Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Villagers 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 Villager may update it to do so.

Villagers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Villager, known as the Blizzard. If there is no Blizzard, 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 Villager 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 Villagers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

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

If a Villager other than the Blizzard casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Blizzard. When the Blizzard 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 Blizzard's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

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

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

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

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

Enacting and Failing

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

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

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

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

Tags

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

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

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

Resolution of Proposals

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

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

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

• It is Unpopular.
• It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

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

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

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Villagers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Villager feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Villager 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 Villager (other than the Blizzard) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

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

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

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

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

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

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Villager 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 Villager who posted the DoV becomes Blizzard, 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 Blizzard must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Villager who was not the last dynasty’s Blizzard, in which case the passing Villager ceases to be the Blizzard and the Villager so named becomes the Blizzard) 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 Blizzard'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 Villager'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. Villagers 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 Villager within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Villager and any Idle Villagers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Villager, defined here as the controlled Villager's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Villager was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Villager 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 Villager should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Villager should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Villager.
• A Villager should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Villager should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Villager 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 Villager 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 Villager must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Villager should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Villager should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Villager to achieve victory.
• A Villager should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.
• A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Villager or Villagers to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
  • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
  • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

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

Dynastic Rules

Time

Every Villager has a publicly tracked non-negative integer amount of Time. Any attempt to change a Villager’s Time to a value above 60 instead sets it to 60, and the excess Time is considered to be spent by that Villager on nothing. At any time, a Villager may spend any amount of Time on nothing.

At any time, any Villager or the Blizzard may Pass the Time by performing the following atomic action:

• Increase the Time of every Villager by one for every time the real-life hour has changed since this action was last performed.

The date and time of the last Pass the Time action to be performed is publicly tracked.

Heat

Every Villager has a publicly tracked amount of Heat, representing their core temperature in Fahrenheit, a rational number which may be negative and which defaults to the average of all other Villagers’ Heat rounded down. A Villager’s Heat is always rounded to one decimal place, rounding towards zero.

When a Villager becomes Unidle, their Heat is set to the average of all other Villagers’ Heat rounded down, unless the last legally endowed value it held is lower in which case the Villager retains the lower value.

A Villager with Heat of 100 or higher is considered Feverish. A Villager with Heat of 92 or lower is considered Cold. A Villager with Heat of 85 or lower is considered Unconscious. A Villager with Heat of 72 or lower is considered Lifeless.

At any time, a Villager may Respire by spending 3 Time to transfer 0.1 Heat to themselves from any Villager who both shares a Location with the Respiring Villager and has more Heat than the Respiring Villager.

A Cold Villager must treat all Routes as if they had a Length of 2 higher, as they are too cold to move effectively.

A Lifeless Villager may not take any dynastic actions.

Unconsciousness

A Villager who is Unconscious may not take any dynastic actions except the following:

• Passing the Time
• Updating their Secret, their Jotting, or their Tell
• Spending Time on nothing

In addition, a Villager who is Unconscious but not Lifeless may Respire; when doing so, they may spend only 1 Time instead of 3, as their frozen body absorbs heat much more effectively.

Location

There exist a number of Locations, which are detailed in this rule.

Every Villager has a publicly tracked Location, defaulting to “Village Square”.

Each Location has an integer Capacity, which must be between 1 and 3 inclusive for Indoors Locations. And any (non-negative) number of Routes, which may names of other Locations followed by a non-negative integer number in square brackets, referred to as the Length of that Route (eg The Laboratory [12]).

If a Villager’s Location is set to a Location X, then that Villager may be said to be in, at, or occupying X. Each Location may have an associated Task (defaulting to no Task) that Villagers may perform only while occupying that Location; if a Location has a Task, it must also have a listed Task Cost. To perform it, a Villager must undertake an Atomic Action with the following steps:

• Pay the Task Cost
• Carry out the instructions in the Task

No Villager may undertake the Action associated with a Location if that Location is draughty.

Each Location has any number of Search Multipliers, which are strings that both have one of the multipliers from the list below, and an Adjective. It may only have one search multiplier for any given adjective.

• 0x
• 1x
• 2x
• 3x
• 6x
• 9x

At any time, Villager at a Location may select one of its Routes and spend that Route’s Length in Time to set their Location to the Location named in that Route.

The available Locations are as follows:

Locations

Name	Capacity	Routes	Task	Task Cost	Search Multiplier
Village Square	100	Makeshift Tent [24], Pork Curing Shed [18], Road [12], Forest [35]	-	-	Metal 3x, Bulky 6x, Fabric 6x, Organic 1x, Electronic 2x, Sharp 1x
Makeshift Tent	2	Village Square [20], Pork Curing Shed [16], Forest [32]	-	10 Heat	Metal 1x, Bulky 0x, Fabric 3x, Organic 1x, Electronic 1x, Sharp 1x
Pork Curing Shed	2	Village Square [22], Makeshift Tent [18], Cellar [5], Forest [32]	If the Villager has 1 or more Meat in their Inventory, remove 1 Meat and add 5 to the Villager’s Heat from curing the Meat, cooking it, and eating it	10 Time	Metal 2x, Bulky 1x, Fabric 0x, Organic 0x, Electronic 0x
Road	100	Village Square [10]	-	-	Metal 6x, Bulky 3x, Fabric 2x, Organic 2x, Electronic 1x
Forest	100	Village Square [50], Makeshift Tent [50], Pork Curing Shed [50]	-	-	Metal 1x, Bulky 6x, Fabric 2x, Organic 9x, Electronic 0x
Cellar	2	Pork Curing Shed [5]	-	-	Metal 1x, Bulky 1x, Fabric 0x, Organic 1x, Electronic 2x

The following locations are considered to be Outside:

• Village Square
• Road
• Forest

All other Locations are considered to be Indoors.

When a Villager’s Location is Outside or is Draughty, they lose 0.1 Heat for each unit of their Time that is spent.

The total Capacity of all Indoors Locations may never exceed the number of Villagers plus 2; if ever it does, the Blizzard must destroy Indoors Locations (by removing them from the table above, and setting the Locations of any Villagers in Locations thus destroyed to the Village Square) until that is no longer the case.

Carrying

If a given Villager is Unconscious, and a second Villager who is not Unconscious has the same Location as that Unconscious Villager, then at any time, the second Villager may select one of their Location’s Routes and spend double that Route’s Length in Time to set both their Location and the Location of the Unconscious Villager to the Location named in that Route.

Over Capacity

Whenever a Location has more villagers in it than its capacity, it is said to be Over Capacity.

If an Indoors Location is Over Capacity and it has at least one Route to an Outside Location, or has no Routes, it is considered to be Draughty for as long as it is Over Capacity, as is every Indoors Location that is directly or indirectly connected to through only Indoors Routes (where an Indoors Route is defined as any Route that is from an Indoors Location to an Indoors Location).

If an Indoors Location is Over Capacity and it has no Routes to Outside Locations but at least one Route to an Indoors Location, then for as long as it is Over Capacity, the number of Villagers by which it exceeds its capacity is added to the number of villagers in each Indoors Location it has a Route to for the purposes of working out if that Location is Over Capacity.

Items

Each Villager has a visible Inventory, which is a publicly tracked list of zero or more Items and zero or more Adjectives. Each Villager also has a Stash, which is a secretly tracked list of zero or more Items. A Villager is only considered to be holding an Item if it is present in their Inventory.

A Villager may remove an Adjective from their Inventory to move an Item with that Adjective from their Stash to their Inventory, if they have publicly shared a Secret in a blog comment or wiki edit summary that confirms that the Item is in their Stash, or if there is only one Item with that Adjective.

Thermos

Each thermos has a publicly tracked non-negative integer value called its Heat, defaulting to 5. A Villager holding a Thermos may Make Tea: they pay an amount of Heat from a thermos they are holding to increase the Heat of any villager in the same room as them by that amount. A Villager is permitted to target themselves with that action. If a Villager has targetted a Villager with this action, they may not do so again to that same Villager within 24 hours.

Thick Jacket

Any time a Villager holding a Thick Jacket would lose any amount of Heat, they lose half that amount instead. (This item has no effect if it would reduce the heat loss to zero.)

Branches

A villager who is Outside and holding Branches may Start a Fire: They destroy the branches, and increase the Heat of everyone in their Location by 1. Any thermos being held by any villagers outside have their heat increased by 2.

Cudgel

If a villager is holding a Cudgel, they are not a valid target for Roughhousing actions, unless the villager performing that action also has a cudgel.

Meat

A Villager who has at least 1 Meat in their Inventory can spend 5 units of Time to remove 1 Meat from their Inventory and gain 1 Heat from eating the raw meat

Solar Panel

A Villager in an Outside Location, holding a Solar Panel, and also holding an Item that requires Electricity generates a unit of Electricity for that Item for every unit of Time spent for any reason. Only one such Item may receive Electricity at a time.

Battery

A Battery holds a Charge value, which is a non-negative integer with a valid range of 0 to 100 inclusive and defaulting to 0. This Charge value is tracked in square brackets next to the Battery item, such as “Battery [23]”.

A Villager holding a Battery and also holding a different Item that requires Electricity may subtract a number from the Charge that reduces the Charge to no less than 0, and generate the same number of units of Electricity for that Item. Only one such Item may receive Electricity at a time.

If the Villager receives Electricity from some other source to the Battery, they may add units of Charge to the Battery equal to the units of Electricity received. Requires Electricity.

Electric Gloves

A Villager holding Electric Gloves gains 0.1 Heat for every unit of Electricity the Villager receives from some other source. Requires Electricity.

Nails

Has no effect.

Pressure Bomb

A Villager who has this Item and is in an Indoors Location may destroy this to remove 0.3 Heat from all Villagers at that Location, and make that Location permanently Outside.

Quilted Jacket

Whenever a Villager with the Quilted Jacket in their Items would lose Heat to Roughhousing, they instead do not.

Nailed Bat

A Villager holding this Item treats all Roughhousing Time costs as being reduced by 10, to a minimum of 1. Also has the effects of a Cudgel.

Searches

A Search is a type of Event. The Creation Conditions for a Search are all of the following:

• There must be no more than three Searches that are Open
• The Villager creating a Search may not have an existing Open Search that they created
• The Villager creating a Search may not have joined another Search that is still Open
• The Villager creating a Search must put their current Location in the body of the post for the Search

The Response Format for a Search is a comment with the text “I join the search.” A valid Response means that the Villager who responded is considered to have joined the Search. However, if a Villager has joined another Search that is currently Open, they may not join any other Search; any attempt to do so is not considered a valid Response.

The Ending Condition for a Search is that it has been Open for at least 24 hours. A Search may only be Ended by either the Villager who created that Search or the Blizzard. The Ending Action of a Search is an atomic action with the following steps:

• For each Villager who joined the Search that is being ended, if that Villager is in the Location of the Search and the Location is either Outside or non-Draughty:
  • Reduce their time by 20.
  • If their time was successfully reduced by 20, make a list of the different Adjectives that appear in Found Items a number of times equal to the Search Multiplier of that adjective for the Location of the Search (using a multiplier of 0x for adjectives without a Search Multiplier for that Location) and select one Adjective from that list at random.
  • For that Villager, if the selected Adjective is not Broken, add it to that Villager’s Inventory.
• Optionally: choose an adjective that was selected the most (or joint most) times in this search and is not Broken, and reduce its Search Multiplier in the ruleset by one step, then increase a different Search Multiplier in that Location by one step.

The Location of a Search is the Location in which the Villager who created the Search was in when they created that Search. The Villager who created a Search is considered to have joined that Search.

Within 24 hours of the closure of any Search, a Villager may (if they have not already done so for that Search) add an Item to their Stash, where that Item has the Adjective that they gained from that Search.

Found Items

The following is a list of Items and, in brackets, the Adjectives that that Item has.

• Debris (Broken)
• Thermos (Metal)
• Thick Jacket (Bulky, Fabric)
• Branches (Bulky, Organic)
• Cudgel (Bulky, Metal)
• Meat (Organic)
• Solar Panel (Bulky, Metal, Electronic)
• Battery [0] (Metal, Electronic)
• Electric Gloves (Fabric, Electronic)
• Nails (Sharp, Metal)

Roughhousing

At any time, a Villager may select another Villager (the target) and Roughhouse them.

Roughhousing is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Select a type of Roughhouse from the list in this rule, whose restriction is met
• Pay its cost, as specified
• Implement its effects as stated in this rule
• Make a post to the blog detailing the type of Roughhousing used, its target, and the impact of it having taken place.

There are a number of types of Roughhousing, detailed below. Each type of Roughousing has a cost, a restriction, and an effect.

Roughhousing

Name	Cost	Restriction	Effect
Shove	45 Time, 0.5 Heat	The target must be in the same, Indoors, Location as the actor	The target loses 25 Time (to a minimum of zero) and has their Location changed to the Outside Location to which it has the route with the lowest Length (out of all of its Routes to Outside Locations). In the case of a tie, the Outside Location that comes first alphabetically out of its Routes is chosen. If the target fails to change location due to no such route existing, they instead have their Location changed to the Indoors Location to which it has the route with the lowest Length. In the case of a tie, the Location that comes first alphabetically out of its Routes is chosen. If the target failed to change location due to no routes existing in its location, this Shove is an illegal action.
Grapple	50 Time	One of the following must be true: The actor must be Outside and the target must in in an Indoors Location to which their Location has a Route The actor must be in an Indoors Location, the target must be in an Indoors Location and there is a Route between both Locations.	The target and the actor switch Locations, and the target loses 30 Time (to a minumum of zero)
Douse	10 Time, plus the Time required to travel any Routes between the Actor and the Target	The Actor must start the action in an Outside Location	Move the Actor to the Target’s Location and then reduce the Heat of the Target by 0.3.

Secrets and Tells

Each Villager has a Secret, being a text string tracked privately by themselves. Each Villager has a publicly tracked Tell, which may be a text string or blank.

The hash of a string is defined as the MD5 output for that string at https://www.md5hashgenerator.com

Whenever a Villager changes their Secret, they must privately note down a string that consists of their Secret plus any number of words which do not appear in the ruleset (this string being known as their Jotting), and update their Tell to be the hash of that Jotting.

Villagers are recommended to maintain a private record of their Jottings over the course of the game, in case a later rule requires them to prove what their Secret was at a particular point in the game history.

Where gamestate information is described as secretly tracked, each Villager tracks that information as pertains to their own gamestate in their own Secret.

Goals

The following Goals exist:

• Signal: A Villager meets this Goal if they are holding a Battery with Charge above zero.
• Eat: A Villager meets this Goal if they have gained Heat through eating Meat during the current dynasty.
• Hoard: A Villager meets this Goal if they are holding three or more Items.
• Burn: A Villager meets this Goal if they are holding Branches.
• Clash: A Villager meets this Goal if they are holding a Cudgel.
• Stand: A Villager meets this Goal if they are not Unconscious.
• Scavenge: A Villager meets this Goal if they are holding a Metal or Electronic Item.
• Live: A Villager meets this Goal if they are not Lifeless.
• Escape: A Villager meets this Goal if they are located at the Road.
• Shelter: A Villager meets this Goal if their Location is not Outside.

Each Villager has a list of up to five Goals that they Reject, tracked publicly. A Villager may add one or more Goals to their own Reject list at any time.

The Importance of a Goal is the number of Villagers’ Reject lists that it does not appear in. The four most Important Goals (breaking ties by whichever appears earlier in the list above) are the dynasty’s Active Goals.

Endgame Lockdown

A Villager is said to be Conscious if they are not Unconscious.

If no more than three Villagers are Conscious and a dynastic rule other than this one includes the word “victory”, then the dynasty is in Endgame Lockdown. If a proposal made during Endgame Lockdown would attempt to amend the dynastic rules or the gamestate defined by dynastic rules, those amendments instead have no effect.

Crafting

A Recipe is a method by which Villagers can expend their existing Items to make new ones. A Recipe must have a Prerequisite and a Product. A Villager may at any time expend 10 Time and 0.5 Heat to Craft a Recipe for which they have the Prerequisites in their Items. When they do, they remove the Prerequisite from their Items and add the Product to their Items. Crafted Items never have Adjectives.

Valid recipes are as follows:

• Pressure bomb. Prerequisite: Thermos, Nails, Battery with a Charge of at least 10. Product: Pressure Bomb.
• Quilted Jacket. Prerequisite: Thick Jacket, Electric Gloves, Electric Gloves. Product: Quilted Jacket
• Nailed Bat. Prerequisite: Cudgel, Nails, Nails. Product: Nailed Bat

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

Dormancy [Active]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

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

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Blizzard is not a Villager.

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

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

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

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Quiet Village page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. Blizzard 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 Blizzard is not considered a Villager for the purposes of this rule.

Villagers 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 Villager could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Villagers (or people who are not yet Villagers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Villager during the course of the dynasty. The use of creative strategies to circumvent this rule may be considered to be a scam for the purposes of determining whether an infraction of Fair Play has taken place.

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

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

Mantle Limitations [Active]

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

Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]

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

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

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

Event Types [Active]

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

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

An Event type definition may also optionally stipulate:

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

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

Bounties [Rare] [Inactive]

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

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

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

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

Reinitialisation [Rare] [Active]

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

Appendix

Keywords

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

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Villager 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 Villager 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 Villager 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 Villager 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 Villagers.

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

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Villager may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.

Discord

The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Villagers , as well as people who are not Villagers but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Discord Channel

A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Villagers who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

Flavour Text

If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Villagers 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 Villagers is half the number of Villagers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Villagers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Villagers.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.

Rule

Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.

Table of Contents

The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.

Uphold

To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.

Wiki

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

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

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

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

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post by a New Villager 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 Villager is defined as a Villager who has been a Villager for fewer than seven days or a Villager that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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

Representations of the Gamestate

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

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Villagers 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 Villager may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Random Generators

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

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

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

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

If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Villager making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Villager 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 Villager 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 Villager performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Villager 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 Villager must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Villager 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 Villager 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 Villager can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Villagers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Villager only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Villager (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 Villager 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 Blizzard (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Blizzard when the ruleset allows it. If a Villager should already know such a piece of information (in that the Blizzard has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Blizzard may repeat it to them.

Rules and Votable Matters

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

Time

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

Spelling and formatting

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

Names

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

Prioritisation

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

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

Archives

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

Mentors

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

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

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

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

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

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

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

• Villager (Player)
• Blizzard (Emperor)

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