Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Guardians 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 Guardian may update it to do so.

Guardians

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Admin may render a Guardian Idle if that Guardian has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Guardian 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 Guardian if that Guardian 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 Guardian 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 if they were not idle.

Dynasties

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

Votes

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

If a Guardian other than the Oracle casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Oracle. When the Oracle 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 Oracle'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 Guardians 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 require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules, and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Guardian.

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

• The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
• The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

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 Guardians, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Oracle 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 Guardians, 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 Guardian 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 Guardian who posted the DoV becomes Oracle, 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 Oracle must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Guardian who was not the last dynasty’s Oracle, in which case the passing Guardian ceases to be the Oracle and the Guardian so named becomes the Oracle) 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 Oracle'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 Guardian’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. Guardians 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 Guardian within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Guardian and any Idle Guardians. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Guardian, defined here as the controlled Guardian’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Guardian was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Guardian 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 Guardian should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Guardian should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Guardian.
• A Guardian should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Guardian should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Guardian should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Guardian should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Guardian to achieve victory.
• A Guardian should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.

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

Dynastic Rules

Atlantis

The island city of Atlantis is divided into seven Districts:

• The Palace
• The Odeon
• The Agora
• The Hill
• The Gates
• The Fields
• The Docks

Each District may have a Deed, and has a Deed by default. Each Guardian may hold any number of Deeds, defaulting to none; the Deeds held by each Guardian are publicly tracked. If a Guardian owns the Deed for a District then that Guardian may be said to be the Baron of that District. If a District does not have a Deed then it is Ungovernable.

There is one district that is Favored by the Gods (or simply Favored) and one district that is Disfavored by the gods (or simply Disfavored).

Buildings

A number of Buildings exist in the city, each having a Type and a District, and being either Uninhabited (having no owner), Flooded (also having no owner), or owned by a single Guardian or Foreign Power: this information is publicly tracked.

There are several Building Types, in four classes: Temples, Shops, Farms and Houses are all types of Infrastructure Building; Embassies are the only type of Foreign Building; Towers, Levees, Barracks and Granaries are all types of Support Building; Steles and Ziggurats are both types of Ritual Building.

A Farm may not be created in the Palace, Odeon or Docks. A Shop may not be created in the Palace or the Fields. Guardians may not create Embassies. Ritual Buildings may only be built in the Palace, Agora, Gates or Docks districts.

The order of Buildings in a District is a publicly tracked list. When a new Building is added to a District, whoever adds it may place it anywhere within the list of that District’s Buildings.

The Queue

The Queue and the Path are two ordered lists of Atlanteans, both publicly tracked. (Guardians and the Oracle are collectively known as Atlanteans.)

If the Queue has not changed for 36 hours, any Atlantean may remove the first Atlantean from the Queue. If an Atlantean appears in neither the Queue nor the Path, they may add themselves to the end of the Path. Whenever an Atlantean is unidled, they are removed from the Queue and Path (if present in either) and then added to the end of the Path.

If the Queue is empty, any Atlantean may move all Atlanteans who are on the Path to the Queue, retaining their order.

A Guardian may remove themselves from the Queue at any time.

If a Guardian owns no Buildings, any Guardian may remove them from the Queue and/or the Path.

Declaring

If a Guardian is the first Atlantean in the Queue and owns at least one Building, they may perform the following atomic action, known as Declaring:

• Removing themselves from the Queue
• Optionally Conduct Trade between two different Buildings they own in adjacent Districts
• Optionally change their held artifact to any artifact no guardian has picked up since the last auguring. This is known as picking up an artifact.
• Optionally activate an artifact
• Optionally perform a Promenade (if no other Guardian has done so since the most recent Auguring)
• Optionally Conduct Foreign Commerce any number of times with any number of Embassies in Regions where the Guardian owns a Building or owns the Deed
• Optionally buy Insurance for any number of Fates, paying 10 Money for each Insurance bought
• Creating any Type of Infrastructure Building in any District, owned by themselves; creating an Uninhabited Support Building of any Type in any District; or, taking possession of a Deed which is not held by any other Guardian.
• Optionally carry out the Disastermancy atomic action, if possible.
• Adding themselves to any position on the Path

Auguring

If the Oracle is the first Atlantean in the Queue, they may perform the following atomic action, known as Auguring:

• Removing themselves from the Queue
• If the Oracle has not received a Prayer since the last time an Auguring action was carried out, skip this step. Otherwise, secretly randomly select a Prayer they they have received since the last time an Auguring action was carried out, with the probability of each Prayer being selected being weighted by its submitter’s Foresight score, and then apply its Fate to its District.
• If a Prophecy is tracked, apply the effect of its Fate to its District
• Applying the effect of a Water Fate to a random district, with a secretly randomly determined focus of between 1 and 20, inclusive, then doing so an additional number of times equal to the number of Flooded Buildings divided by two (and rounded down)
• Selecting a secretly random District and a secretly random Fate to become the new Prophecy, having a Focus of a secretly random number from 1 to 20
• Selecting an Audient and privately informing them of the Prophecy’s District, in a message of the format “I see a disaster in X”, where X is the District
• Selecting an Audient and privately informing them of the Prophecy’s Fate, in a message of the format “I see a great X”, where X is the Fate
• Selecting an Audient and privately informing them of the Prophecy’s Focus number, in a message of the format “I see X birds in flight”, where X is the Focus number
• Selecting an Audient and informing them, in a cryptic manner, of a prediction about something that the Oracle believes may happen later in the game (in a message which follows neither the District nor Fate message format, and which may refer to potential scams and loopholes)
• If no Guardian has done so since the Auguring prior to this one, perform a Promenade.
• If there is more than one Embassy, swap the ownerships of those Embassies in a secretly random manner, so that each Embassy changes ownership.
• Secretly randomly select a district among all those districts with the largest number of temples, and set it to be Favored.
• Secretly randomly select a district among all those districts with the smallest number of temples, and set it to be Disfavored.
• Adding themselves to the end of the Path
• Posting a blog entry announcing what changes (if any) were made to the gamestate as a result of applied Fates during this action

The Oracle can, at any time, secretly randomly select a district among all those districts with the largest number of temples, and set it to be Favored and secretly randomly select a district among all those districts with the smallest number of temples, and set it to be Disfavored, then remove this paragraph from the ruleset. When an auguring occurs, this paragraph is removed from the ruleset.

Promenading

Promenading is an atomic action with the following steps:

• For each non-Flooded Temple, grant its Owner 2 Piety per House in the same District, and grant the Baron of that District 2 Piety;
• For each non-Flooded Shop, grant its owner 5 Money, and grant the Baron of the District in which it sits 2 Money;
• For each non-Flooded Farm, grant its owner 1 Livestock

Basic Resources

Each Guardian has a value for Piety, Money and Livestock, each of which is publicly tracked and defaults to zero.

The Districts of the city are organised in a circle, except for the Palace which sits at the centre. They are organised such that every District is adjacent to three other Districts: the ones to their clockwise and counter-clockwise, and the Palace itself in the middle. Starting from the northmost district and moving clockwise, the order of the Districts is as follows: the Hill, the Gates, the Fields, the Docks, the Odeon and the Agora.

The action of Conducting Trade has an effect based on the Buildings chosen, as follows:

• Temple-Shop: The Temple buys incense for its rituals.
  • If the district is Favored, gain 2 Piety and 1 Money.
  • If the district is Disavored, gain 1 Money.
  • Otherwise, gain 1 Piety and 1 Money.
• Temple-Farm: The Temple sacrifices a goat.
  • If the district is Favored, lose 1 Livestock and gain 5 Piety.
  • If the district is Disavored, lose 1 Livestock and gain 1 Piety.
  • Otherwise, lose 1 Livestock and gain 3 Piety.
• Temple-House: Believers come to pray.
  • If the district is Favored, gain 3 Piety.
  • If the district is Disfavored, gain 1 Piety.
  • Otherwise, gain 2 Piety.
• Shop-Farm: The shop augments its range with fresh produce. Gain 1 Money and 1 Livestock.
• Shop-House: Shoppers come to shop. Gain 2 Money.
• Farm-House: Extra workers lead to bumper harvests. Gain 2 Livestock.

Prophecy

The Oracle may privately track a single Prophecy, which describes a District, a Fate and a Focus number.

A Fate may be either Fire, Water, Earth, Conflict, Sea Monsters, Famine, Market Crash or Atheism:

• The effect of Fire on a District is that the Focused Building in that District (if there are any Buildings there) is removed from the game, along with all other Buildings of that type in that District.
• The effect of Water on a District is that (if there are Buildings there but none are Flooded) the Focused Building in that District becomes Flooded; if there is already a Flooded Building there, then instead all non-Flooded Buildings immediately before or after a Flooded Building in that District’s order of Buildings become Flooded. When a Support Building becomes Flooded as a result of a Water Fate, it is removed from the game.
• The effect of Earth on a District is that the Focused Building in that District (if there are any Buildings there) is removed from the game.
• The effect of Conflict on a District is that its Deed is Destroyed, and that all Support Buildings in that District are removed from the game; if it is already Ungovernable then all Buildings in that District are destroyed.
• The effect of Sea Monsters on a Districts is that the Embassy that is situated in that District has its ownership set to Uninhabited after Embassies are redistributed during this Auguring action.
• The effect of Famine on a District is that each Atlantean who owns a Farm in that District loses 2 Livestock, to a minimum of zero.
• The effect of Market Crash on a District is that each Atlantean who owns a Shop in that District loses 4 Money, to a minimum of zero.
• The effect of Atheism on a District is that each Atlantean who owns a Temple in that District loses 3 Piety, to a minimum of zero.

If during an Auguring a Fate would affect a District which contains a Support Building that protects against that Fate, then that Fate instead has no effect during that Auguring. Protections afforded by Support Buildings are as follows:

• Towers protect against Fire
• Levees protect against Water
• Barracks protect against Conflict
• Granaries protect against Famine

Whenever the Oracle is required to select an Audient, they do so by selecting a secretly random instance of a Piety point from among all those held by Guardians: the holder of that Point is the Audient. (If no Guardians have Piety points, the Audient is selected at secretly random from all Guardians.)

The Focused Building of a District, for a given Prophecy, is found by counting left to right through the list of Buildings in that District, starting from the leftmost Building and looping back to it when counting on from the rightmost building, until the number counted equals the Prophecy’s Focus number.

Insurance

A Guardian may have any amount of Insurance, which is publicly tracked and defaults to none.

If a Guardian has been affected by a Prophecy in the most recent Auguring action - where “being affected” is limited to changes being applied to buildings that were owned by that Guardian immediately before the Auguring action, changes to buildings in a District for which that Guardian was the Baron at the time of the Auguring action, and/or changes to their ownership of any Deed as a result of that Auguring action - and that Guardian owns Insurance of the type of Fate in that Prophecy, then they may Claim, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Spend the qualifying Insurance;
• Gain 5 Money per Building that they owned whose type has changed as a result of the most recent Auguring;
• Gain 15 Money per Building that they owned that they no longer own as a result of the most recent Auguring. For each of their buildings that they lost ownership of this way, they may immediately create a new building of the same type in the same district owned by them.
• Gain 50 Money per Deed that they owned that they no longer own as a result of the most recent Auguring.

Trade Routes

Atlantis maintains trade agreements with six foreign powers.

The foreign powers are: Mycenae, Sardinia, Crete, Troy, Alexandria and Heliopolis.

Foreign Commerce

Each of the foreign powers imports one resource and exports another.

• Mycenae imports Money and exports Piety
• Sardinia imports Money and exports Livestock
• Crete imports Piety and exports Money
• Troy imports Piety and exports Livestock
• Alexandria imports Livestock and exports Money
• Heliopolis imports Livestock and exports Piety

Conducting Foreign Commerce with an Embassy is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Spend some amount of the resource that the Embassy’s foreign power imports.
• Gain an amount of the the resource that the Embassy’s foreign power exports equal to one third of the amount that you spent (rounded down).

Disastermancy

Each Guardian has a Foresight score, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to zero. A Guardian’s Foresight score may not be changed except as directed by the Disastermancy action.

A Guardian may carry out the Disastermancy atomic action as part of the Declaring action. Disastermancy is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Optionally spend either 1 Livestock to build a Stele in any district, owned by themselves, or 1 Livestock and 5 Money to build a Ziggurat in any district, owned by themselves;
• Optionally recalculate their Foresight score, which is defined as zero, plus one for each Temple they own, plus two for each Stele they own, plus five for each Zigurrat they own, plus one for each Temple, Stele or Zigurrat in a District in which they are the Baron, and set their Foresight score to that value;
• Optionally send a single Prayer to the Oracle, which is a single message that contains one theoretically possible Prophecy.

In Exile

When a Guardian goes idle, all of their Buildings become Uninhabited.

The Guardian named Trigon may take the action of Reclaiming if they have not already done so this dynasty. Upon doing so they may set an Unoccupied Temple in the Gates, an Unoccupied Temple in the Agora and an Unoccupied House in the Agora to their own ownership.

Political Turmoil

As a weekly action, a Guardian may start an Ouster. An Ouster is an Event whose body must contain the name of a single District in which the posting Guardian owns a Building but is not the Baron. Responses to an Ouster take the form of valid votes, and may only come from Guardians who also own Buildings in the named District.

An Ouster may be ended after 24 hours have passed. When an Ouster is ended, the valid votes cast upon it are weighted according to the number of buildings their respective posters have in the named District of that Ouster; if the adjusted total of FOR votes is greater than the adjusted number of AGAINST votes then the Ouster is successful and the Guardian ending the event must destroy the Deed for the names District; otherwise the Ouster is unsuccessful and the Ouster is closed with no further action taken.

The Fall of Atlantis

If all Buildings that exist are Flooded, or if no Buildings exist, then no further dynastic actions may be taken by Guardians, and the Guardian with the highest Foresight has achieved victory. (If tied, the tied Guardian with the most Money has achieved victory; if still tied, the tied Guardian with the most Piety has achieved victory.)

Artifacts

Artifacts are items which a Guardian may hold. A guardian’s held artifact is publicly tracked and defaults to none. When a Guardian activates an artifact, they must change their held artifact to “none”. If they have not done so since the most recent auguring, a Guardian may activate their held artifact. The list of artifacts is as follows:

• Altar - When a guardian activates this artifact, they gain 2 piety.
• Gold - When a guardian activates this artifact, they gain 2 Money.
• Harvested Grass - When a guardian activates this artifact, they gain 2 Livestock.
• Gift Basket - When a guardian activates this artifact, they gain 1 Money, 1 Piety, and 1 Livestock.

The Prod

If the Queue has not changed in the preceding 24 hours, and the player at the front of the Queue is in the BlogNomic Discord, then any Guardian may make a post to the #current-dynasty channel of the Discord, naming the Guardian whose name is at the front of the Queue and reminding them to take their turn. The first Guardian to do so between each change to the Queue may award themselves 1 Livestock.

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

Dormancy [Active]

While BlogNomic is Dormant, this fact is tracked in the sidebar of the blog. If BlogNomic is Dormant, then it is on Hiatus.

The criteria for Dormancy are:

• That there are four or fewer Guardians; or
• That of the Guardians, two or fewer of them have posted an Official Post or made an edit to the gamestate tracking page as part of a defined dynastic action during the past seven days.

If either criterion is met and BlogNomic is not Dormant, any admin may make BlogNomic Dormant by updating the sidebar to that effect. If neither criterion is met and BlogNomic is Dormant, any admin may remove BlogNomic’s Dormant status by updating the sidebar to that effect.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Oracle has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Guardians 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 Guardians 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 Oracle is not a Guardian.

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

The Oracle may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were a Guardian, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Oracle 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 Guardian may set it to Inactive. (The combo is too strong.)

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Atlantean City Plan page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. An Oracle 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 Oracle is not considered a Guardian for the purposes of this rule.

Guardians 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 Guardian 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 Guardians (or people who are not yet Guardians) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Guardian 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 Guardians who were part of the conversation should make a post to the blog disclosing what information was discussed as their earliest convenience.

Mantle Limitations [Inactive] [Rare]

The mantle may not be passed. (Guardians 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.)

Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]

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

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if a Guardian 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 Guardian may pass the Mantle to a Guardian 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 Guardians 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 Guardians 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 Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian End it again.

Bounties [Rare][Inactive]

A Bounty Notice is a post in the Story Posts category which broadly requests a single mechanical or ruleset change. A Bounty Notice may be Open or Closed, being Open by default and being when set to the ‘Closed’ category in the post backend.

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

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

If the Oracle believes that an enacted votable matter satisfies the demand of an open Bounty Notice then they may iterate the Bounty Reward Variable of that votable matter’s author by a single step (unless that author was themselves) and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

Appendix

Keywords

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

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardians.

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

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Guardian 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. Guardians, as well as people who are not Guardians 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 Guardians 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. Guardians 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 Guardians is half the number of Guardians in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Guardians it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Guardians.

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 Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian is defined as a Guardian who has been a Guardian for fewer than seven days or a Guardian 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 Guardian’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 Guardian may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Guardians 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 Guardian 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 Guardian with such access. Only a Guardian with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Guardian 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 Guardian making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Guardian 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 Guardian must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Guardian 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 Guardian 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 Guardian can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Guardians to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Guardian only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Guardian (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 Guardian 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 Oracle (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Oracle when the ruleset allows it. If a Guardian should already know such a piece of information (in that the Oracle has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Oracle 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, Guardian 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 Guardian 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), Guardians 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 Guardian 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.
• Guardians 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 Guardian 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 Guardian if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Guardian’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 Guardian’s (or prospective Guardian’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 “Guardians may Kick each other” and “Guardians may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Guardians 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 “Guardians may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Guardians may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Guardians 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 Guardian may have another Guardian as a Mentor. Guardians 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 Guardian who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

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

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

If there is no Oracle, any Guardian who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Oracle 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, Discord, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
• If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
• If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Guardian 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 Guardians.
• 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 “Guardian” and “Oracle”.

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

• Guardian (Player)
• Oracle (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.