Dynastic Rules

Victory

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

Vampire Lords

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

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

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

Power Actions

Power Actions may be performed at any time but always require that their Cost be spent from the Puissance of the Vampire Lord carrying it out. Spending the cost and performing of the action is considered to be an atomic action.

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

Sepulchres

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

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

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

Unlife

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

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

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

Status

If a Vampire Lord’s Puissance is 0, then that Vampire Lord is Dust. While a Vampire Lord is Dust, they may not spend Puissance, their Puissance is 0, and their Puissance cannot be raised above 0 except by means defined in this rule. If a Vampire Lord is not Dust, then that Vampire Lord is Revenant. If a Vampire Lord’s Puissance is above 13, then that Vampire Lord is Bloodthirsty. While a Vampire Lord is Bloodthirsty, they may not perform any Power Actions except Blood Frenzy.

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

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

The Crypt of Dracula

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

Dark rooms have a background colour of #444444 and have no text inside them, while Lit rooms have a background colour of #666666 (or #CCCC00, if they are a Sepulchre) and contain a room name. Room names must be unique and may be used to specifically refer to the room that carries them; otherwise, they are flavour text. Rooms may be Newly Furnished. Newly Furnished rooms are denoted by adding a * after their name. Rooms may not otherwise have a * in their name. Whenever the Crypt Awakens, all Newly Furnished rooms cease to be Newly Furnished. Room names may not contain the word “Dracula”.

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

There is a list of Lit rooms which is publicly tracked, showing - for each room - the name of the room, a brief flavour-text description of its contents, and its effect on Richardo von Nestor when he enters it. Only Lit rooms have names, effect, and descriptions; any other room with one of those properties immediately ceases to have it.

Features

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

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

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

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

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

Glyphs and Sigils

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

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

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

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

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

Ritual Chambers

The four rooms in the corners of the Zahndorf Crypt map are known as the Ritual Chambers. Ritual Chambers have a background colour of #333333 and are always Lit.

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

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

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

Richardo encounters Dracula’s Sepulchre

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

Crypt Denizens

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

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

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

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

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

Denizen Characteristics

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

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

Denizen Encounters

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

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

Richardo’s Journey

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

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

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

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

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

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

Run Initialisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Organ

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

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

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

Treasure

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

An average treasure chest will contain one item from the average treasures list. A fine treasure chest will contain one item from the fine treasures list and one item from the average treasures list. The contents of a chest are secretly randomly determined when that chest is opened. As a Power Action with a cost of 2, a Vampire Lord may predetermine the contents of a single treasure chest to any valid value by appending the names of the items to be contained in that chest to its entry in the relevant room effect, in brackets; when Richardo von Nestor opens a chest with one or more sets of predetermined values, the contents are one secretly randomly chosen set of values attached to the relevant chest, and then that set of values (along with the associated brackets) is deleted from the room effect.

The list of available Treasures are as follows:

Average treasures:

Holy Tincture: Richardo immediately uses this item to gain two Energy
Secret Passage Map: Richardo immediately uses this item and must randomly select from any Lit room to be his next destination
Bandages: The first time during a journey when Richardo is Grievously Injured, he uses this item and is only Lightly Wounded instead
Rusty crossbow: The first time Richardo encounters a Denizen, he uses this item and it is immediately slain
Depleted Ring of Warding: The first time Richardo enters a room that contains active Sigils, he uses this item and one of those Sigils (selected secretly at random) is destroyed
Watchful Saint Figurine: Richardo immediately uses this to become Perceptive

Fine treasures:

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

The Ancients

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

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

Dark Favours

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

All Favours are always ripe in this dynasty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Between Vampire Lords:

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

Between a Vampire Lord and Richardo von Nestor:

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

Cleanup Proposals

A proposal from Richardo von Nestor is a Cleanup Proposal if it consists entirely of moving text between dynastic rules without changing that text, of reformatting a list of items as a list of bullet points, and/or adding bold markup and/or paragraph breaks to a rule. A Cleanup Proposal may be given the tag “[Cleanup]”.

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

Cleanup Ruleset

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