story post to the blog titled “Wizard Duel X” where X is the duel number which consists of the Wizard Ring and Spell List, and (if any are selected) the Gewgaws, for that Duel

Gewgaws

There exist a number of Gewgaws, which may be included by the Battle Master as part of a Duel to change the way that Duel is conducted. The list of Gewgaws, and the effect each such Gewgaw has when it is included in a Duel, is as follows:

Contemplation Orb

Before the spells selected for a Duel are cast, each Trendy Wizard named in that Duel’s Wizard Ring gains 1 Star.

Bonsai Volcano

After the spells selected for a Duel are cast, each Wizard who lost Stars in this Duel due to the effects of a Burn spell loses another Star.

Pewter Elephant

Before the spells selected for a Duel are cast, each Wizard who selected a Spell with positive Charm gains 1 additional Star.

Silver Candelabra

Before the spells selected for the Duel are cast, each Wizard who has selected a Spell not selected by any other Wizard for that Duel gains 1 Star.

Stygian Censer

Wizards may not select numerical positions as inputs which are not adjacent to their own position.

Pine Totem

After spells are cast, any previous changes to Wizards’ Personality Traits this Duel are applied a second time.

Engaging in a Duel

Wizards who are named in the Wizard Ring for a duel are considered to be participants in that duel. Each participant in a duel may cast one instance of a spell in that duel. A wizard who is a participant in an open duel may select which spell they want to cast or change which spell they are casting in that duel by choosing a spell from the spell list for the duel and privately communicating with the Battle Master the name of the spell and any inputs for that spell. A Wizard may also clear their selection of a spell for an open duel by privately communicating this intention to the Battle Master. If a Wizard changes which spell they are casting in a given duel, they are only considered to have selected their new spell for casting, and so are not considered to have selected the previous spell.

If the input for a spell refers to a numerical position in the Wizard ring, Wizards may instead reference the name of a Wizard (or a nickname for the Wizard, as long as it is clear which Wizard they are referring to) and if they do the Battle Master may assume they are targeting the numerical position held by that Wizard in the wizard ring at the start of the duel.

Commencing a Duel

If there is an open duel, and every Wizard participating in it has selected a spell to cast in that duel, the Battle Master may make a comment in the blog post for that duel indicating that the battle is about to commence and the duel is now pending. At this point the duel becomes pending.

If there is a pending duel, the Battle Master may resolve the duel by performing the following atomic action

• For each Wizard which requested to change their Style while this duel was open, update that Wizard’s requested Style to match their request
• Apply the effects of the Duel’s selected Gewgaws, if any, that occur before spells are cast
• Give each Wizard who selected a spell to cast in the current Duel a number of Stars equal to the Charm of that Spell
• For each Wizard who selected a spell to cast in the current Duel, increase each of that Wizard’s Personality Traits that match the Spell’s Traits, if any, by 1.
• Each Wizard’s Spell is cast starting with the highest-Speed Spells and continuing to the next highest-Speed Spells, until all Spells have been cast. If multiple Wizards cast Spells with the same Speed, then those Spells are cast in the same order as those Wizards’ order in the Wizard Ring, lowest to highest. When a Spell is cast, apply the effects of that Spell according to the Spell List for the current Duel, with those effects being applied to the Wizard casting the Spell unless otherwise stated. Idle Wizards who are targeted by a Spell are still considered Wizards for the purposes of resolving a Spell’s effects, and may have their gamestate changed by other Wizards’ Spells, but the Idle Wizards’ Spells are not cast.
• Set the Charm of any Spell which was selected for casting this duel to 0. Increase the Charm of any Spell other than Fizzle which was listed in the Spell List for this duel but was not selected for casting by any Wizard this duel by 1.
• Apply the effects of the Duel’s selected Gewgaws, if any, that occur after spells are cast
• Reduce the Freshness of every Wizard by 1
• If a single wizard has more stars than every other wizard, increase that Wizard’s High Marks by 1
• Reply to the duel post specifying each spell that was cast, and for each of those spells: the name of the Wizard that cast that spell and the resulting effect that Spell caused including details such as Wizards targeted, Stars gained or lost with the names of the Wizards who gained or lost them, target positions changed, any other effects that the Spell had, or failure to have any effect at all
• For each Achievement listed on the spell list page for the duel, add it to the list of Achievements for each Wizard who met the criteria for that Achievement (according to the spell list for the current duel) during this Duel if that Wizard does not have that Achievement in their list already.
• At this point, the duel becomes resolved and the Battle Master is encouraged to promptly schedule the next duel

Style

Each Wizard has a single publicly-tracked Style for each of their Hat, Robes, Staff and Beard, from the possible Styles for each type listed below:

• Hat: Pointy, Phrygian, Hooded, Gilded, None.
• Robes: Starry, Cloaked, Ragged, Dragonhide, Plain.
• Staff: Hooked, Crooked, Knobbed, Forked, None.
• Beard: Flowing, Clipped, Wispy, Evil Gotee, None.

A Wizard’s Styles default to Plain Robes and None for Hat, Staff and Beard.

The Fashion Score for a Style is equal to the total number of Stars held by all Wizards who have that Style. The Fashion Score for None is always 0.

A Style is In Fashion if its Fashion Score is greater than the Fashion Score for all other Styles of that same type.

A Wizard is Trendy if all their Styles are In Fashion.

If a Style is not In Fashion, it is Out of Fashion. A Wizard is Unique if, for each of their Styles, they are the only Wizard with that Style, the Style is Out of Fashion, and the Style is not “None”.

If there is currently an open duel, a Wizard may request a style change by sending a private message to the Battle Master indicating which of their Styles they wish to change, and what they wish their new value for that Style to become (unless that Style is a Special Style). A Wizard may only request one one change in Style per duel, so if they send a new request to change their style the old request is overwritten. A Wizard may never request to change any of their Styles to none.

Each Wizard has a Freshness, which by default is 3. A Wizard is considered to be Fresh if their Freshness is greater than 0. Anything that would set a Wizard’s Freshness below 0 sets it to 0 instead

Special Styles

If a Style is listed in the following list, it is a Special Style. Each Special Style has a Benefit, which applies only to Wizards that have that Style. The list of Special Styles is as follows:

Dragonhide

Benefit: Whenever you are to lose Stars due to the Effect of a Spell, you instead lose one less Star.

Gilded

Benefit: Whenever you receive Stars due to the Charm of a Spell, if the Charm of that Spell is at least 3, you receive 1 extra Star.

Evil Gotee

Benefit: Whenever you cast a Spell with an Effect whose text states explicitly that it causes one or more Wizards to lose Stars, the Wizard with the lowest position in the Wizard Ring among those affected Wizards loses 1 extra Star, unless they have already been affected by another Wizard’s Evil Gotee in this Duel.

Forked

Benefit: If you select a Spell for a Duel that has a numerical position in the Wizard Ring as part of its Inputs, you may (no more than once per Duel) add 1 Star to your cost of casting the Spell this duel to specify an additional numerical position in the Wizard Ring, provided that it is not the same position as the original selected position and the additional position still abides by the rules for that Spell, by informing the Battle Master of this choice. If you do so, for that Duel, the spell’s effects apply to the Wizards in both of the selected numerical positions of the Wizard Ring. This does not count as two castings of the Spell.

Dominance

Certain Styles may Dominate other Styles

Hooked Dominates Crooked and None. Crooked Dominates Knobbed and None. Knobbed Dominates Hooked and None.

Starry Dominates Cloaked and Plain. Cloaked Dominates Ragged and Plain. Ragged Dominates Starry and Plain.

Pointy Dominates Phrygian and None. Phrygian Dominates Hooded and None. Hooded Dominates Pointy and None.

Flowing Dominates Clipped and None. Clipped Dominates Wispy and None. Wispy Dominates Flowing and None.

Personality Traits

Each Wizard has a set of Personality Traits, where each Personality Trait is a non-negative number that is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. The Personality Traits are:

• Selfish
• Benevolent
• Belligerent
• Reclusive

A Wizard Imbalance is equal to their highest personality trait minus their second highest personality trait. Whenever a Wizard casts a spell, if the spell has a trait which is that Wizard’s highest personality trait, the cost for that Wizard to cast the spell for the current duel is increased by their Imbalance. This cost increase is calculated based on the Wizard’s Personality Traits at the start of the current duel.

Achievements

Each Wizard has a publicly-tracked Achievements, which is a list of Achievement names that defaults to empty. The possible names in the list of Achievements are defined in the table below along with the criteria required for each Achievement. The criteria for an Achievement must be met between the moment just before the effects of the Duel’s selected Gewgaws, if any, that occur before spells are cast are applied and the moment just before the creation of the reply to the duel post specifying which spells were cast. This portion of a Duel is its televised period.

Name	Criteria
Stargazer	Have at least five stars more than any other Wizard at the end of the current duel’s televised period
Perfect Harmony	Have each personality trait be at least two, and have all of your personality traits be equal at the end of the current duel’s televised period
Denied!	Successfully snipe a greed spell in a duel where no one else selected to cast greed during the current duel
Safe and Sound	Prevent the loss of at least five stars by casting Magical Armor during the current duel’s televised period
Honor Student	Have at least three High Marks at the end of the current duel’s televised period
Superstar	Have a net gain of at least eight stars during the current duel’s televised period
Fabulous	Earn stars from the casting of two different Glam spells during the current duel’s televised period (stars earned from charm do not count for this achievement)
Thanks, Me!	Successfully target yourself with a Gift spell that you cast during the current duel’s televised period (Note that Synergy does not change the target of the spell, so would not trigger this achievement)

If a Wizard has at least 3 Achievements, that Wizard is considered to be an Archmage. While there is no Duel that is Pending, a Wizard achieves victory based on meeting one of the following criteria:

• If a Wizard is the only Archmage out of all Wizards, they achieve victory.
• If a Wizard is an Archmage and their Stars exceed all other Archmages’ Stars, they achieve victory.

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 “[Standard]” then its Default Status is Active; otherwise, its Default Status is Inactive.

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; those Special Case rules are then 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] [Standard]

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

Dormancy [Active] [Standard]

If there are fewer than four Wizards, then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Active] [Standard]

If the Battle Master has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Wizards 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 Wizards on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

If there are six or fewer Wizards, then the Battle Master’s vote of DEFERENTIAL on a proposal is only affected by this rule if all Wizards who are not the Battle Master have cast a vote on that proposal.

Dynastic Distance [Active] [Standard]

For the purposes of dynastic and Special Case rules, the Battle Master is not a Wizard.

Malign Emperors [Inactive]

The Battle Master may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were a Wizard, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Battle Master 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. The Battle Master may not use the rule “Official Posts” to move posts into the proposal category.

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

No Private Communication [Inactive]

Wizards 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 Wizard could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #current-dynasty, #blognomic-general and #new-player-questions-and-mentorships Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Wizards (or people who are not yet Wizards) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Wizard 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. This rule’s restrictions on communication do not apply during an Interregnum. The restrictions in this rule on communication in non-blognomic-related media shall not be construed as to cause those media to be gamestate.

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Wizards 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] [Standard]

The mantle may not be passed, except as a result of a Call for Judgment. (Deals should not be made 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.

Declared Alliances [Inactive]

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

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if a Wizard 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 Wizard may pass the Mantle to a Wizard who was named in their Alliance at the posting time of their Declaration of Victory.

If “No Private Communication” is active, it does not apply to communications between Wizards 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 Wizards who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Active] [Standard]

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). A Wizard (or the Battle Master) 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 Wizard (or the Battle Master) 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 it be Ended again.

Bounties [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

The Battle Master may post a Bounty Notice, or close an open Bounty Notice, at any time.

If a Bounty Payout action is not defined in the dynastic rules, then the Bounty Payout action is that nothing happens.

If the Battle Master believes that one or more enacted votable matters satisfy the demand of an open Bounty Notice, then they may apply the Bounty Payout action to each Wizard (other than the Battle Master) who authored at least one of those votable matters and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

Reinitialisation [Inactive]

If they have not already done so in the current dynasty, a Wizard may make a post to the blog announcing that they are Reinitialising; if they do so then they must immediately set all of their gamestate tracked values to their defaults for new players, and if the Battle Master is privately tracking any information about them then they should do likewise at their first opportunity. When a Wizard has Reinitialised, they are considered to have undertaken no actions in this dynasty for the purposes of determining the validity of limited actions taken after the Reinitialisation, except for the action of Reinitialising itself.

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 Wizard 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 Wizard 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 Wizard 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 Wizard 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 Wizards.

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)

A Wizard's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Wizard's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Wizard's Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Wizard 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. Wizards , as well as people who are not Wizards 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 Wizards 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. Wizards 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 (or indirectly invoked by 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

Quorum

Quorum of a subset of Wizards is half the number of Wizards in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Wizards it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Wizards.

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 Wizard 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 Wizard 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 is less than six hours old and appears to the Battle Master to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Battle Master may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

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

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Wizard’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. 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 Wizard may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Wizard 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 Wizard, if doing so would not require the correcting Wizard to make any decisions on behalf of the original Wizard.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Wizards 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.

A Wizard 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 a Wizard with such access. Only a Wizard with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Wizard 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 Wizard making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Wizard 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 a Wizard 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 Wizard performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Wizard 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 Wizard must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Wizard 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 Wizard 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, a Wizard can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Wizards to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Wizard only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Wizard (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.
• A Wizard 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Wizards are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
• 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 Battle Master (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Battle Master when the ruleset allows it. If a Wizard should already know such a piece of information (in that the Battle Master has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Battle Master 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, Wizard 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 Wizard 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), Wizards 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.
• A Wizard 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.
• Wizards may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Wizards with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
• A Wizard 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 a Wizard if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Wizard'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, a Wizard's (or prospective Wizard'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:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
2. 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;
3. 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;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Wizards may Kick each other” and “Wizards may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Wizards may not Kick each other);
5. 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 “Wizards may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Wizards may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Wizards may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Wizard may have another Wizard as a Mentor. Wizards 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 a Wizard who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a votable matter.

If an unmentored Wizard requests a Mentor, or a new Wizard has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Battle Master should select a Tenured Wizard and ask them to take that Wizard 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 Battle Master should announce it in a blog post. The Battle Master should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

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

If there is no Battle Master, any Wizard who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Battle Master 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 Wizard 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 Wizards .
• 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 “Wizard” and “Battle Master”.

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

• Wizard (Player)
• Battle Master (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.