Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Adventurers shall obey it. Section One consists of the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; Section Three contains rules which apply in special cases; and Section Four contains the appendix, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

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

Adventurers 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”.

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

Adventurers

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already an Adventurer) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be a Adventurer. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become an Adventurer.

An Adventurer may cease to be an Adventurer at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be an Adventurer in this way may not become an Adventurer again within the following two weeks. An Adventurer may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

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

Some Adventurers are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Adventurers”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Adventurers are not counted as Adventurers.

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

When an Adventurer 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 Adventurer Idled in a different dynasty), the Adventurer is given the default value for new Adventurer, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render an Adventurer Idle if that Adventurer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Adventurer 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 an Adventurer if that Adventurer 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 Adventurer 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 Adventurer, known as the Priest. If there is no Priest, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Adventurer may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. An Adventurer’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-Adventurer never has a Vote, even if they were an Adventurer previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If an Adventurer other than the Priest casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Priest. When the Priest 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 Priest’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 Adventurers 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.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When an Adventurer 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 Priest may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Priest casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Priest 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 Adventurers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Adventurer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Adventurer may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

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

• It is Popular.

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

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

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

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If an Adventurer (other than the Priest) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a post to the BlogNomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

If the game is not already in Hiatus and there is a pending DoV, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Adventurers”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Adventurer may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.

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

• It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Priest 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.

When a DoV fails and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.

When a DoV is enacted, all other pending DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Adventurer who made the DoV as its Priest. That Adventurer may pass this role to another Adventurer at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Priest makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Priest’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Adventurer and Priest will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Adventurer who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but can be overruled in other matters.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if an Adventurer’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. Adventurers 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 Adventurer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Adventurer and any Idle Adventurers.
• An Adventurer should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
• An Adventurer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• An Adventurer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Adventurer.
• An Adventurer should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• An Adventurer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• An Adventurer should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).
• An Adventurer should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. An Adventurer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• An Adventurer should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• An Adventurer should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory

Dynastic Rules

HP and Max HP

Certain things in the dynasty have a Max HP value and an HP value. All entities with Max HP have HP and vice versa.

HP defaults to its associated Max HP and can never be greater than that Max HP. All changes to an entity’s HP values are to a minimum of 0 and a maximum of the same entity’s Max HP.

The Adventurers

Adventurers have Max HP defaulting to 100. If the HP of an Adventurer other than the Monster becomes 0, that Adventurer becomes Unconscious and remains so for the duration of the Battle occurring at the time, unless and until they are Revived. An Adventurer who is Unconscious cannot perform any Battle Action, and they cannot be affected by any Battle Action other than Revival.

Adventurers also have a Merit score and a Havoc score, both defaulting to zero. If an Adventurer with non-zero Havoc (known as the “Harrowed”) is not the Monster, any Adventurer may add the Harrowed’s Havoc to the Harrowed’s Merit, then set the Harrowed’s Havoc to zero. An Adventurer’s Havoc can never be greater than 1000, and increases to an Adventurer’s Havoc are to a maximum of 1000.

Adventurers have a character sheet, tracked on the Adventurers section of the Jerez wikipage. Character sheets list the following for each Adventurer:

• HP/Max HP: (in the format XX/YY, where XX is their HP and YY is their Max HP)
• Monster: (Yes or No)
• Merit: (a number)
• Havoc: (a number)
• Boons: (a list of their Boons)

The Monster

One or no Adventurer is the Monster, having been possessed and transfigured by eldritch forces. Only an Adventurer who has been the Monster in this dynasty can achieve victory. Once an Adventurer ceases to be the Monster, they cannot become the Monster ever again.

If there is no Monster and there is at least one Adventurer who hasn’t been the Monster in this dynasty, any Adventurer can Continue the Story as the following Atomic Action:

• Set each Adventurer’s HP to its default value for that Adventurer.
• Among the Adventurers who haven’t been the Monster in this dynasty, randomly choose one; that Adventurer becomes the Monster.
• Make a blog post stating that there is a new Monster, and who it is.

Each time a Monster causes a non-Monster Adventurer or the Cathedral to lose an amount of HP via a Battle Action, that Monster gains that same amount of Havoc. If every Adventurer other than the Monster is Unconscious, the Monster may set its own Havoc to 1000.

When a Monster’s Havoc reaches 1000 or its HP becomes zero, they cease to be the Monster.

When a Monster ceases to be the Monster, all other Adventurers gain 1000 - X Merit, to a minimum of 0, where X is the Havoc of that Monster.

Battles

Battles may occur, each with a single Adventurer as its Vanguard. No more than one Battle may occur at the same time.

If a Monster exists and no Battle is occurring, any Adventurer who is not a Monster may initiate a Battle by making a blog post with a title that begins “Battle:”. This is a Battle Post, with the posting Adventurer as its Vanguard.

If there is no Monster, all Battles which are occurring end.

Battle Actions

During a Battle, either the Monster or the Vanguard may take a Battle Action. A Battle Action may be either Monster or Human: any Battle Action that is specifically defined as a Monster Battle Action can be taken only by the Monster, and any Battle Action that is specifically defined as a Human Battle Action can be taken only by the Vanguard.

If the most recent X Battle Actions in the current Battle (where X is Quorum) include a Battle Action by a particular Adventurer, then that Adventurer is Recovering; otherwise that Adventurer is not Recovering.

If the Monster is not Recovering and a Battle is occurring, they may take a Monster Battle Action from the following list by making a comment to that effect, beginning with “[Action]”, to the Battle’s Battle Post:

• Claw: Reduce any Adventurer’s HP by X, where X is 30+7*Quorum.
• Fling: Reduce any Adventurer’s HP by X and reduce the Cathedral’s HP by X, where X is 15+5*Quorum.
• Wreck: Reduce the Cathedral’s HP by X, where X is 30+7*Quorum.
• Befoul: For each non-Monster Adventurer whose HP is higher than their Max HP minus the Cathedral’s Deconsecration score, set their HP to their Max HP minus the Cathedral’s Deconsecration score.

If a Monster stopped Recovering during the current battle no fewer than 48 hours ago and has not taken a Battle Action since then, any Adventurer or the Priest may make a comment on the Battle Post, beginning with “[Distracted]” and stating that the Monster has lost interest in attacking the other Adventurers. For the purpose of determining Recovering status, the Monster is considered to have taken a Battle Action at the moment when this comment was made.

Adventurers may not take Human Battle Actions while there is a Monster who is not Recovering. Otherwise, if an Adventurer is the Vanguard of an occurring Battle, they may take the following atomic action:

• Choose a Human Battle Action and its target, if applicable, and apply its effect.
• Choose an Adventurer who is not Recovering, Weary, Unconscious, the Vanguard or the Monster. If no such Adventurer exists, choose an Adventurer who is not Unconscious, the Vanguard or the Monster. If again there is no such Adventurer, choose the Vanguard.
• Make a comment on the occurring Battle Post, beginning with “[Action]” and stating the action you took and its target, if applicable. Also state the Adventurer you chose in the second step; that Adventurer becomes the Vanguard.

The following are Human Battle Actions:-

• Slash: Reduce the Monster’s HP by 10. Reduce the Cathedral’s HP by 10.
• Retreat: Until your next Battle Action you are Retreating. A Retreating Adventurer may not be affected by any Battle Action taken by another Adventurer, unless its effect explicitly extends to Retreating Adventurers. If any Adventurer is Retreating when a Battle ends, they cease to be Retreating.
• Fire: Reduce the Monster’s HP and the Vanguard’s HP by X, where X is a random value between 1 and 50 inclusive. Reduce every other Adventurer’s HP by half the value of X (rounded down); reduce the Cathedral’s HP by double the value of X.

Adventurers should not use tags or tag-like text strings (of the format “[X]”) in blog posts and comments in a misleading manner.

Inactive Vanguards

A Vanguard may be found Weary and replaced if all of these conditions are met:

• The Vanguard last became the Vanguard no fewer than 36 hours ago;
• The Monster has been Recovering during the current battle continuously for the past 36 hours;
• The Vanguard is not Unconscious.

If the Vanguard is Unconscious and has not performed a Battle Action since last becoming Vanguard, they may likewise be replaced.

Any Adventurer or the Priest may identify and replace a Weary or Unconscious Vanguard by taking the following Atomic Action:

• Randomly choose an Adventurer who is not Recovering, Weary, Unconscious, the Vanguard or the Monster; if no such Adventurer exists, randomly choose an Adventurer who is not Weary, Unconscious, the Vanguard or the Monster; if again there is no such Adventurer, randomly choose an Adventurer who is not Unconscious or the Monster. The Adventurer thus chosen will become the new Vanguard.
• Make a comment on the Battle Post, beginning with “[Weary]” (if the previous Vanguard has been found Weary) or “[Unconscious]” (if the previous Vanguard is Unconscious) and stating why the previous Vanguard is being replaced and who the new Vanguard is.

A Vanguard who was found Weary and replaced remains Weary until the end of the Battle; this status is tracked with the addition of an asterisk to their name on their character sheet for the duration of their being Weary.

During a Battle, any Adventurer who is not Unconscious or the Monster may add an asterisk to their own name on their character sheet; from that moment and until the end of the Battle then occurring, that Adventurer is considered to be Weary.

Revival

If an Adventurer other than the Monster is Unconscious and the Vanguard’s HP is greater than 20, the Vanguard may perform Revival as a Human Battle Action, as follows:

• Reduce the Vanguard’s Merit by 25 and their HP by X amount, where X is an amount lower than the Vanguard’s HP but no lower than 20, and set to X the HP of the Unconscious Adventurer you wish to Revive.

If Revival has been performed in a Battle, it cannot be performed again in the same Battle.

Boons

Adventurers have 0 or 5 Boons. An Adventurer with 0 Boons cannot use Battle Actions.

An Adventurer with 0 Boons can Introduce Themselves, this sets their Boons to become 5 of their choice as new instances of the Boons listed in this rule. An Adventurer can have more than 1 of the same Boon.

Boons and their effects (if any) are the following (if it has its effect listed as “New Action”, it means that the Adventurer can perform it when they are the Vanguard as a Human Battle Action):

• Fencer: New Action: Thrust Storm: Reduce the Monster’s HP by 1, X times, where X is the amount of Fencer Boons you have (For example, it is reduced by 1, 3 times, which would be a total of 3).
• Mercenary: New Action: Dual Slash: Reduce the Monster’s HP by 6, 2 times.
• Commander: New Action: Leadership: The Monster becomes Exposed by you until you are no longer Recovering. Each time a Monster Exposed by you loses HP (excluding Exposed effects), it loses X more HP, where X is the amount of Commander Boons you have. A Monster can only be Exposed by one Adventurer at a time, with new Exposed effects overwriting the previous one.
• Gunner: New Action: Shoot: Reduce the Monster's HP by 12 + X , where X is the amount of Gunner Boons you have. You can only perform this Battle Action up to X times during a Battle, where X is the amount of Gunner Boons you have.
• Medic: New Action: Heal: Increase the HP of any Adventurer by 10, plus 5 for each Medic Boon you have.
• Brawn: While you are not a Monster, your Max HP is higher by 30.
• Persistence: Whenever you perform a Battle Action as the Vanguard, increase your HP by 5 for each Persistence Boon you have.
• Exorcist: New Action: Banish: If you have performed Banish two times during this Battle during previous Battle Actions, then reduce any Monster’s HP by (5+X)% of its Max HP value, where X is the amount of Exorcist Boons you have.

Apprenticeship

If a non-Monster Adventurer has not Learned during the current Battle, they can choose to Learn. Upon doing so, they can swap one of their Boons for a copy of a Boon that an Adventurer with more Merit than themselves has.

Transformation

A Monster is Transforming or not, and defaults to Transforming. While Transforming, whenever the Monster would lose HP, it doesn’t lose HP. A Transforming Monster cannot perform Battle Actions.

A Transforming Monster can Finish Transforming to stop being Transforming, gain up to X Monstrosities of their choice (where X is the amount of Adventurers in the dynasty when Transformation began), and set their HP to default. To Finish Transforming, the Monster makes a blog post with the tag “[Monster]” in its title, in which post it states what Visible Monstrosities it has (if it has any).

In order to use Hidden Monstrosities, the Monster must privately inform the Priest of their number and type; such notification should be by Private Message. If the Priest has received no such notification by the time the Monster has performed its first Battle Action following its Transformation, the Monster shall be considered never to have had any Hidden Monstrosities, and never to have performed any Battle Actions which they couldn’t have performed without such Hidden Monstrosities.

Only a Monster can have Monstrosities. When a Monster ceases to be such, they also lose all of their Monstrosities.

If a Monstrosity has its effect listed as “New Action”, then the Monster may have no more than one such Monstrosity and can perform it as a Monster Battle Action. Monstrosities are the following:

• Bulk: Max HP is increased by 60. This is Visible.
• Fever Aura: Whenever you perform a Battle Action, all non-Monster Adventurers lose 5 HP. This is Visible.
• Rotting Presence: Whenever you perform a Battle Action, the Cathedral loses 35 HP. This is Visible.
• Terrifying Visage: New Action: Terrify: Reduce any Adventurer’s HP by 30. That Adventurer’s next Battle Action during this Battle is (and can only be) Retreat.
• Voidwalker: New Action: Teleporting Strike: All Retreating Adventurers lose 50 HP.
• Reverse Mother: New Action: Unbirth: All Adventurers with 20 or less HP have their HP set to 0 and cannot be Revived during this Battle.

A Monstrosity that is not Visible is Hidden, and Monstrosities are by default Hidden. A Monster should not comment that they use a certain Hidden Monstrosities’ Battle Action (when they actually don’t have it) on a Battle post as to mislead.

If a Monster has been Transforming for more than 48 hours, any Adventurer can Inspire them. Upon doing so, the Monster ceases to be a Monster.

Cathedral

The Cathedral exists and has a Max HP of 10000.

The Cathedral has a Deconsecration score, equal to the amount of HP it is below its Maximum HP, divided by 100 (and rounded down).

The Cathedral has its own sheet, tracked on the Cathedral section of the Jerez wikipage, which lists the following:

• HP/Max HP: (in the format XX/YY, where XX is HP, and YY is its Max HP)

When the Cathedral’s HP reaches 0, an Earthquake shall occur that will cause the Cathedral’s immediate and complete destruction. If a Battle is in progress when this occurs, the Monster shall cease to be a Monster.

If at any time there is no Monster and every Adventurer has become the Monster in this dynasty, the Cathedral’s HP shall become 0.

Lore

As a weekly action, an Adventurer may gain 10 Merit as a Lore bonus, if they have written a total of at least 150 words of original story or roleplay related to the dynasty in their blog posts and/or blog comments, so far that week.

Judas

An Adventurer can Point Their Finger at an Adventurer other than themselves by paying 50 Merit and making a blog post that has “Pointing to X” as the title, with X being the name of an Adventurer. If X is the name of the Traitor, then they have Pointed Their Finger Correctly (and this is privately tracked by the Priest). This X cannot be edited once posted. An Adventurer can only Point Their Finger once. Only Quorum Adventurers can Point Their Finger.

Aftermath

When the Cathedral is destroyed, the Priest shall Pass Judgement (in a timely fashion) and grant 100 Merit to non-Traitor Adventurers who Pointed Their Finger Correctly, and 50*Quorum Merit to the Traitor if none Pointed Their Finger Correctly. After the Priest Passes Judgement, and once every Adventurer has no more than 0 havoc, victory shall belong to the Adventurer who has the greatest amount of Merit and is not otherwise barred from achieving victory. If there are more than one Adventurers fulfilling these criteria, the one who gained the greatest amount of Havoc as the Monster shall be victorious. If there is again a tie, the Adventurer who became the Monster the earliest shall be victorious.

Imperial Contraband

If an Adventurer passes the Priest role to another Adventurer as described in “Victory and Ascension”, a themeless Metadynasty begins instead and then all Dynastic Rules are repealed.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be active or inactive and default to active. The status of a Special Case rule is notated in the title of that rule ending in “[X]” where X is the word Active or Inactive, denoting that Rule’s status. When a new dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may state any existing Special Case Rules that are set to inactive; any Special Case Rules not set in the Ascension Address become Active.

The text of Special Case Rules that are inactive shall be interpreted, for the purpose of play, to mean nothing.

Tags [Active]

Votable matters have zero or more tags. Tags are added by adding it to the title of a votable matter with the format “[X]” where [X] is the tag, for example “[Core] Wording Fix”. 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 an Adventurer.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When an Adventurer 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 such steps are complete. All of the steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, as well as the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.

An Atomic Action may direct the performer to skip some of its steps, which the performer should do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.

If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Adventurer must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Adventurer uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.

If an Adventurer arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps that they performed of that action and are never considered to have performed that action.

For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die and then doing steps based upon its result the Adventurer would have to reroll the die if they rolled the wrong one if the first place and any steps that depended upon the result of that die; however if all they did was take an illegal action later on, the die is still used in the redone action.

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.

This rule cannot be overruled by the Dynastic Rules.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

BlogNomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Votable Matters,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Adventurers, then BlogNomic is Dormant. While BlogNomic is Dormant, actions defined by dynastic rules may not be taken, and proposals may not be submitted.

No Orphan Variables [Active]

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

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Priest has voted DEFERENTIAL on a proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Adventurers have voted FOR the proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases).

Dynastic Distance [Active]

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

The Traitor [Active]

The Traitor for a particular dynasty may be an Adventurer (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 Priest, and the Priest should not share this information with Adventurers other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current dynasty, the Priest may secretly randomly select an Adventurer (other than the Priest) 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 Adventurers, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Adventurers in order to achieve victory.

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. (eg. 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.)

Can

“is able to”

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 Adventurers.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Adventurer 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 Adventurer 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.

Dice

References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.

Dynastic Action

an action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.

Dynastic Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

An Adventurer’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Adventurer’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Adventurer’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, an Adventurer 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.

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 contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.

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

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 sub-rules of other rules.

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Sibling Rule

Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Adventurers 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. (For example, #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.

TOC

Table of Contents.

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.

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 Adventurer 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 Adventurer per week.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Adventurer 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.

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 two hours old and either no Adventurer 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 Adventurer 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 Adventurer is defined as an Adventurer who has been an Adventurer for fewer than seven days or an Adventurer that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Adventurer’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 Adventurer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Adventurer feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules as they were at the time of the alteration, or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, Adventurers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead.

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.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by proposal; and any proposal that seeks to nominate a change to this rule must first identify an Adventurer with server-level access to the BlogNomic site who is able to perform the changes, and must also update this rule to reflect the new potential outcomes.

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 DICE roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Adventurer making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

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” 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” 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, lost, gained, or transferred, an Adventurer can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Adventurers to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Adventurer (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• An Adventurer 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 no defined starting value, then that starting value is 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”).
• 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.

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 (eg. 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 (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Adventurer 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.

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 (eg. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
• An Adventurer 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.
• The terms “Adventurer” and “Player” are synonyms.

Names

• Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Adventurer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Adventurer’s name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
• 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”.

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 Rule;
2. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Adventurers may Kick each other” and “Adventurers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Adventurers may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Adventurers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Adventurers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Adventurers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
5. Special Case Rules have equal precedence as Dynastic Rules, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule.