Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Heirs 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. 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.

If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Heir may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Duel Sheet page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Heirs

A human with access to the blog who is not already an Heir may make a blog post making clear their wish to be an Heir (plural form Heirs); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become an Heir. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

An Heir may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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

An Heir may cease to be an Heir at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be an Heir in this way may not become an Heir again within the following two weeks.

Idle Heirs

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

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

When an Heir 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 Heir Idled in a different Dynasty), the Heir is given the default value for new Heirs, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render an Heir Idle if that Heir has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Heir 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, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Heir during the current and subsequent dynasty. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle an Heir if that Heir 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 Heir who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.

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

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

Dynasties

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

Votes

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

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

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

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

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

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

Enacting and Failing

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

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

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

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

Tags

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

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

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When an Heir 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 Old King may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Old King casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Old King 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 applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Heir A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Heirs actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Heir feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Heir may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

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

• It is Popular.

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

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

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

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If an Heir (other than the Old King) 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.

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

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

• It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Heirs, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Old King 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 Heirs, 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 Heir 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 Heir who posted the DoV becomes Old King, 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 Old King must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming an Heir who was not the last dynasty’s Old King, in which case the passing Heir ceases to be the Old King and the Heir so named becomes the Old King) 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 Old King'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.
• Optionally change the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”.

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 an Heir'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. Heirs 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 Heir within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Heir and any Idle Heirs. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Heir, defined here as the controlled Heir's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Heir was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• An Heir should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
• An Heir should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• An Heir should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Heir.
• An Heir should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• An Heir should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• An Heir should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
• An Heir should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. An Heir must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• An Heir should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• An Heir should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause an Heir to achieve victory.
• An Heir should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.
• A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Heir or Heirs to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
  • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
  • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

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

Dynastic Rules

Claims

Claims are defined as subrules of this rule. Claims should be contained between the templates {{Flair top|Claim box}} and {{Flair bottom}}; if one is not, any Heir may edit the ruleset to add the flair.

Each claim has

• a type (Minor, Irremediable, or Standard, defaulting to Standard), and optionally a Subtype of Duchy.
• a nonnegative integer value for Strength
• one or more Conditions
• a disown list

Each Heir may hold zero or more Claims; this is publicly tracked. An Heir whose name is on the Disown list for a Claim is never considered to meet that Claim’s conditions.

Any any time, an Heir or the Old King may Appraise any Claim, as an atomic action:

• Each Heir who meets the Claim’s conditions and doesn’t already hold that Claim begins to hold it, and (if it is a Standard Claim) gains 4 Reputation
• Each Heir who does not meet the Claim’s conditions and holds that Claim ceases to hold it, and (if it is a Standard or Irremediable Claim) loses 4 Reputation
• If the Claim is a Duchy and no Heirs currently hold that Claim, remove it from the subrules of Claims.

In the case of any Claim whose Criteria contains a superlative (eg ‘highest’, ‘lowest’, ‘longest’ etc) that superlative is considered non-exclusive (i.e. if two or more Heirs are tied for its Criteria they are all considered to have the Claim) and the Claim is considered to be Contested. If more than one Heir has any given Contested Claim, the Strength of that Claim for the purposes of all other rules (excluding subrules to this rule) is considered to be its Strength (as listed in the subrules to this rule) divided by the number of Heirs who hold it, rounded down.

Eldest

• Type: Standard
• Strength: 50
• Condition: have the highest Age among all Heirs.
• Disown: -

Positive Reputation

• Type: Minor
• Strength: 15
• Condition: You have a reputation greater than 0.
• Disown: -

Prestigious Estate

• Type: Standard
• Strength: 30
• Condition: Be the Palatine of an Estate that has the highest prestige among all Heirs
• Disown: -

Partnership

• Type: Standard
• Strength: 20
• Condition: You are Married to a Prospect
• Disown: -

Faithful

• Type: Irremediable
• Strength: 10
• Condition: Since the most recent time you joined the dynasty or nominated a Successor (whichever is most recent), you must not have performed the Divorce action.
• Disown: -

Patriarchy

• Type: Minor
• Strength: 10
• Condition: Have a Forename from the Masculine list
• Disown: -

Transition of Power

The Old King is either Ill or Perished, defaulting to Ill; his condition is publicly tracked. When the Old King becomes Perished, if it has not yet been done this dynasty, any Heir or the Old King may perform the Legitimize atomic action, which is to perform the Appraise atomic action for every Claim. When the Legitimize action is complete, the Heir whose single strongest Claim is stronger than all other Heirs’ strongest Claims achieves victory. If multiple Heirs are tied for strongest, their next-strongest Claims are successively compared. The Legitimize action is an Upkeep Action

For the purposes of this rule, a Heir’s Claim’s strength is considered to be the value written for that Claim’s strength in the ruleset minus that Heir’s Stress.

Health of the King

There is a publicly tracked integer named Old King’s Health that defaults to 200 and a publicly tracked number named Old King’s Stress that can range from 5 to 10 inclusive and defaults to 5. When an Heir or the Old King performs the Check Health action, they check if the Old King is Ill, and if so, they subtract the Old King’s Stress from the Old King’s Health and then set the Old King’s Stress to 5. If the Old King’s Health is 0 or less, the Old King is no longer Ill and becomes Perished.

If the Old King is Ill, any time an Heir gains or loses a Claim through any dynastic action, the Old King’s Stress should be increased by 1 for each Claim gained or lost as a result of completing that dynastic action, setting the Old King’s Stress to 10 if it would be increased beyond 10.

Attributes

Each Heir has a publicly tracked Age, which is a non-negative integer defaulting to 18. When an Heir joins the dynasty for the first time, their Age is set to 3DICE20+10.

Each Heir has a publicly tracked Forename, which is a flavour text string defaulting to “Nameless”. An Heir whose Forename is Nameless may perform the atomic action of naming: choosing either of the two lists on the wiki page Mediæval English names, selecting a random numbered name from that list, and changing their Forename to it. An Heir with a forename, at least one Feature and an Estate may be referred to using the formulation ‘the x y of z’ or ‘y the x, of z’, where x is any Feature possessed by that Heir, y is their Forename, and z is the name of their Estate. If the Feature used in such a formulation is an Aspect then it is a Respectful Address; if it is a Flaw then it is a Shocking Insult.

An Heir whose Forename is Nameless may not take any dynastic actions outside of this rule and its subrules.

If an Action is an Upkeep Action, it may be still performed by Heirs that are Nameless (provided all other requirements to perform the action are still met). Unless otherwise stated, all dynastic communal actions are also Upkeep Actions.

Features

Each Heir may have up to four Features, of which up to three may be Aspects and of which zero or one may be a Flaw, which are publicly tracked; valid Aspects and Flaws can be found in lists in this rule. No Claim may be proposed that can be satisfied purely by the possession or lack of a Aspect or Flaw.

Valid Aspects are as follows:

• Hale
• Astute
• Comely
• Menacing
• Ambitious
• Charismatic
• Courageous
• Resilient
• Pious
• Fortuitous

Valid Flaws are as follows:

• Rank
• Impoverished
• Knavish
• Naive
• Reckless

The starting value for Features is one Aspect selected at random. An Heir is Travelling if they have gained a Feature for the first time in the dynasty within the past 24 hours, or if they have nominated a Distant Successor within the past 24 hours. While an Heir who has no Flaws is Travelling, they may choose to randomly select, and apply to themselves, an additional Aspect and a single Flaw.

Reputation

Each Heir has a publicly tracked Reputation which is an integer defaulting to 0 and which has a starting value of DICE20 - 5, and which is permitted to be negative.

Estates

An Estate consists of a Palatine, which is a (possibly idle) Heir or The Old King, the name of which is publicly tracked; a publicly tracked Name, which is a string and is always flavor text and cannot be the same as another Estate; and a publicly tracked integer Prestige. If an Estates Prestige is 0 or less, it is considered to be Destitute

If a Heir is not the Palatine of any Estates, that Heir may create a new estate by choosing a name for it (which is not the name of any current estate), setting themselves to be the Palatine, and setting the prestige to be 3 + DICE7.

Each Estate may have one or more Tracts. Each Tract has name which is flavor text and a function. As a Court action, the Palatine may apply the function of each Tract in every non-Destitute Estate of which they are Palatine (in any order). The name of each Tract belonging to each estate is publicly tracked.

The list of Tracts are in the table below

Name	Function
Bank	The Palatine of this estate gains a Wealth resource.
Meeting House	The Palatine of this estate gains an Alliances resource.
Fairgrounds	The Palatine of this estate gains a Popularity resource.
Church	The Palatine of this estate gains a Religion resource.
Barracks	The Palatine of this estate gains a Military resource.

If an Estate has no tracts, the Palatine of that Estate may add a Tract of their choice to it

An Estate’s Size is Equal to the number of Tracts it has. The Palatine of an Estate may spend a number of different resources equal to that Estate’s Size to add a Tract of their choice to it (each resource spent must be different).

An Estate’s Upkeep is calculated as follows

Size	Upkeep
0	0
1	0
2	1
3	3
4	6
5	10

An Estate may never have more than 5 tracts

As a communal Court action, any heir or the Old King may perform the following atomic action, known as Estate Upkeep

• Randomly remove one Tract from each Destitute Estate that has one or more Tracts
• Reduce the Prestige of every Estate by its Upkeep

Tyngwall

A Meeting of the Tyngwall takes place every four days at 18:00 UTC, to shape the future of the Kingdom. Each Meeting of the Tyngwall is represented by a single post to the BlogNomic blog. The title of such a post must take the format of the word ‘Tyngwall’ followed by the date upon which that Meeting will take place, and its body should include the Agenda for that Meeting, including any Existing Business due to be discussed.

The Agenda for each meeting of the Tyngwall is as follows: 1, Settle Existing Business; and 2, Propose New Business. The Existing Business of each Meeting of the Tyngwall is each item of New Business that was proposed to the previous meeting of the Tyngwall as well as two additional pieces of new business each generated (at the time the Meeting post is created) in the following manner:

• Randomly select the type of decree for a piece of New Business
• If it is selected to be an Endorse or Denegrate decree, randomly select a Claim, then randomly select the Strength value using the valid range for that type.
• If it is selected to be Disown decree, randomly select a Claim, then randomly select an Heir who is not already on the Disown list for that Claim.

Prior to the date and time at which the Meeting takes place, any Heir who is also a Parliamentarian may respond to it indicating their support (using a FOR voting icon) or opposition (using an AGAINST voting icon) to any Existing Business, and proposing a single item of New Business. If an Heir who is a Parliamentarian has multiple responses in the same Tyngwall meeting post with support for or opposition to Existing Business or introducing New Business, not counting any response that is a result of performing the Tyngwall Agenda action, only the most recent of those responses is used when applying any other rule regarding Existing Business and New Business.

If an action is defined as a Court action, it is considered an atomic action of performing that action and then posting a comment to the most recent Meeting of the Tyngwall clearly identifying that action. An Heir or the Old King may not perform a Court action if they have already performed that action since the most recent Meeting of the Tyngwall was posted or (in the case where it is a communal Court action) if any Heir or the Old King has done so since that time. (If an Heir or the Old King has performed a Court action which was amended to a Court action, their performance of that action is also considered to have been a Court action.)

Parliamentarians

The Tyngwall is made up of Parliamentarians. The criteria for an Heir to be a Parliamentarian are as follows:

• a Parliamentarian must be over 40 years of age
• a Parliamentarian must be the Palatine of an Estate
• a Parliamentarian must have one or more of the Astute, Menacing, Ambitious, Charismatic, or Knavish Features
• a Parliamentarian must have a name from the Feminine list.
• a Parliamentarian must not be married to a Prospect
• a Parliamentarian must have the Popularity Resource

If an Heir meets at least four of the criteria to be a Parlamentarian then they are a Parlamentarian; otherwise, they are not. All Parliamentarians in the Tyngwall who are not Heirs may be assumed to be other minor Barons and landholders in the Kingdom.

Business

All Business (New or Existing) must take the following format: the name of a specific Claim, and the name of one of the following decrees (specifying the value where a range of outcomes is possible):

• Endorse: Increase its Strength by any value between 1 and 10 inclusive
• Denegrate: Decrease its Strength by any value between 1 and 5 inclusive
• Disown: Add the name of a specific Heir to the Disown list for that Claim

Additionally, Existing Business has Status which can either be Wildly Unpopular, Unpopular, Somewhat Unpopular, Neutral, Somewhat Popular, Popular or Wildly Popular and by default is Neutral. When an Agenda is created, the Status for each piece of existing business should be randomly determined by whoever creates the Agenda.

Resolving a Meeting

As an atomic upkeep action, at any time after a Meeting takes place, any Heir or Old King may resolved its effects as follows: for each piece of Existing Business for that meeting, calculate whether more Parliamentarians support it than oppose it; if they do, enact its effect; otherwise do nothing. In either case, make a new Meeting Post for the next Meeting of the Tyngwall which should be scheduled for four days after the meeting that was just resolved.

When a Meeting takes place and has been thus resolved, all of its Existing Business ceases to be Business.

To determine if more Parliamentarians support or oppose a piece of Existing Business, calculate the number of Parliamentarians who are Heirs and expressed support to the piece of Existing Business in the meeting post. If the Existing Business is Somewhat Popular, add 1 to this total. If it is Popular, add 3 and if it is Wildy Popular Add 5. This is it’s Total Support. Then calculate the number of Parliamentarians who are Heirs and expressed opposition to the piece of Existing Business in the meeting post. If the Existing Business is Somewhat Unpopular, add 1 to this total. If it is Unpopular, add 3 and if it is Wildy Unpopular Add 5. This is it’s Total Opposition. Finally, compare the Total Support against the Total Opposition—if it is higher, more Parliamentarians support it. Otherwise, more Parliamentarians oppose it.

Marriage

Each Heir has a Spouse, which is a publicly tracked value that defaults to None. If an Heir’s Spouse is set to the Vocation of a Prospect, they are considered to be Married to that Prospect. Each Prospect has a Vocation and description (which are flavor text), Requirements, optionally a Benefit (which applies to the Heir Married to that Spouse), optionally an Alimony and optionally a Gift.

Marriage is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Set your Spouse to the Vocation of a Prospect whose Requirements you have met
• Apply the effects of the Gift of that Prospect (if they have one)

Divorce is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Apply the Alimony of the Prospect you’re currently Married to (if they have one)
• Set your Spouse to None

Marriage is a Court action that can only be performed by an Heir whose Spouse is None. Divorce is a Court action that can only be performed when an Heir has a Spouse other than None.

Where a subrule of this rule begins with Prospect, the remainder of that rule’s title is the Vocation of that prospect, and the body of that rule contains the rest of that Prospect’s details. Prospects should be contained between the templates {{Flair top|Prospect box}} and {{Flair bottom}}; if one is not, any Heir may edit the ruleset to add the flair.

Prospect True Love

Description: Marrying for love can make you a better person, but alas, it’s considered political suicide.

Requirements: Since the most recent time you joined the dynasty or nominated a Successor (whichever is most recent), you must not have Married.

Benefit: For the purposes of all rules except “Features” and “Marriage” (and its subrules), you are considered to have no Flaws. You cannot perform Acts of Subterfuge.

Prospect Land Owner

Description: They might not be noble, but they’re wealthy and respected.

Requirements: One of your Estates must have a Prestige which is higher than the median Estate Prestige.

Alimony: Set the Palatine of one of your Estates to the Old King. If you are the Palatine of an Estate, reduce its prestige by 3.

Gift: You may create an Estate by choosing a name for it, setting yourself to be the Palatine, and setting its prestige to DICE5.

Prospect Politician

Description: There’s more than one way to get your say in the Tyngwall, though you may end up overshadowed.

Requirements:

Benefit: You are considered to be a Parliamentarian, irrespective of any criteria you do not meet. When you would gain reputation from gaining a Claim from the Appraise any Claim action, you instead gain 0 reputation.

Alimony: Your flaw becomes Impoverished, and you lose all Wealth from your resources.

Successors

At any time an Heir who has a positive Reputation may take the following atomic action of nominating a Successor:

• Set their own Forename to Nameless
• Set their Spouse to None
• Set their Age to 3DICE20+10. If their Age decreases by more than 20 as a result of this then the Successor is an Offspring; otherwise the Successor is Distant.
• If the Successor is an Offspring and the Heir has any Aspects; they lose one Aspect at random, then gain a random Aspect
• If the Successor is Distant; they lose all Aspects and Flaws, then gain a random Aspect
• If the Successor is Distant and the Heir is the Palatine of an Estate; set that Estate’s Palatine to the Old King
• Lose 4 Reputation

Assassination

Each Heir is either Relaxed or Vigilant, defaulting to Relaxed. This state is publicly tracked. As a daily action, a Heir may change their state from Relaxed to Vigilant or vice versa and increase their Stress by one. A Heir’s Stress is a publicly tracked number defaulting to zero. When an Heir or the Old King performs the Update Stress action, they increase the Stress of each Vigilant Heir by one unless that Heir became Vigilant that day, and decrease the Stress of each Relaxed Heir by one unless that Heir became Relaxed that day.

As an Act of Subterfuge, a Heir may, as a Court action, Assassinate, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Choose a number between 0 and 30, known as Concentration.
• Increase the Stress of the Heir performing this action by the value of Concentration.
• Choose a Heir who is not the Heir performing this action and is not Vigilant.
• Nominate a Successor for the targeted Heir, following the steps described under the rule “Successors” except for the step “Lose 4 Reputation”
• Lose 4 reputation
• Roll DICE30. If the result is greater than Concentration, the perpetrator is caught and executed, and they must Nominate a Successor for themselves and lose additional 4 reputation.

Influence

Every Heir has Resources, which is a list of zero or more of each of the following named Resources, defaulting to one of each Resource named in the table below. Each Resource may be represented in gamestate tracking by the first letter of that Resource’s name. Each Resource has an associated Beneficial Aspect and a Hindering Flaw which is also listed in the table below.

Resource	Beneficial Aspect	Hindering Flaw
Wealth	Fortuitous	Impoverished
Alliances	Ambitious	Naive
Popularity	Charismatic	Rank
Religion	Pious	Knavish
Military	Courageous	Reckless

To spend a Resource means for an Heir to remove one of that Resource from their Resources—an Heir cannot spend a resource they don’t have

Influencing Claims

At any time, an Heir may execute the Influence Claim action, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Select a Resource that Heir has in their Resources.
• Select a Claim.
• Set an number named Influence to 5.
• If the selected Resource has a Beneficial Aspect that matches one of the Features of that Heir, increase the Influence by 5.
• If the selected Resource has a Hindering Flaw that matches one of the Features of that Heir, decrease the Influence by 5.
• If that Heir has the selected Claim, increase the Influence by 5.
• Remove the selected Resource from that Heir’s Resources.
• Choose to either add to or subtract from the selected Claim’s Strength by the Influence, and then perform the addition or subtraction, modifying the ruleset directly to do so.

Influencing the Tyngwall

At any time, an Heir may execute the Influence Tyngwall action, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Select a Resource that Heir has in their Resources.
• Select a Tyngwall that has been posted but in which its Meeting has not yet occurred.
• Respond to the selected Tyngwall proposing a single item of New Business that is not a Disown decree, unless the selected Resource has a Beneficial Aspect that matches one of the Features of that Heir, in which case the proposed New Business may be a Disown decree.
• Remove the selected Resource from that Heir’s Resources.

Duchies

There exists a kind of claim known as a Duchy, representing major titles held in the history of the kingdom that later became defunct. As an Act of Subterfuge, an Heir may take the Forge Claim atomic action, which has the following steps:

• Add a new Claim to the Claims in the rule Claims with a name that starts with “Duchy of “.
• Set the Type to Standard (Duchy), the Strength to 0, and the disown list to blank.
• Set the Condition to “Be the Palatine of the Estate which has a name of ‘X’”, replacing X with the name of any estate you are the Palatine of and which has a Prestige of 10 or greater. (Where that Estate name is held within that condition, it is not permitted to be interpreted as anything other than an Estate name.)
• Reduce your Reputation by 12.

When a Duchy claim has an Heir added to its Disown list, if that Heir is the Palatine of the Estate named in its Condition, the Heir with the highest reputation becomes the Palatine of that Estate. (In the case of a tie, the age of those Heirs should act as a tie-breaker, with the older Heir getting the Estate. If that still results in a Tie, the Old King becomes the Palatine of that Estate.)

Royal Obligations

As a Daily Communal Action, any Heir or the Old King should perform the Royal Obligations action, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Perform the Update Stress action
• Perform the Check Health action

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 “[Standard]” then its Default Status is Active; otherwise, its Default Status is Inactive.

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; those Special Case rules are then 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] [Standard]

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Heirs” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active] [Standard]

If there are fewer than four Heirs, then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Active] [Standard]

If the Old King has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Heirs 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 Heirs on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

If there are six or fewer Heirs, then the Old King’s vote of DEFERENTIAL on a proposal is only affected by this rule if all Heirs who are not the Old King have cast a vote on that proposal.

Dynastic Distance [Active] [Standard]

For the purposes of dynastic and Special Case rules, the Old King is not an Heir.

Malign Emperors [Inactive]

The Old King may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were an Heir, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Old King 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. The Old King may not use the rule “Official Posts” to move posts into the proposal category.

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

No Private Communication [Inactive]

Heirs 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 Heir could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #current-dynasty, #blognomic-general and #new-player-questions-and-mentorships Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Heirs (or people who are not yet Heirs) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Heir 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. This rule’s restrictions on communication do not apply during an Interregnum. The restrictions in this rule on communication in non-blognomic-related media shall not be construed as to cause those media to be gamestate.

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

Mantle Limitations [Active] [Standard]

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

Declared Alliances [Inactive]

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

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if an Heir 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 Heir may pass the Mantle to an Heir who was named in their Alliance at the posting time of their Declaration of Victory.

If “No Private Communication” is active, it does not apply to communications between Heirs 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 Heirs who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Active] [Standard]

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). An Heir (or the Old King) 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 Heir (or the Old King) 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 it be Ended again.

Bounties [Inactive]

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

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

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

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

Reinitialisation [Inactive]

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

Appendix

Keywords

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

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Heir 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 Heir 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 Heir 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 Heir 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 Heirs.

Dice

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

Dynastic Action

An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.

Dynastic Proposal

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

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

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

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, an Heir 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. Heirs , as well as people who are not Heirs 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 Heirs 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. Heirs 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 (or indirectly invoked by 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

Quorum

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

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 Heir 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 Heir 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 is less than six hours old and appears to the Old King to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Old King may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

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

If authorised by the rules as a result of an Heir’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. 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 Heir may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Heirs 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.

An Heir 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 an Heir with such access. Only an Heir with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name an Heir 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 Heir making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Heir 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 an Heir 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 Heir performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If an Heir 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 Heir must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Heir 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 Heir 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, an Heir can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Heirs to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Heir only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Heir (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.
• An Heir 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Heirs are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
• 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 Old King (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Old King when the ruleset allows it. If an Heir should already know such a piece of information (in that the Old King has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Old King 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 a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Heir 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), Heirs 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.
• An Heir 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.
• Heirs may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Heirs with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
• An Heir 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 an Heir if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Heir'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, an Heir's (or prospective Heir'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 “Heirs may Kick each other” and “Heirs may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Heirs 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 “Heirs may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Heirs may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Heirs may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

An Heir may have another Heir as a Mentor. Heirs 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 an Heir who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a votable matter.

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

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

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

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

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

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

• Heir (Player)
• Old King (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.