Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Students shall obey it. Section One consists of the "core rules" of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the glossary, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

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

Admins may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular "they".

Students

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post announcing their arrival. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become a Student.

A Student may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A Student may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Students are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Students 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. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Some Students are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of the Ruleset, excluding Rules 1.1, 1.2, 1.8 and 1.10, Idle Students are not counted as Students. Admins may render a Student Idle if that Student has asked to become Idle or if that Student has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time by announcing that they have done so in a blog post. Admins may de-Idle a Student at their request, and Idle Admins may de-idle themselves at any time, unless the idle Student in question asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous 4 days, and within the current dynasty. The Student’s personal gamestate retains the values it had immediately prior to their going Idle. If one or more values would be undefined, it is set to the value new Students receive, if such a value exists.

Proposals

Any Student may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the "Proposal" category that describes those changes, except that:

A Student cannot submit a non-Core Proposal if that Student already has two or more non-Core Proposals pending.
A Student cannot submit a Proposal if that Student already has three or more Proposals pending.
A Student cannot submit a Proposal if that Student has already submitted three or more Proposals that day.

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending. A Proposal may not also be a Call for Judgment.

Voting

Any Student may cast their 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, DEFERENTIAL (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal), or VETO (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal and the Student is the Headmaster).

If the Student who authored a Votable Matter has not cast a Vote on it, their Vote is counted as FOR. If a Student uses more than one Voting Icon in comments on a Votable Matter, their Vote is the last voting icon they use. If a Student leaves the game or goes Idle, their Vote is no longer valid. If a Student Votes against their own Proposal, this renders the Proposal self-killed and that Vote may not be changed.

A Vote of DEFERENTIAL is a Vote of no opinion, or of faith in the decision of the Headmaster. The Vote will count as the same as the Headmaster’s Vote. If the Headmaster casts a Vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, it serves the purpose of cancelling any previous Vote on that Proposal that was cast by the Headmaster and counts as an explicit Vote of abstention. If there is no Headmaster, or the Vote is made by the proposal’s author on their own proposal and the Headmaster does not Vote on it, a Vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit Vote of abstention, and has no effect except possibly to void earlier voting icons by that voter on that proposal.

If no Headmaster has Voted on a Proposal, a Vote of DEFERENTIAL on that proposal does not count as a Vote for the purposes of rule 1.5.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (and the Ruleset and/or Gamestate updated to include the specified effects of that Proposal) if either of the following is true:-

It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been vetoed or self-killed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has continuously been a proposal for that time, it has more than 1 valid Vote, more than half of its Votes are FOR, and it has not been vetoed or self-killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:-

It has enough AGAINST Votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those Votes being changed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and half or fewer of its Votes are FOR.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and has fewer than 2 valid Votes.
The Student who proposed it has Voted AGAINST it.
The Headmaster has Voted to VETO it.

Whenever an Admin marks a proposal, CfJ, or DoV as enacted or failed, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed).

Proposals the Headmaster has Voted to VETO are considered vetoed, and such a Vote cannot be changed. Proposals the author has Voted against are considered self-killed unless the Headmaster has Voted VETO on them, or they have fulfilled one of the other requirements to fail a proposal before the author’s self-kill Vote is placed. Immediately after enacting a proposal that causes a rule with no name to be added to the ruleset, unless the proposal specifically states that the rule should have no name, the enacting admin can change the rule’s title to give it a name, so long as doing so does not change the meaning of any part of the ruleset, nor change any properties of the rule (such as specific words in the title) that the ruleset specifically cares about.

Calls for Judgment

If two or more Students actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Student feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Student may raise a Call for Judgment (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgment” category. The post shall go on to describe the issue, and measures that shall be taken to resolve it.

All Students may cast Votes on that CfJ to indicate agreement or disagreement with the position taken in that CfJ. Unfailed CfJs continue until they reach a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if there is no hiatus going on, until four days have passed, and if there is a hiatus going on until two days have passed. After this time, if more than half the cast Votes are FOR Votes, the CfJ may be enacted by any Admin by updating or correcting the Gamestate and Ruleset as specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

Any CfJ that has no effect on the ruleset or gamestate may be automatically failed by any admin.

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgment, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Student 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.

If no Student has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; 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.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: 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.

Voting and comments are accessible through the link at the bottom of every post.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog. Any Student may update any Students data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. Actions that change gamestate directly (defined in other rules) can normally be performed simply by applying their effects to the GNDT, which updates the gamestate accordingly, unless another rule specifies some other method of performing them; one GNDT update may contain one or more actions, or one action may be split over multiple GNDT updates, as long as it’s clear what is happening and the actions are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Student may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Student feels that the GNDT was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed GNDT update, Students are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgment instead. Students shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty is headed by a single Student, known as the Headmaster.

The Headmaster may Vote to VETO any Proposal.

Victory and Ascension

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

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Students”, “Voting”, “Calls for Judgment”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

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

A DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:

It has been open for voting for 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Headmaster has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of against Votes fewer than half of Quorum, rounded down.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, at least Quorum Students have Voted on it, and more than half of its Votes are FOR.

A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:

It has been open for voting for 12 hours and has enough AGAINST Votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those Votes being changed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be legally enacted.

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

When a DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Student who made the DoV as its Headmaster. (That Student may pass this role to another Student at this point, if they wish.) The Hiatus continues until the new Headmaster posts an Ascension Address to the BlogNomic weblog - this should specify the Headmaster’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Student and Headmaster will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it has a number of AGAINST Votes that exceed Quorum, the Student who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

A Declaration of Victory may not also be any other type of Official Post unless the rules concerning that type of Official Post explicitly state otherwise.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of the rules are found to have been broken, a proposal or CfJ may be made to remove the perpetrator from the game, and bar them from rejoining.

A single person should not control more than one Student within BlogNomic.
A Student 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 Student should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
A Student should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Student.
A Student should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
A Student should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Student should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Dynastic Rules

Student Handbook

Each Student other than the Headmaster is assigned to a Dormitory, which is tracked in the GNDT, and is one of the following:

Gothmog Hall
Ichneumon Hall
Penanggalan Hall
Bandersnatch Hall

When an Admin adds a Student without a Dormitory to the GNDT, that Admin shall assign them to the Dormitory with the fewest Students. (If several Dormitories are tied for this, the tie is resolved randomly using a GNDT die roll.)

If a Student is assigned to a Dormitory which has more Students in it than any other Dormitory, and a Dormitory exists which has fewer Students than any other Dormitory, then the Student may change their assignation to the latter Dormitory.

All Students have a Condition, which can be Alive, Ghost, or Zombie. This is tracked in the GNDT. New Students start Alive.

Each Student may have a number of Enchantments affecting them, listed in a GNDT field “Enchantments” and separated by commas. If an Enchantment includes a number, that number is its Force. Students begin with no Enchantments.

Incorporeality

A Student whose Condition is Ghost may not achieve or declare victory. Where contradictory, this rule supersedes all other rules.

Free Time

An Alive or Zombie Student is Free if they have not posted a valid Class Action on any currently Open Lesson, and are not on Detention.

A Ghost Student is Free if they are not on Detention.

Nomich

Nomich is a sport played by Students. It may only be played on a Saturday. Students who belong to the same Dormitory are always on the same team.

Nomich is played with an ordinary deck of 52 cards. At all times when not playing a game of Nomich, each Dormitory should be holding seven cards. The cards held by each Dormitory should be kept a secret to all other Dormitories and should be tracked by the Headmaster. If, at any time, a Dormitory is holding less than seven cards and is not playing a Nomich, the Headmaster should assign them enough cards that they have a hand of seven, and should then send a private message to all prefects of that Dormitory telling them the composition of their new hand. These Prefects must truthfully relay the hand’s composition to the other members of their Dormitory at the earliest opportunity. The Headmaster must ensure that the same card is not being held by more than one Dormitory at any given time.

Any member of a Dormitory may challenge another Dormitory to a match of Nomich by making a post to that effect. A Dormitory is obliged to accept the first such challenge levelled against it on a Saturday. Each Dormitory may play no more than one match of Nomich per day, and a Dormitory may not make a challenge if it is playing a match of Nomich or has already played a match of Nomich that day; nor can a challenge be levelled against a Dormitory that is playing or has played a match of Nomich that day. A Student in Detention can not issue or respond to a Nomich Challenge.

Once a Dormitory has challenged another Dormitory to a match of Nomich, each Dormitory has 24 hours to post a play in the comments to the challenge post. A play is a sequence of cards, of any size or composition, from the Dormitory’s hand that the Dormitory intends to score against. The Dormitory whose play scores highest wins the match. Any member of a Dormitory whose Condition is Alive may post a play on behalf of their Dormitory, and the first play posted by a Dormitory in a challenge thread is the one that is scored for that match. If a Dormitory does not post a play on a Challenge, they are assumed to have declined (i.e. not accepted) the challenge if it is be legal to do so, or played a sequence containing no cards otherwise. When a Challenge is declined in this manner it ceases to be a Challenge. Once a legal play has been made by both Dormitories, all cards in those plays are removed from the hands of the Dormitories involved. If both Dormitories in a match have the same score, the Headmaster shall choose one of them as the winner of the match.

The score value of any play is adjudged according to the Nomich Ruleset. The Nomich Ruleset is secret and should be known in its entirety only to the Headmaster. The first rule in the Nomich ruleset is as follows:

The play with the largest cumulative face value scores 5 points. In Nomich, an Ace is considered have a face value of 1, a Jack to have a face value of 11, a Queen to have a face value of 12, and a King to have a face value of 13.

At the end of each Sunday, or as soon as possible thereafter, the Headmaster should indicate in each challenge thread which Dormitory won and what each play scored.

A Dormitory who wins a game of Nomich may perform one of the following actions:

Add a new rule to the Nomich ruleset by PMing it to the Headmaster
Change the Condition of one Student of the opposing Dormitory to Ghost or Zombie
Choose a Teacher and a Student and, if that Teacher has a Grudge against that Student, remove that Grudge
Pick any Subject, and increment the grade in that Subject by one for all Students in the winning Domitory

The Headmaster shall interpret the first private message specifying one of these actions from a Prefect of the winning Dormitory to be that Dormitory’s choice.

The Headmaster shall appraise any proposed addition to the Nomich Ruleset and may choose to accept or reject it. Any rule thus rejected is lost and the Dormitory who proposed it may not undertake another winning action.

Grades

Each Student has a Grade in each of the main Subjects: Beginner’s Alchemy (ALC), Wild Beasts (BST), Recreational Necromancy (RNY), Divination (DIV), Explosive Latin (LAT), and Unbridled Evil (UNE). These are tracked in the GNDT. A Grade may be (in descending order) A+, A, B, C, D, E, F or Ungraded (”-”) and each Student’s Grade for each Subject starts as Ungraded. If a Grade would be incremented above A+, it remains A+; if it would be decremented below F, it remains F.

Each Grade corresponds to a Spell Power, which may be negative. A Student with a Grade of A+ in a Subject has a Spell Power of 5 in that Subject. Similarly, A gives 3 Spell Power, B gives 2, C gives 1, D gives -1, E gives -3 and F gives -5. Ungraded Grades give a Spell Power of -10.

Lessons

As a daily action, the Headmaster may call a Lesson by posting a blog entry with the subject “[SUBJECT] Lesson: [LEVEL] [SPECIALISATION] with [TEACHER]”, where [SUBJECT] is a Subject, [LEVEL] is an optional adjective of either “Basic”, “Intermediary” or “Advanced” (if omitted, the Lesson is counted as Intermediate), [SPECIALISATION] is any word or phrase and [TEACHER] is the Teacher who will give the Lesson. An Advanced Lesson may only be given by a Teacher who has that Subject as their Field.

If a Student is Free, they may take one of the following Class Actions in that Lesson:

If a Student Studies in a Basic Lesson, they may either set their Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to ‘C’, or increment their current Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to a maximum of 'B'.
If a Student Studies in an Intermediate Lesson, they may either set their Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to ‘C’, or increment their current Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to a maximum of 'A'.
If a Student Studies in an Advanced Lesson, they may either set their Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to ‘E’, or (if their Grade is D or higher) raise their current Grade in that Lesson’s Subject by two levels.
If a Student Brown Noses, they stand a chance of becoming Teacher’s Pet at the end of the lesson.
If a Student Disrupts an Intermediate or Advanced Lesson for which they have a Grade of E or higher, they may set their Grade in that Lesson’s Subject to ‘F’ and trigger that Lesson’s Disaster, as listed in the “Disasters” rule.
If a Student Distracts in an Intermediate or Advanced Lesson, they may decrement (to a minimum of “E”) the Grade in that Subject of up to 3 Students who have Studied most recently in the lesson. (This action counts as a Disruption.)

Lessons can either be Open or Ended, and begin as Open. If a Lesson has been Open for more than 24 hours, the Headmaster may end it by leaving a comment on the blog entry to that effect. If a Lesson has been Open for 48 hours, it ends.

When a Lesson ends:

The Headmaster shall give the Teacher of the Lesson a Grudge against any Students who Disrupted the Lesson.
If any students posted comments that were not Class Actions, the Headmaster may, at their discretion, give the Teacher of the Lesson a Grudge against any or all of those Students as if they had Disrupted the Lesson.
If any Students Brown Nosed during the Lesson, the Headmaster shall select the Student among them with the lowest number of Grudges held against them collectively by the faculty (resolving ties randomly) to become that Teacher’s Pet.

The prefects of the Dormitories can request a Lesson to be given by the teacher assigned to their dormitory. After such a request is posted in a story post, the headmaster must advise this teacher to give a lesson in his subject. In any case a teacher can give only one lesson at a time.

Chores

If a Student is on Detention, they may choose to carry out Chores by posting a comment to this effect in an Open Lesson by the Teacher assigned to their Dormitory. If they do so, when that Lesson ends, if the Student is not the subject of a Grudge by every Teacher, that Student is no longer on Detention.

Disasters

If a Disaster occurs in a Beginner’s Alchemy Lesson, noxious fumes fill the classroom. No further Class Actions may be taken in this Lesson.
If a Disaster occurs in a Wild Beasts Lesson, the subject matter runs amok. Any Alive Student who has taken a Class Action other than “Studying” in the Lesson becomes a Zombie.
If a Disaster occurs in a Recreational Necromancy Lesson, a greenish-white glow fills the room. Any Zombie or Ghost who has taken a Class Action in the Lesson becomes Alive.
If a Disaster occurs in a Divination Lesson, the Students get a harrowing glimpse of their future. Each Student who has taken a Class Action in the Lesson has their Grade reduced by one level in every Subject.
If a Disaster occurs in an Explosive Latin Lesson, a magical fight breaks out. The Alive Student with the lowest Grade in Explosive Latin who has taken a Class Action in the Lesson (if only one such Student exists) becomes a Zombie.
If a Disaster occurs in an Unbridled Evil Lesson, the pupils cheer. Any Alive Student who has taken a Class Action in the Lesson becomes a Zombie.

If a Disaster is triggered by a Disruption by a Student, that Student is immune to the effects of the Disaster.

Class Actions

A Student may take a Class Action in an Open Lesson by posting a comment to that Lesson’s entry, describing their behaviour. A Class Action must begin with one of the following phrases:

‘Studying’.
‘Brown Nosing’.
‘Distracting’.
‘Disrupting’.

The first comment posted by a Student on an Open Lesson’s entry that matches this criteria shall count as that Student’s Class Action for the Lesson.

Teachers

Professor Abalone’s School of Witchcraft and Miscellany has a number of Teachers, listed in the BlogNomic wiki page “Teachers”. Each Teacher has a Name, a Field (any Subject), a Condition (Alive, Ghost, or Zombie), a Pet (None, or STUDENT’S NAME) and a Grudge against any number of Students. The Headmaster may hire new Teachers at any time by adding them to the wiki page; new Teachers have a Name, Field and Condition of the Headmaster’s choosing, a Pet status of None, and no Grudges.

If a Student is the subject of a Grudge by every Teacher, then that student is put on Detention.

Teacher’s Pet

As a weekly action, a Student may Wheedle a Teacher, so long as they are that Teacher’s Pet. Upon doing so, they may give that Teacher a Grudge against any Student, and/or remove a single Grudge that that Teacher has.

Resident Scholar

2.6.2 Resident Scholar. Each dormitory is overseen by one of the full time faculty. No Teacher may be assigned to more than one Dormitory. If a dormitory currently has no Teacher assigned to it, then the Headmaster shall randomly assign a Teacher to that dormitory. If a Teacher is assigned to a dormitory, then that information will be noted in the Teacher’s profile on the wiki.

Students within a dormitory may attempt to request a change in the Teacher assigned to their dormitory. As a weekly action, a student may publish a post entitled “Request for Change of Faculty Supervisor” and within which they will nominate a new Teacher, designate a Dormitory (Which must be the Dormitory the posting student resides in) and offer a reason as to why they would like a change to occur.

Resolution of the Request for Change of Faculty Supervisor is handled in the following fashion:

Students who reside within the Dormitory may vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ the change by commenting on the post.
If the designated Faculty Member is currently overseeing another Dormitory, residents of that Dormitory may vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ the change by commenting on the post.
The Headmaster may vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ the change by commenting on the post and his vote shall be counted twice.
For each Grudge the Teacher holds against a Student in the requesting Student’s dormitory, add a vote of ‘against’ towards the Request for Change of Faculty Supervisor. These votes will be tallied by the posting Student and posted as a comment. Failure to do so within 48 hours of the original post will result in the Request failing.
If the designated Teacher is currently overseeing another Dormitory, for each Grudge he or she holds against a student in the Dormitory he or she is currently overseeing, add a vote of “for” towards the Request for Change of Faculty Supervisor.These votes will be tallied by the posting Student and posted as a comment. Failure to do so within 48 hours of the original post will result in the Request failing.
After a 48 hour period, if the number of “for” votes exceeds the number of “against” votes, then the designated Teacher will be unassigned from their current Dormitory and assigned to the designated Dormitory. At this time the Headmaster shall assign a new Teacher to any Dormitory that currently has no assigned Teacher. If the number of “against” votes exceeds or ties the number of “for” votes, then no change will occur.

Lord Marvolo

Professor Abalone’s School of Witchcraft and Miscellany goes through cycles of Light Ascendancy, when the Headmaster and Alive Students have the upper hand, and Dark Ascendancy, where Lord Marvolo and the Zombie Students are more powerful. The school is normally considered to be in a time of Light Ascendancy. While the number of Loathed Deans held by all Students is at least twice the number of Loved Deans held by all Students, and the total number of all Deans is greater than 25, the school is considered to be in a time of Dark Ascendancy.

As a weekly action, and only if no other Student has done so within the preceding five days, a Zombie Student may Channel Lord Marvolo by callling a Lesson under the same rules as regular Lessons. However, the Teacher of the Lesson must be Lord Marvolo, and the Subject must be Unbridled Evil. Students who are Alive may not Study in such Lessons, and Students who are Zombies may not Disrupt them.

Library

The School Library has a vast collection of books, but zombies have been known to hide among its shelves. As a weekly action, a Student who is Alive may Study in the Library by incrementing their Grade in any one main Subject. As a weekly action, a student who is a Zombie may convert to Zombie status any other student who Studied in the Library in the previous 24 hours and is still Alive.

Spells

All Students have access to a number of Spells, listed in subrules to this rule. All spells have a Difficulty Level in one or more subjects, which may be negative, and an Effect.

A student (the caster) may attempt to cast a spell as a weekly action. To do so, they must make a post with the title “Casting {Spell}, where {Spell} is the name of the spell they intend to cast. If the Effect of that spell requires a target, one must be specified in the body of the post. Students who share a dormitory with the caster may join in the casting by adding a FOR icon in a comment to the post. The caster may complete the spell once within 48 hours of making the post and, if for each subject in which the Spell has a Difficulty level the sum of Spell Power of all participating Students (including the caster) in that subject meets or exceeds the Difficulty Level, execute the Effect of the spell. Add 1 to the calculated Spell Power of any subject that matches the Field: (Subject) of the Teacher assigned to the casting Student’s Dormitory.

Unsupervised spellcasting is a stressful and often dangerous experience. After completing a Spell, the Caster must decrement his or her Grade in any Subjects for which that Spell had a Difficulty Level.

Revive

Difficulty level: RNY 15; ALC 0

Effect: Set the condition of the targeted Student to Alive.

Transmute Card

Difficulty level: DIV 1, ALC 1

Effect: If the target Nomich card is held by a Dormitory, the Headmaster shall replace it with a random other legal card. If the target Nomich card is also in a play, the Headmaster post the result in a comment to the challenge containing that play, and the play is amended to use the new card in place of the targetted one.

Cartomancy

Difficulty level: DIV 0

Effect: The caster gains a “Cartomancy X” Enchantment, where X is the total Spell Power in Divination of all participating Students (including the caster). When a Student makes a Nomich play, they may remove a Cartomancy Enchantment from their Enchantments to add a single card of any suit to that play, with a face value up to the Enchantment’s Force. This card must be denoted by [square brackets] and may not have a face value greater than K (13).

Autodecapitatum

Difficulty level: RNY 0

Effect: Set the caster’s Condition to Zombie or Ghost. If the total Spell Power in Recreational Necromancy applied to this spell is at least 5, the caster may also choose any Student and set that Student’s Grade in one Subject to F. If the caster’s Condition was Zombie or Ghost when they began casting this spell, their Grade in Recreational Necromancy is set to F.

Guardian Toothfish

Difficulty level: BST 0

Effect: The caster gains a “Toothfish” Enchantment. If a Student with a Toothfish Enchantment would have their Grade in a Subject decremented as a result of a Disruption Class Action, that Grade is not decremented and they instead lose one Toothfish Enchantment. If a Student with a Toothfish Enchantment would be the target of a Bullying or Incitement action, then nothing happens and they instead lose one Toothfish Enchantment.

Marvolo's Challenge

Difficulty Level: UNE:10 RNY 8, LAT 6, ALC 4, DIV 2

Effect: If the school is in a time of Light Ascendancy, the caster may choose to do either or both of the following:

Change one Alive Student to Zombie
Change one Alive Student to Ghost

If the school is in a time of Dark Ascendancy, the caster must roll a DICE10 for each Alive Student as if they were targeted by the Bullies, and apply the resulting effect as per “During Dark Ascendancy”. This action counts as an Incitement action, but it ignores the seven-day limit, and does not count for the weekly action of Inciting the Bullies.

If this Spell would be cast as a result of its own Effect, instead cast it as if the school were in a time of Light Ascendancy.

Potion of Fast Learning and Temporary Haunting

Difficulty Level: ALC (-3)

Effect: If the Targeted Student is not the Caster and doesn’t join, this spell does nothing.

If the Targeted Student was in a class that has not ended when the spell is cast, that class counts as having ended for that student. The student cannot be the target of Disruptions for that class and is not affected by the Disasters triggered in that class.

If the caster has an ALC of D, E, F or Ungraded when the spell resolves (but before decrementing ALC as part of the cost for casting the spell), the caster must roll a DICE2 in the GNDT before the effect is applied. On a 1, the Targeted Student’s Condition becomes Ghost. Other effects work as normal.

Headmaster's Protection

Difficulty level: ALC 10, BST 8, RNY 6, LAT 4, DIV 2

Effect: If the school is in a time of Dark Ascendancy, the caster may choose to do either or both of the following:

Change one Zombie Student to Alive
Change one Zombie Student to Ghost

If the school is in a time of Light Ascendancy, all Alive Students gain a “Toothfish” Enchantment, and the caster gains an additional “Toothfish” Enchantment.

Explosive Language

Explosive Latin is the language of spellcasting. Whenever a Student casts a Spell, they must roll DICE10 in the GNDT, and add the Spell Power that Student has in LAT to the result, plus the number of Chocolate Basilisks the Student has eaten in the past hour. If the result is a 1, 2 or 3 then an accident occurs.

If an accident occurs, the spell fails but the Student does not have to decrement their Grade. Instead they may increment their grade in LAT and, if they are Alive, set their Condition to either Zombie or Ghost (their choice).

Titles

A Student may have a Title, which may be:-

Prefect
Student Corpus President
School Mascot
Salutorian
Lieutenant of the Pep Squad
University Mrrrgrannahh

Prefects

At any time, the Headmaster may remove the Prefect title from any or all Students belonging to a given Dormitory, then assign the Prefect title to up to two Students in that Dormitory who are not in Detention, do not have a Title, and who have or are tied for the highest or second-highest combined total Spell Power in all subjects.

School Mascot

The School Mascot wears the traditional Mascot’s Hat, a jingling jester’s cap impregnated with a powerful anti-magic aura. As a result, the Mascot can neither cast Spells, nor be the target of Spells (that is, a Spell cannot select the School Mascot as a “targeted Student”).

If a Student (the “Chump”) has no Title, and for each Subject there is no Student with a lower Grade in that Subject than the Chump, then the Chump is a potential Mascot. If only one Student (other than the Headmaster) is a potential Mascot, any Student may remove the School Mascot Title from any Student who has it, and then set the potential Mascot’s Title to “School Mascot”.

Snitching

As a weekly action, a Student may Snitch by PMing the Headmaster with the name of a lesson that has not ended and the name of a student who they suspect will attempt to disrupt that lesson. If the named student subsequently does disrupt that lesson, then the Snitching student becomes the Teacher’s Pet of the teacher of the affected lesson, and the disruptive student gets Detention.

If two or more Students correctly Snitch on the same Student for the same Lesson, then the one who Snitched first gets to be Teacher’s Pet, but the one who Snitched last becomes the subject of a Grudge from the Lesson’s Teacher when the Lesson is Ended.

Detention

If a Student has been in Detention for more than seven days, they may, as a weekly action, remove one Grudge held against them by any one Teacher.

If a Student is in Detention for three weeks without interruption then they become a Ghost.

Sweets

Each Student may have a number of Sweets, listed in the GNDT as “Tuck”. A Student may, as a weekly action, visit the Tuck Shop, and award themselves any number of Sweets from the following priced list, to a maximum value of 10p.

Sugar Lungorthin - 5p
Jenglot Baby - 4p
Jelly Dean - 3p
Chocolate Basilisk - 2p
Vorpal Chew - 1p

A Student may eat a Sweet they own, at any time, by removing it from their Tuck.

If a Student has a Jelly Dean, they may roll DICE4 to unwrap it. If the result is N or less, the Jelly Dean becomes a Loved Dean. Otherwise, it becomes a Loathed Dean. N is 1 if the Student is a Zombie, 2 if they are a Ghost and 3 if they are Alive.

Ascendancy

Professor Abalone’s School of Witchcraft and Miscellany goes through cycles of Light Ascendancy, when the Headmaster and Alive Students have the upper hand, and Dark Ascendancy, where Lord Marvolo and the Zombie Students are more powerful. The school is normally considered to be in a time of Light Ascendancy. While the number of Loathed Deans held by all Students is greater than the number of Loved Deans held by all Students, and the total number of all Deans is greater than 25, the school is considered to be in a time of Dark Ascendancy.

The Bullies

Blodger, Scraggs and Venter are, collectively, the school Bullies. The effect that they have on the game depends on the current Ascendancy.

During Light Ascendancy

During Light Ascendancy, the bullies’ fear of punishment and the Headmaster limits their capacity for mischief. Once, within 24 hours of a Student (“the Nerd”) carrying out Chores or becoming a Teacher’s Pet, any other Student may make a Bullying roll by posting “Bullying: DICE2” in the GNDT. If the result is a 1, then the Bullies attack the Nerd, stealing all of their sweets - their Tuck is set to -.

During Dark Ascendancy

During Dark Ascendancy, the vicious natures of the Bullies become more apparent. As a weekly action, and only if no Student has done so within the preceding seven days, whichever Student has most recently Channelled Lord Marvolo may incite the bullies.

To do so, they must make an Incitement roll to the GNDT by posting “Incitement: DICEx DICE10”, where x is the number of Students whose condition is Alive. The result of the DICEx roll determines which Student is Bullied by the Incitement and corresponds to the order in which Student names are listed in the GNDT. The result of the DICE10 determines the outcome of the incitement.

On a roll of 1, the Bullied Student is wedgied to death and becomes a Zombie.
On a roll of 2, the Bullied Student is conventionally bullied and their Tuck is set to -.
On a roll of 3 or 4, the Bullied Student is corrupted by the Bullies; their UNE is incremented.
If the result anything from 5 to 9, the Student successfully hides from the bullies. There is no effect.
On a roll of 10, the Bullies’ manage enough articulation to actually cast a spell. Let Z be the result of DICEY, where Y is the number of subrules to Rule 2.8; the Spell described in Rule 2.8.Z is cast. The caster of the spell and (if required) the targeted Student are both the Bullied Student. The inciter may make any other decisions required by the spell.

Lavatory Studies

A Student may, as a weekly action, lock themself in a lavatory stall and experiment with advanced magic. This is done by posting a comment in the GNDT in the form “Lavatory for [SUBJECT]: DICE6”, where [SUBJECT] is any of the legal academic Subjects. Depending on the result of that die roll, the effects are as follows:

On a 1-4, the Student may increment their Grade in that Subject by one; or, if their Grade in that Subject is currently Ungraded, set it to C.
On a 5, nothing happens.
On a 6, the Student has made a hideous mistake. If they are Alive or Zombie, they must set their Condition to Ghost; if they are a Ghost, they must set their grade in the attempted Subject to F.

Graduation

If there is ever exactly one Student whose condition is Alive, that Student achieves victory. If there is ever exactly one Student whose condition is Zombie, that Student achieves victory.

If there is ever exactly one Student who has a grade of A+ in five Subjects, that Student achieves victory.

Glossary

Keywords

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

Can: "is able to"

Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Core Proposal: A Proposal whose changes 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 Students.

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Student able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every six hours.

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 GMT, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

Dice: References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

Dynastic Proposal: A Proposal whose only changes are the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Student's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Proposal means that Student’s Comment to that Proposal (if any) that contains that Student’s Vote on the Proposal that is given effect in accordance with Rule 1.4 when the Proposal is Resolved, not including explicit Votes of abstention..

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

Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.

IRC Channel: The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).

May: "is permitted to"

Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

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

Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of Proposals, Call for Judgements or Declarations of Victory, the world “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in another context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words.

Shall: "is required to"

Should: "is recommended that"

Story Post: A Story Post is an Official Post that is not a member of any specific category of Official Posts mentioned or defined in a Core Rule (excluding Official Post).

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.

Votable Matter: The word “Votable Matter”, means a Proposal, a CFJ or a DoV.

Vote: The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule 1.4 “Voting”. 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, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

Week: References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action: If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Student able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero. 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, when “X” is a number, to spend X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X); to gain X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to transfer X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A's V and add the amount A's V was reduced by to B's V. Unless otherwise specified, a rule that allows Students to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Student (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Student 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 the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of a division 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 division is instead the result rounded towards 0.
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.

Rules and Proposals

If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Enactment or Failure of a Proposal are the responsibility of the Admin who Enacts or Fails it.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in GMT.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.

Spelling

Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.

Names

Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Student if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Student's name.

Ruleset 84

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