Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Vampire Lords 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 Vampire Lord may update it to do so.

Vampire Lords

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 a Vampire Lord may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Vampire Lord (plural form Vampire Lords); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Vampire Lord.

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

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

If a Vampire Lord is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Vampire Lords in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Vampire Lords”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Vampire Lords are not counted as Vampire Lords.

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

When a Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord Idled in a different Dynasty), the Vampire Lord is given the default value for new Vampire Lords, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Vampire Lord Idle if that Vampire Lord has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Vampire Lord has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven 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 a Vampire Lord if that Vampire Lord is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past four days, and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Vampire Lord who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four 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 enact and fail Votable Matters.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Vampire Lord, known as the Richardo von Nestor. If there is no Richardo von Nestor, 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lords may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

Each Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord’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-Vampire Lord never has a Vote, even if they were a Vampire Lord previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Vampire Lord other than the Richardo von Nestor casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Richardo von Nestor. When the Richardo von Nestor 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 Richardo von Nestor’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 Vampire Lords 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 can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Whenever 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 self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules 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 require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Vampire Lord.

If a Votable Matter would make a modification to the rules and it does not have the tag to make that modification, that Votable Matter will still be able to make that specific modification if any of the following on the following list are true:

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Vampire Lord casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Richardo von Nestor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Richardo von Nestor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Richardo von Nestor later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal’s status to Enacted) 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 Self-Killed.

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 Self-Killed.

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.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Vampire Lords actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Vampire Lord feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord (other than the Richardo von Nestor) 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.

Every Vampire Lord may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement 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.

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

• It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Richardo von Nestor has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It is Popular, 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.

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord who posted the DoV becomes Richardo von Nestor, 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 Richardo von Nestor must either Pass the Mantle, by making a post naming another Vampire Lord - in which case the Richardo von Nestor ceases to be the Richardo von Nestor and the Vampire Lord so named becomes the Richardo von Nestor - 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 Richardo von Nestor’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 a Vampire Lord’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. Vampire Lords 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 Vampire Lord within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Vampire Lord and any Idle Vampire Lords.
• A Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Vampire Lord should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Vampire Lord.
• A Vampire Lord should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Vampire Lord should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Vampire Lord should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Vampire Lord should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Vampire Lord to achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

Victory

No Vampire Lord may have the name Dracula. If Dracula exists as an entity in the game, and Dracula is Dust, then the Vampire Lord with the most Blood Mana Crystals has achieved Victory.

Vampire Lords

Each Vampire Lord has a Puissance, which is a publicly tracked non-negative integer that defaults to 10.

Each Vampire Lord has an Influence, which is a publicly tracked non-negative integer defaulting to 0. While a Vampire Lord does not have a Sepulchre, changes which would increase their Influence instead do nothing, and any Vampire Lord or Richardo von Nestor may set their Influence to 0.

Each Vampire Lord has a number of Blood Mana Crystals, which is a publicly tracked non-negative integer defaulting to 0.

Power Actions

Power Actions may be performed at any time but always require that their Cost be spent from the Puissance of the Vampire Lord carrying it out. An effect contained within curly braces (for example, {Richardo von Nestor is Lightly Injured}) is a temporary effect; it applies as if it were any other effect but must be removed whenever the Crypt Settles. Mysterious Actions may be performed at any time but require that their Cost be spent from the Puissance of the Vampire Lord carrying it out.

• Engraving a Sigil is a Power Action with a cost of 1 plus 1 for each other Sigil the Vampire Lord performing the action has engraved across all rooms. The Vampire Lord carrying it out may select a room and add their name to the list of Vampire Lords with Sigils engraved in the room. A Vampire Lord cannot perform this action if the selected room is Newly Furnished, unless the Vampire Lord performing the action is also the Vampire Lord who most recently caused the selected room to become Lit.
• Distilling is a Power Action with a cost of 1. The Vampire Lord carrying it out may spend 8 Influence to gain 1 Blood Mana Crystal.
• Machination is a Power Action with a cost of 7. The Vampire Lord carrying it out chooses another Vampire Lord who does not have a Sepulchre; and chooses a Lit room that is neither a Sepulchre nor the room located at E4, but is diagonally adjacent to a room reachable from room E4 by a path of orthogonally connected Lit rooms; and sets that chosen Vampire Lord’s Sepulchre to that chosen room.
• Blood Frenzy is an atomic Power Action with a cost of 7. When a Vampire Lord carries out a Blood Frenzy, they must take the following steps:
  • Randomly select a Lit Room. If it contains any Features, randomly select one of those Features and remove it from that Room.
  • Randomly select a Lit Room and randomly select a Threat Feature. Add that Feature to that Room.
• Shattering is a Power Action with a cost of zero. When a Vampire Lord Shatters, they must reduce their Blood Mana Crystals by 1 and then may increase their Puissance by 10, ceasing to be Dust if applicable, and may set their Allegiance to -.

Enchantment is a Power Action with a cost of 1 that each Vampire Lord may perform no more than once between each Enter the Crypt action. When a Vampire Lord carries out an Enchantment they may spend the Shadow cost of a Feature and add that Feature to a single room as a temporary effect.

Sepulchres

Inhabiting a Room is a Power Action with a cost of 3, which can only be taken by a Vampire Lord with no Sepulchre. The Vampire Lord may select a Lit room that is not a Sepulchre and is neither Richardo’s starting location nor a Ritual Chamber, and set their Sepulchre to that room. This action can only be performed on a room that is diagonally adjacent to a room reachable from Richardo’s starting location by a path of orthogonally connected Lit rooms.

A Vampire Lord may have up to one Sepulchre, which is a Lit room. The location of a Vampire Lord’s Sepulchre (if any) is publicly tracked. To collapse a Sepulchre is to take an Atomic Action that entails setting the Vampire Lord whose Sepulchre it was to have no Sepulchre, making the room that was most recently their Sepulchre Dark, and removing that room’s name, description and effect.

When the Crypt Awakens, increase the Influence of each Vampire Lord with a Sepulchre by 1. When the Crypt Settles, if Richardo von Nestor moved into a room which was a Vampire Lord’s Sepulchre, then Richardo von Nestor must collapse the Sepulchre. When a Vampire Lord becomes idle while having a Sepulchre, then if no other Vampire Lord has collapsed that former Sepulchre since the idle Vampire Lord became idle, any Vampire Lord may collapse that former Sepulchre.

Unlife

Each Vampire Lord has an Allegiance, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to none. If a Vampire Lord’s Allegiance is set to the name of another Vampire Lord, then the former Vampire Lord is said to be Enthralled; to Enthrall another Vampire Lord is to set that Vampire Lord’s Allegiance to one’s own name. If a Vampire Lord’s Allegiance is set to the name of an idle Vampire Lord, they are not Enthralled, and may set their Allegiance to none at any time. A Vampire Lord may only Enthrall another if that second Lord can be shown to have asked to be Enthralled by the first, in a blog post or comment made within the previous 24 hours.

If a Vampire Lord is Enthralled, then as a Daily Action that is also an Atomic Action and is known as Emancipating, they may grant the Vampire Lord who most recently Enthralled them a Favour, then set their Allegiance to none and cease being Enthralled.

Any Puissance or Influence that would accrue to an Enthralled Vampire Lord instead accrues to the Vampire Lord who Enthralls them; when the Crypt Settles, each Enthralled Vampire Lord who would have gained Puissance or Influence if not for this sentence has their Allegiance set to none, and ceases to be Enthralled.

Status

If a Vampire Lord’s Puissance is 0, then that Vampire Lord is Dust. While a Vampire Lord is Dust, they may not spend Puissance, their Puissance is 0, and their Puissance cannot be raised above 0 except by means defined in this rule. If a Vampire Lord is not Dust, then that Vampire Lord is Revenant. If a Vampire Lord’s Puissance is above 13, then that Vampire Lord is Bloodthirsty. While a Vampire Lord is Bloodthirsty, they may not perform any Power Actions or Mysterious Actions except Blood Frenzy. If a Vampire Lord’s Puissance is above 25, then that Vampire Lord is Inhuman. Any Vampire Lord may force an Inhuman Vampire Lord to take a Blood Frenzy action, by performing it on their behalf.

If a given Vampire Lord is Dust, any other Vampire Lord who is Revenant but not Enthralled by the Dust Vampire Lord or Bloodthirsty may, as a Power Action that is also a Daily Action with a cost of 1, raise the Puissance of that Dust Vampire Lord to 1 and Enthrall that Vampire Lord. If a given Vampire Lord is Dust, any other Vampire Lord who is Bloodthirsty and not Enthralled by the Dust Vampire Lord may, as a Power Action that is also a Daily Action with a cost of 2, raise the Puissance of that Dust Vampire Lord to 3 and Enthrall that Vampire Lord.

If a given Vampire Lord is Dust, and another Vampire Lord who is Revenant is currently Enthralled by that Dust Vampire Lord, then that Enthralled Revenant Vampire Lord may, as a Power Action with a cost of 1, raise the Puissance of the Dust Vampire Lord Enthralling them to 1, then set their own Allegiance to none and thereby cease to be Enthralled.

The Crypt of Dracula

Zahndorf Crypt contains a publicly tracked map of the known layout of the crypt beneath Zahndorf Cathedral. Each cell of the table that comprises that map represents one room of the lair, and so the terms “cell” and “room” are interchangeable throughout the ruleset. Rooms can also be referred to using their grid reference. Rooms can be Lit (but by default are not); any room that is not Lit is Dark.

Dark rooms have a background colour of #444444 and have no text inside them, while Lit rooms have a background colour of #888888 (or #CCCC00, if they are a Sepulchre) and contain a room name. Room names must be unique and may be used to specifically refer to the room that carries them; otherwise, they are flavour text. Rooms may be Newly Furnished. Newly Furnished rooms are denoted by adding a * after their name. Rooms may not otherwise have a * in their name. Whenever the Crypt Awakens, all Newly Furnished rooms cease to be Newly Furnished. Room names may not contain the word “Dracula”.

Lighting a Room is a Power Action with a cost of 3 plus the total Shadow scores of the Features being placed in that Room’s Effect (the total cost of this action cannot be less than 1). The Vampire Lord carrying it out may select a room and set it to Lit, giving it a name and a description, marking it as Newly Furnished, and any number of Features as its Effect (or “none” if it has no Features), in an order of the Vampire Lord’s choosing. A Room may not have more than one copy of a Feature. When adding a Feature with the string '[x]' in its description, a Vampire Lord must replace [x] with their own name.

There is a list of Lit rooms which is publicly tracked, showing - for each room - the name of the room, a brief flavour-text description of its contents, and its effect on Richardo von Nestor when he enters it. Only Lit rooms have names, effect, and descriptions; any other room with one of those properties immediately ceases to have it. When a Vampire Lord or Richardo von Nestor changes the effect of a room, they may immediately update that room’s description to reflect the mechanical changes.

Features

The sentences in the lists below are Features that Rooms may possess, with their Shadow scores given afterwards in brackets.

Glyphs and Sigils:
This room contains a Glyph belonging to [x] (+1)
If Richardo is not Enriched, he gains 1 Energy for each Active Sigil engraved here and becomes Enriched (+1).
Each Vampire Lord gains 1 Puissance. (+1)
Each Vampire Lord with an engraved Sigil here gains 1 Puissance. (+2)
Each Vampire Lord that has an engraved Sigil in an orthogonally adjacent room to this room gains 1 Puissance.(+3)

Threats:
Richardo von Nestor is Lightly Wounded if he is not Perceptive. (+1)
Richardo von Nestor is Grievously Injured if he is not Agile. (+3)
Richardo von Nestor is Grievously Injured; if he is Agile he instead is Lightly Wounded. (+5)
Richardo von Nestor is moved back to his previous location. (+1)
Richardo von Nestor loses all of his equipped Items. (+2)
The north exit is blocked (+1)
The south exit is blocked (+1)
The east exit is blocked (+1)
The west exit is blocked (+1)
This room is Daunting. (+5)

Opportunities:
Richardo approaches a fine treasure chest (+1)
Richardo approaches an average treasure chest (0)
Richardo finds an ingress (+2)

If a Feature says is that an exit is blocked, this means that the room in that direction from the room with the Feature is removed from the set of possible selections of Richardo von Nestor’s next destination, if it would be in that set. (North is towards the top of the map.)

Glyphs and Sigils

Glyphs are powerful markers used by Vampire Lords to signal their domain, while Sigils are cantrips used to power small blood magics. Each room may be engraved with up to one Glyph or Sigil from each Vampire Lord. If a room contains a Sigil from a Vampire Lord then no Glyph may be created for that Vampire Lord, and vice-versa.

A room may only contain one Glyph and a Glyph may belong to no more than three Vampire Lords.

Whenever a Room is Pacified, if that room contains a Glyph then the Vampire Lord/s who owns that Glyph gain Influence equal to the amount of Energy lost by Richardo during the completion of that Move.

When a Sigil in a room is destroyed, the corresponding Vampire Lord’s name is removed from the list of Sigils in that room.

A Vampire Lord may destroy one of their Sigils engraved in any room at any time.

Ritual Chambers

The four rooms in the corners of the Zahndorf Crypt map are known as the Ritual Chambers. Ritual Chambers have a text colour of #FFFFFF and are always Lit. The Ritual Chamber located at A1 is called the Yellow Bile Chamber and has a background colour of #585B1F. The Ritual Chamber located at A8 is called the Black Bile Chamber and has a background colour of #1B2E4F. The Ritual Chamber located at H1 is called the Blood Chamber and has a background colour of #591F2E. The Ritual Chamber located at H8 is called the Phlegm Chamber and has a background colour of #2C541D. Richardo von Nestor may set these Chambers to have any Description that he wishes.

At any time, as a Power Action, any Vampire Lord may spend the Darkness cost of a Feature to add that Feature to the Ritual Chamber of their choice. Ritual Chambers may not contain Glyphs and can never be made into the Sepulchre of a Vampire Lord.

Richardo von Nestor may not move to a Ritual Chamber through the use of a Secret Passage Map, and all Ritual Chambers must be omitted from the secret random selection that takes place as a result of the use of that item.

When the Crypt Settles, if Richardo was Lightly or Grievously Wounded in a Ritual Chamber, or if Richardo collapsed a Dracula’s Sepulchre without Dusting Dracula, then a random Ordinary room gains a Denizen with the name of Dracula, with the following statistics: Brutality 3, Cunning 5, the Bloodsoaked and Evasive traits, and a Sycophancy of None.

When the Crypt Settles, if Richardo encountered and defeated the Denizen Dracula, then a random Ordinary room gains the following Feature, which may only be added to a room under this circumstance and may not otherwise be added to any room:

• Richardo encounters Dracula’s Sepulchre

A room with the effect “Richardo encounters Dracula’s Sepulchre” should be treated as a Sepulchre for the purposes of collapsing a Sepulchre in the rule Sepulchres. If Richardo collapses a room with the “Richardo encounters Dracula’s Sepulchre” effect while holding a Silver-Tipped Stake then Dracula is Dusted.

Crypt Denizens

A Crypt Denizen is an NPC inhabitant of the Zahndorf Crypt. Existing Crypt Denizens and the states of their attached variables are publicly tracked. Every Crypt Denizen has a name, which is flavour text determined by the Vampire Lord that spawned it; two numerical stats, Brutality and Cunning, which both default to 1; a Trait list which defaults to blank but can contain the names of any Denizen Traits whose effects are outlined in the Ruleset, separated by commas; a Location which is a text string that defaults to blank; and a Sycophancy which defaults to “None” but can contain the name of any active Vampire Lord.

Summon Denizen is a Power Action. To perform Summon Denizen, a Vampire Lord selects a Name for the Denizen (which cannot be nor contain “Dracula”), a string of flavour text; its Brutality and Cunning, each of which is a non-negative integer; zero or more Selectable Traits; and a Summoning Location, which must be a Lit Ordinary Room. A Vampire Lord may not name a Denizen “Dracula”.

The cost of this Power Action is equal to the chosen Brutality, plus the chosen Cunning, plus the total Trait Cost of the chosen traits (but is instead 2 if it would be less than 2). When this action is performed, a Denizen is created at the chosen Summoning Location, with the chosen Name, Brutality, Cunning, and Traits. Its initial Sycophancy contains only the Vampire Lord who performed the action.

Move Denizens is a Power Action and also a Daily Action, with a cost of 2. When performing it, a Vampire Lord chooses any number of Denizens whose Sycophancy contains the name of that Vampire Lord, and changes the locations of those Denizens, subject to the restriction that each Denizen’s location after the change must be an Lit Ordinary Room orthogonally adjacent to (or the same as) its location before the change.

If a Crypt Denizen’s Location is ever any value that is not the name of a map cell, it is slain. When a Crypt Denizen is slain, it is removed from the game and gamestate.

Denizen Characteristics

The following Denizen Traits can be held by Crypt Denizens (and are Selectable, with the Trait Cost specified in parentheses at the end of their descriptions, unless otherwise specified):

• Bloodsoaked: When the Crypt Settles, if Richardo von Nestor became Lightly Wounded or Grievously Injured upon Encountering this Denizen in this Enter the Crypt action, all Vampire Lords with Sigils in the room where the Encounter took place gain Puissance equal to the Energy lost by Richardo von Nestor as a result of the Encounter (+2)
• Evasive: When an evasive Denizen is Encountered, it may not be slain. When a Room is Pacified, if this Denizen would have been slain during this Move, it instead changes its Location to a randomly-selected Lit room that is orthogonally adjacent to its current Location, and it loses the trait Evasive. (+1)
• Industrious: When the Crypt Settles, each Vampire Lord whose name is contained in this Denizen’s Sycophancy gains 1 Puissance. (+2)
• Mischievous: If a Mischievous Denizen is not slain, immediately after Encountering it Richardo ceases to be holding one secretly randomly selected item that he is holding (if any such items exist). (+2)
• Nutritious: When Richardo Encounters and slays a Nutritious Denizen, once the room is Pacified, if his Energy is greater than 0 it increases by an amount equal to one more than the Denizen’s Brutality before it was slain. (+0)
• Quick: Quick Denizens are always encountered before non-quick Denizens, and are also encountered before room effects are applied (Not selectable)

Denizen Encounters

When Richardo Encounters a Denizen, he first determines if the Denizen is immediately slain by an item Richardo possess, and then applies the effect of any Traits that the Denizen has. If the Denizen is still alive and present in that room, he then randomly generates a number between 1 and his current energy, and compares that result to the Denizen’s Brutality plus its Cunning. If the result of Richardo’s roll is higher, the Denizen is slain. If the result is equal, Richardo is Lightly Wounded. If the result is lower, Richardo is Lightly Wounded a number of times equal to the Denizen’s Brutality (at minimum once).

When Richardo von Nestor becomes Lightly Wounded or Grievously Injured upon Encountering a Denizen, each Vampire Lord whose name is contained in that Denizen’s Sycophancy gains an amount of Influence equal to the amount of Energy Richardo von Nestor lost. This effect may be stacked with the Glyph effect.

Richardo’s Journey

If it has been at least 24 hours since the Crypt was last entered, and at least 12 hours since the last Power Action was taken, and there are no pending calls for judgement which have the tag “[Pressing]”, Richardo von Nestor may Enter the Crypt, Richardo von Nestor may Enter the Crypt, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Set his location to be the his starting location; set his Energy to its starting value.
• Carry out any effects that take place when the Crypt Awakens.
• If Richardo can legally carry out a Move, do so. A Move consists of the following steps:
  • Reduce his Energy by 1.
  • Secretly randomly select a Lit room that is orthogonally adjacent to his current room and change his location to be that room. When randomly selecting a room for this step, Richardo may only select a Room which is Daunting and/or was his immediate previous location if it is the only option in the set of rooms he is randomly choosing from.
  • Use or otherwise apply the effect of any items that he is holding (if appropriate and relevant based on its description)
  • Encounter any Quick Denizens in that room, in a secretly random order
  • Apply any effects of the features of that room, in the order that they are listed in the rule Features, to Richardo
  • Encounter any other Denizens in that room, in a secretly random order
  • That room is then Pacified; carry out any effects that take place when that room is Pacified.
  • If his Energy is greater than 0, carry out another Move.
• Remove the “This room is Daunting.” Feature from all rooms that Richardo entered during this Enter the Crypt action
• If Richardo’s current room contains a Threat or Denizen, add the “This room is Daunting.” Threat to it.
• He retreats; reset all of his gamestate variables to null values.
• Carry out any effects that take place when the Crypt Settles.
• For each Vampire Lord without a Sepulchre, and with an Influence above zero, set their Influence to zero.
• Set the Organ to Not Playing
• Make a post to the blog summarising this Enter the Crypt action. It is recommended that this include an outline of Richardo von Nestor’s variable changes, and any changes made to the gamestate of any Vampire Lords as a result of this action.

If the effect of any Room causes Richardo to “become” anything, that state lasts until he retreats.

If a specific step of Entering the Crypt is impossible to perform, Richardo may skip it (this takes precedence over the Atomic Actions rule). If Richardo believes that the current Entering the Crypt action will include more than 50 Moves, and if at least 6 Moves have been performed, he should skip the step that includes the words “carry out another Move”.

When Richardo von Nestor is Grievously Injured by an Effect, his Energy is reduced by 6. When Richardo von Nestor is Lightly Wounded by an Effect, his Energy is reduced by 1.

When the Crypt Awakens, each Vampire Lord who is not Bloodthirsty gains 1 Puissance.

Run Initialisation

During the Enter the Crypt action, Richardo has a value called Energy, which must be an integer.

The starting value for Richardo’s Energy varies based on the number of lit rooms in the crypt, as follows:

Less than 10 lit rooms: Starting energy 5
10-15 lit rooms: Starting energy 6
16-20 lit rooms: Starting energy 8
21-30 lit rooms: Starting energy 10
31-40 lit rooms: Starting energy 14
41-64 lit rooms: Starting energy 18

If every room that is orthogonally adjacent to Richardo’s starting location has no Effects then he must add 1 to his Energy’s starting value.

Richardo’s starting location is a publicly tracked Room. Whenever a Room is Pacified, if Richardo found an Ingress while applying the effects of that Room’s featrures, Richardo’s starting location becomes that Room. Whenever Richardo’s starting location would not be a Lit Room, Richardo von Nestor or any Vampire Lord can change Richardo’s starting location to a random Lit Room.

An “Ordinary Room” is a Room that is not Richardo’s starting location, and is not orthogonally adjacent to Richardo’s starting location and is not a Ritual Chamber.

The Organ

The Organ can be either Playing or Not Playing, defaulting to Not Playing, and its status is publicly tracked.

At any time when Richardo von Nestor would be permitted to Enter the Crypt, Richardo von Nestor may set the Organ to be Playing. When the Organ is Playing, no Power Actions may be taken.

If the Organ has been Playing for more than half an hour without an Enter the Crypt action having been completed then any Vampire Lord may set the Organ to Not Playing.

Richardo von Nestor may set the Organ to Not Playing at any time

Treasure

If Richardo approaches a treasure chest, and if he is holding two or fewer items, he will secretly randomly elect to whether or not to open it; if he does then he expends 1 Energy to do so and starts holding the contents of that chest. When Richardo uses an item he ceases to be holding it.

An average treasure chest will contain one item from the average treasures list. A fine treasure chest will contain one item from the fine treasures list and one item from the average treasures list. The contents of a chest are determined when it is opened, in one of two ways:

• As a Power Action with a cost of 2, a Vampire Lord may add a set of predetermined items to a single treasure chest, which is any list of items possible for that type of chest, by appending the names of the items to be contained in that chest to its entry in the room’s effects in square brackets. If a chest has one or more sets of predetermined items, then the contents of the chest are one such set, selected secretly randomly. The selected set of predetermined items (including the square brackets) is then deleted from the chest’s entry in the room effects.
• If a chest has no sets of predetermined items, then the contents of the chest are chosen secretly at random from all values legal for that type of chest. A type of Treasure may have a weight (which is 1 if not otherwise specified); these weights are used to weight the secret random selection (e.g. an item with a weight of 2 would be twice as likely to be selected as an item with a weight of 1).

The list of available Treasures are as follows:

Average treasures:

• Holy Tincture: Richardo immediately uses this item to gain two Energy
• Secret Passage Map: Richardo immediately uses this item and must randomly select from any Lit room to be his next destination
• Bandages: The first time during a journey when Richardo would be Grievously Injured, he uses this item and is only Lightly Wounded instead
• Rusty crossbow: The first time Richardo encounters a Denizen, he uses this item and it is immediately slain
• Depleted Ring of Warding: The first time Richardo enters a room that contains active Sigils, he uses this item and one of those Sigils (selected secretly at random) is destroyed
• Roc’s Feather: Richardo immediately uses this to become Agile
• Northbound Compass (weight ¼): when selecting a room to move to, if moving north is a valid option, Richardo selects that option and ceases to hold this item
• Eastbound Compass (weight ¼): when selecting a room to move to, if moving east is a valid option, Richardo selects that option and ceases to hold this item
• Southbound Compass (weight ¼): when selecting a room to move to, if moving south is a valid option, Richardo selects that option and ceases to hold this item
• Westbound Compass (weight ¼): when selecting a room to move to, if moving west is a valid option, Richardo selects that option and ceases to hold this item

If two or more Compasses attempt to force Richardo in two or more different possible directions in a single selection of a room to move to, then none of those Compass effects are applied when making that selection.

Fine treasures:

• Rod of Smoothing: The first time Richardo enters a room while holding this item, he uses it and one feature (chosen secretly at random) is removed from that room, before any effects are enacted
• Elaborate crossbow: Richardo destroys any Denizen he encounters. This item is not used when this affect is applied.
• Empowered Ring of Warding: The first time Richardo enters a room that contains active Sigils, he uses this item and any Sigils in that room are destroyed
• Holy Distillate: Richardo immediately uses this item to gain 5 Energy
• Silver-Tipped Stake: If Richardo enters a room that is a Sepulchre, he uses this item and the Vampire Lord whose Sepulchre it is becomes Dust.
• Watchful Saint Figurine: Richardo immediately uses this to become Perceptive

The Ancients

If an idle Vampire Lord has been idle for the entirety of the current dynasty, they may perform the Lighting a Room Action as if they were not idle, and without paying its Puissance cost, so long as doing so would not modify the values of any Vampire or idle Vampire, and its cost would have been no more than 10 Puissance. Such a Power Action is known as an Ancient Action.

Each idle Vampire Lord may take no more than one Ancient Action per dynasty, and an Ancient Action cannot be taken if one has already been taken that day.

Dark Favours

This rule governs the use of favours in this dynasty. Wherever is contradicts the contents of another rule, this rule takes precedence.

All Favours are always ripe in this dynasty.

In this Dynasty, Favours may only be claimed, spent or exchanged through the favour transaction types detailed in this rule. Favour transactions are carried out between an Initiator and a Provider. In this dynasty, the following favour transactions are considered to be equivalent:

• Spend: An Initiator spending a Favour that they hold to transfer a resource or advantage from its Lender, the Provider, to the Initiator;
• Incur: An Initiator awarding a Favour as its lender to a Provider in exchange for a resource or advantage, with the Provider’s consent.

Whenever a dynastic rule specifies that dynastic resources or mechanics may be moved or generated as a result of a Favour transaction, either of the two types of transactions detailed above may be used, regardless of the language used in the rule text. This notwithstanding, no Vampire Lord may ever be in possession of more than five Favours in total at any time. Conducting a Favour transaction of any kind with each discrete partner is a daily action.

Favour transactions between a Vampire Lord and Richardo von Nestor may only take the form of a Spend transaction.

If the game is in Interregnum, any Vampire Lord may remove any duplicated Favours (i.e. repeated Favours with the same holder and lender) past the first from all Vampire Lords. They must then make all remaining Favours unripe.

The following lists detail the dynastic resources and effects that can be exchanged as part of a result of a single Favour transaction; any Dynastic resource or variable not specifically appearing on either list may not be exchanged in a Favour transaction:

Between Vampire Lords:

• Emancipating, as described in rule Vampire Lords
• 1 Influence
• The Sycophancy of 1 Crypt Denizen
• The inclusion of the Initiator’s name on a Glyph held by the Provider

Between a Vampire Lord and Richardo von Nestor:

• 1 Influence
• A Glyph with an Initiator’s name in a room that does not contain a Glyph

Cleanup Proposals

A proposal from Richardo von Nestor is a Cleanup Proposal if it has the “[Cleanup]” tag. A Cleanup Proposal should focus on improving the structure and formatting of the ruleset without altering its meaning.

Cleanup Proposals are not counted as proposals for the “already has 2 Proposals pending” of the rule “Proposals”, and may be made even if Richardo von Nestor has 2 Proposals pending.

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 “Vampire Lords” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Vampire Lords, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

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

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Richardo von Nestor is not a Vampire Lord.

The Traitor [Inactive]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be a Vampire Lord (including an idle one), or may be nobody, and it defaults to being nobody. The Traitor’s identity in the current Dynasty is tracked privately by the Richardo von Nestor, and the Richardo von Nestor should not share this information with Vampire Lords other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Richardo von Nestor may secretly randomly select a Vampire Lord (other than the Richardo von Nestor) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.

A Traitor is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they have made with other Vampire Lords, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Vampire Lords in order to achieve victory.

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Zahndorf Crypt page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Richardo von Nestor 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 Richardo von Nestor is not considered a Vampire Lord for the purposes of this rule. The Richardo von Nestor is always permitted to inform the Traitor of their role if the Special Case rule “The Traitor” is active.

Vampire Lords 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 Vampire Lord could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #currentdynasty or #general channels of the BlogNomic slack, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Vampire Lords (or people who are not yet Vampire Lords) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Vampire Lord 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 discussion specific gameplay strategy.

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

Favours [Active]

When a new dynasty starts, if at any point during the most recent dynasty any new favours were added which were owed by the new Richardo von Nestor to another Vampire Lord, the Richardo von Nestor must make this rule active.

While this rule is active, Vampire Lords can grant one another Favours via the methods defined in Dynastic Rules. Favours are resources unique to the individual who granted them (referred to as the Favour’s ‘lender’), but a given Vampire Lord cannot hold more than five Favours at a time regardless of their lenders. Favours have a ripeness, which defaults to unripe. Immediately after an Ascension Address is posted, all ripe Favours disappear and then all unripe Favours become ripe. If a Richardo von Nestor Passes the Mantle, any existing Favour for which they are the lender is turned into a Favour for which the new Richardo von Nestor is the lender.

The list of Favours each Vampire Lord has is tracked in the wikipage Favours. When this rule is changed from Inactive to Active, the Favours that were tracked the last time this rule was Active remain.

A Vampire Lord may at any time choose to release any or all of the Favours they hold, losing them and gaining nothing in return. A Vampire Lord who has a ripe Favour may at any time claim it, spending it to gain a benefit based on the status of that Favour’s lender:

• If the lender is the Richardo von Nestor, the claiming Vampire Lord immediately gains a single point of any tabular resource of their choosing that is described only in the Dynastic Rules. Any details the gained resource has apart from quantity are chosen by the Richardo von Nestor, who should be generous if possible.
• If the lender is an active Vampire Lord who is not the Richardo von Nestor, the lender immediately gives to the claiming Vampire Lord (even if it could not normally be transferred) a single point of any tabular resource of the claiming Vampire Lord’s choosing, so long as the lender has at least one point of that resource to give.
• If the lender is idle, the claiming Vampire Lord immediately gains an unripe Favour with the lender as its lender.

A resource is tabular if the only Rules that it is described in are Dynastic Rules, and if it is being publicly tracked as a number, in a table that contains one row corresponding to each Vampire Lord.

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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lords.

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 Vampire Lord’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Vampire Lord’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Vampire Lord’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Vampire Lord 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.

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

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing 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.

Rule

Each individually numbered section of the Ruleset is a rule, including sections that are subrules of other rules.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Vampire Lords may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Slack Channel

A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

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 nested within another rule. A Proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a Proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that Proposal.

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 Vampire Lord 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 eight hours old and either no Vampire Lord 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. 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord is defined as a Vampire Lord who has been a Vampire Lord for fewer than seven days or a Vampire Lord 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 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.

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 a Vampire Lord’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 Vampire Lord may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Vampire Lords 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 Vampire Lord 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 Proposal.

If a Proposal proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Proposal must name a Vampire Lord with such access. Only a Vampire Lord with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name a Vampire Lord with such access, that Proposal 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. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lord can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Vampire Lords to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Vampire Lord only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Vampire Lord (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 Vampire Lord 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 Richardo von Nestor (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Richardo von Nestor when the ruleset allows it. If a Vampire Lord should already know such a piece of information (in that the Richardo von Nestor has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Richardo von Nestor may repeat it to them.

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a Proposal and its location is not noted in that Proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Proposal enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Proposal’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Proposal proposing that enacted Proposals 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 Proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Vampire Lord A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
• If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Vampire Lord 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.

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 Vampire Lord 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

• 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.
• Vampire Lords may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Vampire Lord if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Vampire Lord’s name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal 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 Proposal, the name used in reference to a specific Proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Proposal 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 proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.

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 “Vampire Lords may Kick each other” and “Vampire Lords may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Vampire Lords may not Kick each other);
5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Vampire Lords may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Vampire Lords may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Vampire Lords may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Vampire Lord may have another Vampire Lord as a Mentor. Vampire Lords 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 Vampire Lord who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Vampire Lord requests a Mentor, or a new Vampire Lord has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Richardo von Nestor should select a Tenured Vampire Lord and ask them to take that Vampire Lord on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Richardo von Nestor should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Richardo von Nestor should announce it in a blog post. A Vampire Lord may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Richardo von Nestor, any Vampire Lord who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Richardo von Nestor 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, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
• 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 Vampire Lord 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 Vampire Lords.
• 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 “Vampire Lord” and “Richardo von Nestor”.

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

• Vampire Lord (Player)
• Richardo von Nestor (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 parenthesis in the above list.