Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Mindjackers 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 Mindjacker may update it to do so.

Mindjackers

The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already a Mindjacker may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Mindjacker (plural form Mindjackers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Mindjacker.

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

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

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

Idle Mindjackers

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

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

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

An Admin may render a Mindjacker Idle if that Mindjacker has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 a Mindjacker if that Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker, known as the Ascendant. If there is no Ascendant, 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjackers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

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

If a Mindjacker other than the Ascendant casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Ascendant. When the Ascendant 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 Ascendant'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 Mindjackers 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.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Mindjacker 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 Ascendant may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Ascendant casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Ascendant later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

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

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

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

It is Unpopular.
It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

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

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

Calls for Judgement

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

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

It is Popular.

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

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

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

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Mindjacker (other than the Ascendant) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

A Mindjacker'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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjackers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Ascendant 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 Mindjackers, 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker who posted the DoV becomes Ascendant, 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 Ascendant must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Mindjacker who was not the last dynasty’s Ascendant, in which case the passing Mindjacker ceases to be the Ascendant and the Mindjacker so named becomes the Ascendant) 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 Ascendant's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Mindjacker'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. Mindjackers 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 Mindjacker within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Mindjacker and any Idle Mindjackers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Mindjacker, defined here as the controlled Mindjacker's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Mindjacker was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
A Mindjacker should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
A Mindjacker should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
A Mindjacker should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Mindjacker.
A Mindjacker should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
A Mindjacker should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Mindjacker should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
A Mindjacker should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. A Mindjacker must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
A Mindjacker should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
A Mindjacker should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Mindjacker to achieve victory.
A Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker or Mindjackers 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 Mindjackers and idle Mindjackers 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 Mindjackers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Levels of Reality

Each Mindjacker has a Level, which is a publicly-tracked non-negative integer defaulting to 1.

Each top-level dynastic rule except this one has a Tier, which must be in its title; such rules are called Tier Rules. A Mindjacker is not required to obey, cannot be affected by, and may not utilise the actions of Tier Rules whose Tier is higher than their Level, and treats all Tier Rules with a higher Tier than their Level as if they were flavour text, with the exception that an Admin enacting a Proposal or CfJ uses the parts of those rules that are necessary to interpret and carry out the Votable Matter’s instructions for that purpose only. Where a Mindjacker is subject to Tier Rules that make contradictory statements, the higher-Tiered rule has priority over the lower.

Subrules beneath a Tier Rule always have the same Tier as their parent rule.

A Mindjacker whose level falls below the Tier of the definition of a personal gamestate variable, then increases their Tier to regain the variable, shall have that variable reset to its starting value upon regaining it, unless the action that increases their tier also sets that variable to another value.

Ascending is an Existential Action that entails increasing the actor’s Level by 1; Descending entails descreasing the actor’s Level by 1. A Mindjacker may only Ascend or Descend when permitted by other clauses in the Ruleset. A Mindjacker may not Ascend if doing so would set their Level to a value greater than the highest Tier of any dynastic rule in the ruleset, and may not Descend if it would set their Level to a value lower than 1. A Mindjacker may not Ascend unless they meet all the Ascension Criteria in every Tier they are affected by, excluding Tier 0. If a Tier other than Tier 0 has no defined Ascension Criteria, no Mindjacker affected by that Tier may Ascend. Each Tier should be represented by at most one top-level dynastic rule. At any time, the Ascendant may re-order the Tier Rules such that they are listed in order of Tier Level, from lowest to highest.

An Agenda Item is a task defined as such by Dynastic Rules, outside of flavour text. A Mindjacker who has completed a number of distinct, currently existing Agenda Items greater than or equal to their level since the last time they Ascended (or, if they have never Ascended, since the first moment they weren’t idle during the current dynasty), and who meets any other restrictions on Ascending, may Piggyback, which is an Atomic Action with the following steps:

Make a Story Post outlining the Agendas that they are claiming to have completed in order to carry out this Piggybacking, with links to prior gamestate demonstrating that completion where necessary (or, if links aren’t applicable, as much information about the action as is necessary to identify it specifically)
Ascend

If an action is defined as being an Existential Action, each Mindjacker able to perform it may take that action once per day, but not more than once every ten hours.

If the Ascendant is required or recommended by the ruleset to perform multiple actions “at their earliest opportunity”, “as soon as is practical”, or similar, they should perform these actions ordered chronologically by when the actions or events that prompted each one took place (i.e. the action which was prompted at the earliest point in time should be taken first).

Avatars

There exist Avatars, which are privately tracked by the Ascendant and which have the following properties: a unique Symbol Name as defined in the Symbol Names subrule, a home Tier (which must be the Tier of a currently-extant Rule other than 1), an occupancy Tier (which must also be the Tier of a currently-extant Rule, and must be lower than that Avatar’s Home Tier), and a Star Sign whose Tier is less than or equal to the Avatar’s home Tier.

If at any time there are fewer than 10 Avatars then the Ascendant may make new Avatars until there are exactly 10.

Any Avatar which does not have valid values for its properties is not considered to be an Avatar by any dynastic rule other than this subrule. If the values of one or more properties of an Avatar are invalid, the Ascendant may set those properties with valid values.

Avatar Activity

As a Existential Action, the Ascendant can and should make an Activity Report. Making an Activity Report is an Atomic Action with the following steps:

If a Careless Mover still exists from a previous iteration of this Action, change its Occupancy Tier to a valid value, secretly-randomly. For each Tier between the Tier that was its Occupancy Tier at the start of this action and its new Occupancy Tier (inclusive of the latter but exclusive of the former), see if a Ripple is generated; a Ripple has a 50% chance, secretly-randomly determined, of being generated in any Tier where the Careless Mover’s Star Sign corresponds to a higher-numbered Tier.
Secretly-randomly select an Avatar whose Occupancy Tier is the same as the Level of any Mindjacker; this Avatar becomes the Careless Mover and any other Avatar that would be the Careless Mover ceases to be
Generate two valid Avatar Names that do not duplicate the name of any currently extant Avatar
Break the three names thus generated into their component words and secretly randomise the order of those words
For each Action that has been carried out with a Disruption score that has not been Examined, Examine it, where ‘Examining’ entails checking whether there is an Spectographer whose Occupancy Tier is the same Tier as the Level of the Mindjacker who carried out the Action and, if there is, rolling DICE20 and assessing whether the result is lower than the Action’s Disruption Score; if it is then the action is Detected, and the Ascendant should randomly select an Observation and apply it to the Mindjacker that carried out that Action.
Make a story post with a title of Activity Report: x, where x is the Occupancy Tier of the Careless Mover, and which contains the randomised list of words, along with the Star Sign of the Careless Mover; also include any Detected Actions that were Examined as part of the production of this Report, as well as any Ripples generated as part of this Atomic Action.

Symbol Names

A Symbol Name is a string with exactly four parts in this order, separated by a space between each part: Size, Condition, Color, and Object. When choosing a Symbol Name, one word for each of these parts must be chosen from any row of the table below to create a valid Symbol Name:

Symbol Name Parts
Size	Condition	Color	Object
Microscopic	Spinning	White	Star
Small	Blurry	Magenta	Figure
Large	Reflective	Onyx	Jewel
Gigantic	Glowing	Cyan	Tower
Immense	Shadowy	Grey	Disc

Star Signs

Each Star Sign has a Tier. The available Star Signs are listed below. The Star Signs listed in the line corresponding to each number have that number as their Tier.

1: Leonis (The Lion), Ursida (The Bear)
2: Serpenta (The Serpent), Felina (The Cat)
3: Lupis (The Wolf)
4: Panthera (The Panther)
5: Draco (The Dragon), Equinus (The Horse)
6: Avis (The Bird), Canis (The Dog)
7: Corvus (The Crow), Cetus (The Whale), Aquilus (The Eagle)
8: Lynx (The Lynx), Apis (The Bee), Delphina (The Dolphin)

Memes

Each Mindjacker has a publicly tracked set of Memes, which are strings of text; by default they have none. A Meme represents an understanding or affinity with the essential nature of a specific Tier or, equivalently, Level. As an Existential Action called Memetic Tunnelling, a Mindjacker with a Meme in their set that this rule associates with a specific Level may set their Level to the Level associated with that Meme. A Mindjacker may not Memetic Tunnel in a way that does not change their Level.
The meme “experimental” is associated with Level 1.
The meme “introspection” is associated with Level 2.
The meme “hypnagogia” is associated with Level 3.
The meme “eukaryotic” is associated with Level 4.
The meme “cephalopod” is associated with Level 5.
The meme “embrasure” is associated with Level 6.
The meme “polyominoes” is associated with Level 7.
The meme “tubicinate” is associated with Level 8.

Detectedness

Each Mindjacker has publicly tracked Observations, defaulting to an empty set. An Observation must be one of the strings outlined in this rule. When a Mindjacker has an Observation, all effects of that Observation are applied to them at all times. A Mindjacker may not have the same Observation twice at the time time; if they would gain an Observation that they already have, they instead gain no Observation.

As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker may spend 1 Matterium to lose a single Observation of their choice. Any Mindjacker who has had a given Observation for five consecutive days may lose that Observation.

The valid Observations and their effects are as follows:
CLUSTERING: This Mindjacker may not have a Level that is the same as the Level of any other Mindjacker; if they do then they may and must Descend until they are either not on the same Level as another Mindjacker, or have a Level of 1.
ROUTINE: While any Mindjacker has the ROUTINE Observation, the Ascendant may include an Astrology Reading (which is the name or identifying characteristics of two Existential Actions, randomly selected) in the daily Activity Report. If there is a most recent Astrology Reading then the only Existential Actions that a Mindjacker with this Observation may carry out are those listed within it.
BLOCKADE x: When this Observation is acquired by a Mindjacker, a random Tier number is generated and appended to its name in the place of ‘x’. The Mindjacker with this Observation cannot carry out any Existential Action or Weekly Action defined in the rules and subrules with that Tier Level.
PRESSURED: If the Mindjacker with this Observation has a Meme then they lose both this Observation and that Meme (if they have multiple Memes they lose one at random).

Tier 1: Techno-Witch Reality

It is an Agenda Item to have a Level lower than the lowest among other Mindjackers.

Mindjacking

A Mindjacker may carry out a Mindjacking as an Existential Action. A Mindjacking is the act of making a post in the Story Post Category with the title Mindjacking: (x), where (x) is a flavour-text string of its author’s choice; the contents of the post should be “The stars of (y) will guide me.”, where (y) is a Star Sign. At their earliest opportunity, the Ascendant shall Manifest this Mindjacking by marking it with a FOR symbol if (x) is the Symbol Name of an Avatar with Star Sign (y) whose Home Tier is higher than the author’s Level and whose Occupancy Tier is not; or, otherwise, an AGAINST symbol.

A Mindjacker whose Mindjacking has been legally marked with a FOR symbol by the Ascendant then Ascends and the Avatar named in the Mindjacking is destroyed. Immediately after Ascending this way, the Mindjacker’s Suspicion is set to 3.

Once a Mindjacking has been correctly Manifested it cannot be Manifested again.

Potency

When a Mindjacker carries out a dynastic action associated with a Tier equal to or lower than their current Level, that Mindjacker has a Potency for that action which is equal to 1 plus the difference between the Mindjacker’s Level and the action’s associated Tier.

Any dynastic action that is performed by a Mindjacker with a Potency greater than 1 is a Potent action. Any dynastic action that is not Potent is a Baseline action.

Anchors

Each Mindjacker has a publicly-tracked Anchor, which defaults to empty. As a Existential Action, a Mindjacker may change their Anchor to be the name of another Mindjacker whose Level is exactly equal to their own or change it to be empty. It is an Agenda Item to have a Mindjacker of equal or higher Level as one’s Anchor.

Ascension Timer

The sole Ascension Criterion for Tier 1 is to have continuously been on one’s current Level for the preceding 24 hours.

Portents

Portents are pieces of text privately tracked by the Ascendant, whose content never changes after they are generated.

As a weekly action, the Ascendant may generate a Portent of the form “At (time), there were (number) Avatars.”, where (time) specifies a date and time within the last day and (number) is the number that makes the Portent a true statement. The Ascendant should do this every week.

As a weekly action, the Ascendant may make an Observatory Report, a Story Post that is explicitly labeled as an Observatory Report, containing all Portents generated before the current day that have not been mentioned in a previous Observatory Report. The Ascendant should make an Observatory Report every week on Tuesday.

Astromancy

A Mindjacker may carry out an Astromantic Ritual, which is an Existential Action, by making a Story Post with the title Astromantic Ritual: x, where x is a Tier of the Mindjacker’s choice. The contents of the post must include exactly two words from the Symbol Name Parts table, or exactly three if the Astromantic Ritual is not Potent.

As soon as is practical after an Astromantic Ritual, the Ascendant shall privately message the Mindjacker who performed it with each entry off the following list that applies:

The message “The stars are dull and lifeless.” if there are no Avatars with “Star” in their Symbol Name whose occupancy Tier appeared in the title of the Astromantic Ritual post.
For each Symbol Name Part word mentioned in the Astromantic Ritual post, a response reading “You spy a (word) star.” if at least one Avatar exists whose occupancy Tier appeared in the title of the Astromantic Ritual post, and whose Symbol Name includes both the mentioned word and the word “Star”; or “No (word) stars can be seen.” if no such Avatars currently exist. Here, (word) shall be replaced with the mentioned word.

Tier 2: Post Singularity Consciousness

The Ascension Criteria for Tier 2 is: the Mindjacker who is Ascending must not be the only Mindjacker with the highest Level in the game.

As a daily action, any Mindjacker without the Meme for this Tier may acquire it.

Reality Enforcers

Each Mindjacker has a Suspicion, which is a publicly tracked non-negative integer that defaults to 0. When a Mindjacker’s Level is decreased, their Suspicion is set to 0. When a Mindjacker’s Level is increased, their Suspicion is set to 1.

Certain dynastic actions increase the Suspicion of any Mindjacker who performs them. These actions (called Suspicious Actions) are listed below. Any Mindjacker who performs a Suspicious Action — including if their Trigger contains one of them and is activated when its effects can legally be applied — immediately gains the described quantity (or quantities, if multiple apply) of Suspicion.

Resonance Testing* confers 0 Suspicion
Astromantic Rituals and Tasting the Quantum Soup each confer 1 Suspicion. Changing one’s Anchor confers 1 Suspicion per Level of the Mindjacker performing the action.
Mindjacking and Superencryption* each confer 2 Suspicion.
Launching a Hunter/Seeker grants 3 Suspicion.
Extrasensory Assassination* confers 4 Suspicion.
Resonance Testing may have a variable Suspicion cost based on its outcome; see the relevant rule for more information.
All Actions in this list with an asterisk immediately after their name generate additional Suspicion equal to their Potency.

If a Mindjacker’s Suspicion has been 10 or higher for the last 1 hour, that Mindjacker cannot take any other dynastic actions other than to Descend.

It is an agenda item to increase another Mindjacker’s Suspicion from 9 or less to 10 or more.

Encryption

As a Weekly Action called Superencryption, a Mindjacker may choose a number of Mindjackers up to their Potency and make a Story Post which lists each of their names followed by the text “have been connected to a node of the Post Singularity Consciousness, encrypting their data!”. For 10 hours following a Superencryption, each Mindjacker that was chosen in that Superencryption gains no Suspicion when they perform Suspicious Actions. If the Mindjacker who performed the Superencryption chose themself, they don’t gain Suspicion for performing the Superencryption. It is an Agenda Item to perform a Superencryption in which the Mindjacker performing the Superencryption chooses the maximum allowed number of Mindjackers or the number of non-Idle Mindjackers - 1, whichever is smaller, and is not among the Mindjackers chosen.

Triggers

Each Mindjacker has a publicly tracked Trigger, which is a text string (defaulting to blank) which must either be blank or take the following format: “If X then Y”, where:

X is the phrase “any Mindjacker”, the word “does”, and the name (or an indicative description) of a dynastic action; and
Y is the name of an dynastic action that the author can carry out in the circumstance envisaged in the X of that Trigger, optionally followed by specifications for any choices that must be made in the process of enacting it.

Any action that is, specifically, the “if” clause of a Mindjacker’s Trigger should be considered the first step of the atomic action Activating a Trigger, which then has the following subsequent steps:

Carry out the “then” action of that Trigger on behalf of the Mindjacker whose Trigger it is, if necessary making any Story Posts or sending any Private Messages required; if posts or messages are required then they should be made with their title prefaced by “(name)‘s Trigger:” where (name) is the name of the Mindjacker who owns the Trigger being applied;
Set the thus-activated Trigger to blank.

The “if” clause of a trigger may be activated by the “then” clause of another Trigger taking place. If ever a Trigger is activated but its effects cannot otherwise legally be applied, it has no effect and is set to blank, but the “then” effect is not considered to have occurred. If the “then” action of a trigger involves choices, such as the flavour text string in the title of a Mindjacking, then the specifications made within the Trigger must be adhered to; if a choice is not adequately specified, the Mindjacker who triggered the Trigger may make any legal choice on behalf of the Mindjacker whose Trigger is being activated.

A Mindjacker may create, edit or remove their Trigger as a Existential Action.

Skywriting

As a Forkable weekly action, a Mindjacker may privately message the Ascendant an instruction to generate a specific Portent from the prompt “The stars are (x)”, where (x) is a Star Sign whose Tier is less than or equal to their Level. The Ascendant shall, as soon as is practical after receiving the message, generate a Portent of the form “(name) was incongruous under the stars of (x)”, where (name) is the Symbol Name of a random Avatar whose Occupancy Tier is the Tier of (x) and whose star sign is not (x), if there is atleast one such Avatar (otherwise they do nothing).

Reality Recurse

If a Mindjacker has a Suspicion of more than or equal to 5, as an Existential Action said Mindjacker can Descend.

Forkable Actions

Where an action is defined as Forkable and has a Tier, when a Mindjacker performs it Potent, they may immediately perform its effects a second time, disregarding any timing restrictions but not other requirements, and may make different choices the second time. This second performance is not itself Forkable and is never Suspicious. If the action creates a blog post, comment or private message, they combine both texts into a single post, comment or message with the addition of the word “Forked” as its own paragraph between the two performances’ texts.

Astral Connection

Whenever a Mindjacker has a non-empty Anchor, that Mindjacker and the Mindjacker whose name matches that Anchor are said to be in an Astral Connection. It is possible to be in more than one Astral Connection at a time. Whenever one of the Mindjackers in an Astral Connection Ascends and afterwards has a Level exactly one greater than the other Mindjacker in that same Astral Connection, the Mindjacker with the lower Level in that Astral Connection is considered the Astral Terminus of that Astral Connection. If the Astral Terminus’s Level is ever not exactly one less than the other Mindjacker’s Level in that Astral Connection, the Astral Terminus is no longer considered the Astral Terminus of that Astral Connection. As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker who is an Astral Terminus may Ascend, subject to the rules regarding Ascension Criteria, and immediately set their Suspicion to 5 after Ascending.

Hunter/Seeker Algorithm

As a Forkable Existential Action, a Mindjacker may Launch a Hunter/Seeker. Launching a Hunter/Seeker entails making a post in the Story Posts category with the following characteristics:

It’s title must be the phrase Hunter/Seeker
It must specify two Hunter criteria, which must be two of the following: a specific named Object from a Symbol Name; a specific Home Tier; a specific Occupancy Tier.
It must specify one Seeker criterion, which must be the criteria that was not selected as a Hunter criteria.

As soon as possible after a Hunter/Seeker post has been made, the Ascendant should identify whether any Avatars meet both of the Hunter criteria. If they do not then they should respond to the Launch a Hunter/Seeker post with the phrase “The algorithm dissolves between realities”. If there are any Avatars that meet both Hunter criteria then the Ascendant should randomly select one and change its gamestate such that it matches the Seeker criterion as well; they should then generate a Portent in the format of “x has been reprogrammed”, where x is their full Symbol Name. Any Avatar whose gamestate has been amended in this way may not have their gamestate amended again by any means (including being destroyed as a result of a successful Mindjacking, but excluding the ability of the Ascendant (detailed in the rule Avatars) to make the values of a given Avatar valid) until the next time Observatory Report is posted.

Tier 3: Psychic Dreamscape

It is an Ascension Criterion for Tier 3 that the Mindjacker who is Ascending must either have a Trigger whose “if” clause is possible for at least one other Mindjacker to satisfy, or have had another Mindjacker Activate their Trigger in the last 48 hours.

Near-Field Psyonics

As an exception to the restrictions placed in the Special Case rule No Collaborations, a Mindjacker may privately communicate freely with any Mindjacker whose Level has the same Value as their own.

As a weekly action, a Mindjacker may perform a Psychic Ping by making a Story Post to that effect which also states their level. As soon as is practical after a Psychic Ping, the Ascendant shall privately message the Mindjacker who performed it with each entry off the following list that applies:

The message “A (qualifier) (object) resonates!”, where (object) is the Object of an Avatar’s Symbol Name, (qualifier) is a secretly chosen random other word in that Avatar’s Symbol Name, and that Avatar’s occupancy Tier is the same as the Mindjacker’s level.
The message “A (qualifier) (object) stirs!”, likewise but where the Avatar’s home Tier is the same as the Mindjacker’s level.
“(number) other entities eavesdrop.”, where (number) is the number of Avatars whom the Ascendant could have chosen for either of the previous steps but did not, if that number is greater than zero.
The message “There is no response.”, if no previous entry applied.

Broader Triggers

The “If” clause in a Mindjacker’s Trigger must, instead of the phrase “any Mindjacker”, refer to a specific individual Mindjacker. Triggers may have a single optional “and” clause at the end, which acts as a second, separate “then”.

Weaponised Psyonics

As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker may attempt an Extrasensory Assassination by privately messaging the Ascendant with a Symbol Name and an instruction to assassinate the Avatar with that name. If an Avatar with that Symbol Name existed at the time that the private message was sent, the Ascendant shall, as soon as is practical after receiving the message, destroy the named Avatar, and generate a Portent of the form “(name) was found mysteriously dead in (tier).”, where (name) is the Symbol Name of the destroyed Avatar and (tier) is that Avatar’s Home Tier. If an Extrasensory Assassination is Potent, the Mindjacker may include in their message a number of Symbol Names up to their Potency, and the Ascendant must carry out the above procedure for each Symbol Name separately. The Ascendant should then check whether the Mindjacker forgot to appropriately adjust their Suspicion after sending the private message, and correct the mistake if they did.

Astral Disjunction

A Mindjacker whose name is the Anchor for another Mindjacker may choose to Sever Connection as an Existential Action if their Level is equal to the Level of the other Mindjacker. The Mindjacker who performs this action gains 3 Suspicion and sets the other Mindjacker’s Anchor to empty. This action does not increase the Suspicion of the other Mindjacker.

It is an Agenda Item to have an empty Anchor.

Guilt Implantation

As a Forkable weekly action called Blameshifting, a Mindjacker may transfer one of their Suspicion to another Mindjacker of a level between 3 and their own, inclusive.

Tier 4: Protoplasmic Quantum Soup

Each Mindjacker has a quantity of Matterium, which is a publicly tracked number that defaults to zero.

The Ascension Criteria for Tier 4 are: The Mindjacker who is Ascending must not be the author of any Unpopular pending proposal, unless that proposal was posted more than 48 hours ago; and the Mindjacker who is Ascending must not be the author of any failed proposal that was posted less than 48 hours ago.

Riding the Quantum Surf

It is an Agenda Item to author a proposal while being the author of another pending proposal that is at least four hours old.

Side Channel Leakage

When a Mindjacker performs a Potent Psychic Ping, the Ascendant shall generate a Portent identical to the first rule-required sentence in their response to that Psychic Ping, provided that it is not identical to an existing Portent.

Matterium Mechanics

A Mindjacker may Cast Chaff as an Existential Action that costs one Matterium, plus an additional Matterium for each time they have already Cast Chaff this week. When a Mindjacker Casts Chaff, they lose one third of their Suspicion, rounded up.

Quantum Entanglement

As an Existential Action called Entangling, a Mindjacker may spend 1 Matterium and make a comment containing the phrase “Quantum Entangling” on another Mindjacker’s Mindjacking that has not yet been Manifested or Entangled. A Mindjacking that has had an Entangling comment posted on it is called an Entangled Mindjacking.

If an Entangled Mindjacking is Manifested and marked with a FOR symbol by the Ascendant, the Mindjacker who posted the Entangling comment earns 3 Matterium.

If an Entangled Mindjacking is Manifested and marked with an AGAINST symbol by the Ascendant, the Mindjacker who posted the Entangling comment has their Suspicion reduced by 1, and the Mindjacker who posted the Entangled Mindjacking has their Suspicion increased by 1.

Quantum Flavour

As an Existential Action called Tasting the Quantum Soup, a Mindjacker may privately message the Ascendant the statement "I sample the Quantum Soup. How does it taste?". As soon as is practical after receiving such a message, the Ascendant should respond with "You taste (x) possibilities." where (x) is the number of Avatars and Mindjackers that currently exist whose Home Tier is higher than the recipient Mindjacker’s Level and whose Occupancy Tier is not.

Tier 5: Hypersquid Sonic Waveform Ocean

A Mindjacker may spend 5 Matterium to change the phrase “no Mindjacker” to “every single Mindjacker” (putting the three replacement words in bold and italics, and capitalising the first letter of “every” if the “no” began with a capital letter) in any other dynastic rule (once if it appears multiple times), as an Existential Action.

It is an Ascension Criterion for Tier 5 that one’s Suspicion plus one’s Matterium does not exceed twice one’s Level. This Ascension Criterion is known as the Smuggler’s Criterion.

No Mindjacker may elect to remove their Trigger other than as a result of its Activation.

Switching

As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker who meets all the Ascension Criteria that they are affected by may spend 3 Matterium and Body Switch which is an Atomic Action with the following steps:

Choose another Mindjacker with a strictly lower Level than them, and switch Levels with this chosen Mindjacker.
Set the Suspicion of this chosen Mindjacker to 3, and their own Suspicion to 0 if they have a Suspicion.

Portent Backdoor

It is an agenda item to post a comment on the most recent Observatory Report while it contains one’s name, while one’s name does not also appear in the Ruleset.

Waveform Resonance

As an Existential Action called Resonance Testing, a Mindjacker may privately message the Ascendant with a number of Symbol Names up to their Potency and a request to see the resonance information of the name(s). As soon as is practical after receiving the message, the Ascendant shall respond with the following information for each Symbol Name in the message:

Whether it is the Symbol Name of an existing Avatar.
If it is the Symbol Name of an existing Avatar, the current Home Tier and Occupancy Tier of that Avatar.

Immediately after responding to a Resonance Testing message, the Ascendant shall increase the Suspicion of the Mindjacker who sent that message by 1 for each Symbol Name in that message that was not the name of an existing Avatar.

Echoes

As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker can send a single private message (called an Echo) to another Mindjacker with a Level lower than their own. An Echo must be clearly marked as such, and must contain the names of two different actions in the following list, as well as all of the details described in each action’s list entry, separated from one another for clarity:

Astromantic Ritual: A link to an Astromantic Ritual post made within the last 3 days and the full text of the private message sent by the Ascendant in response to that Astromantic Ritual.
Psychic Ping: A link to a Pyschic Ping post made within the last 3 days and the full text of the private message sent by the Ascendant in response to that Psychic Ping.
Tasting the Quantum Soup: The exact time and date of a message sent to Taste the Quantum Soup within the last 3 days, and the full text of the private message sent by the Ascendant in response to that message.
Resonance Testing: The exact time, date, and text of a message sent to Resonance Test within the last 3 days, and the full text of the private message sent by the Ascendant in response to that message.

It is an Agenda Item to send an Echo that includes information one has never sent in an Echo before.

Ontological Guardians

Every Avatar has a Designation, which defaults to empty. For each Occupancy Tier listed in the table below, whenever there is at least one Avatar with that Occupancy Tier, the Ascendant shall set the Avatar's Designation to the Designation value in that table row if the Avatar's current Designation is empty and no other Avatar already has that same Designation. If there is more than one Avatar that would meet this criteria, the Ascendant shall privately randomly choose one of the Avatars meeting this criteria.

If an Avatar with a Designation corresponding to a particular Occupancy Tier does not have that Occupancy Tier, and at least one other Avatar does have that Occupancy Tier and has an empty Designation, the Ascendant shall set the former Avatar’s Designation to empty.

Whenever an Avatar's Designation changes from empty to a Designation from the table below, the Ascendant shall generate a Portent with the format described in the Portent column for the table row containing that Designation, where (date) is the current date and (sign) is the Avatar's star sign. Immediately after a Mindjacker ascends from Mindjacking an Avatar with a Designation from the table below, add the amount indicated in the Matterium column for the table row containing that Designation to that Mindjacker's Matterium.

Ontological Guardians
Occupancy Tier	Designation	Portent	Matterium
4	Messenger	“On (date), Neptune crossed the cusp of (sign)”	1
5	Enforcer	“On (date), Mars was in retrograde during the sign of (sign)”	2
6	Caretaker	“On (date), Mercury moved into (sign)”	4
7	Overwatcher	“On (date), the outer planets aligned in the sign of (sign)”	6

Tier 6: The Wall

Mindjackers may only carry out an Existential Action or Weekly Action defined in the rules and subrules with a Tier of 1, 2, 3, or 4 if its Tier is their Occupancy Tier or if they are Enlightened. No Mindjacker is Enlightened.

The Ascension Criterion for this Tier is that the Mindjacker must have, since their Level last changed, publicly and unambiguously revealed one of the words in their Symbol Name that they have not already revealed (words that were revealed to be in a Mindjacker's previously-held Symbol Name(s) do not also count as having been revealed for their current Symbol Name). Mindjackers should reveal Symbol Name words in this way only via bespoke Story Posts or comments on their own non-Manifested Mindjackings.

If a Mindjacker’s Suspicion has been 10 or higher for the last 47 hours, that Mindjacker may Descend.

No Mindjacker without the Meme for this Tier may acquire it, as a daily action.

No Mindjacker may edit their Trigger.

Spectrographers

Each Avatar whose Home Tier is 6 or higher is also a Spectrographer. Spectrographers are residents of higher tiers of reality who are aware that intelligences from lower Tiers are using Mindjacking to attempt to ascend to the true reality, and who are trying to prevent them from succeeding.

Whenever a Mindjacker carries out any Existential Action they must work out that Action’s Disruption. Its Disruption is defined as followed: the Potency of that Action, plus the acting Mindjacker’s Suspicion at the time that Action was performed, multiplied by two if it was performed twice due to being Forkable. Whenever a Mindjacker performs an Action that generates a Disruption score they must make a post describing that action and detailing its Disruption score; if a Mindjacker makes multiple such actions in a single day then they can amalgamate those updates into a single post.

For 10 hours following a Superencryption, any Actions carried out by Mindjackers that were chosen in that Superencryption do not generate Disruption scores.

Turnabout

Each Mindjacker may or may not have a Symbol Name. This is secretly tracked by the Ascendant. If a Mindjacker of level 6 or higher lacks a Symbol Name, the Ascendant can assign them a Symbol Name that is different from any other Symbol Name currently in use and notify them privately of their new Symbol Name. The Ascendant should assign the Symbol Name when there are no non-Manifested Mindjackings.

If a Mindjacker's Symbol Name changes, or they lose their Symbol Name entirely, the Ascendant shall notify them of their new Symbol Name or lack thereof.

Mindjackers have a publicly tracked Occupancy Tier, which the Tier of an existing Tier Rule, and defaults to Tier 1. As an Existential Action, a Mindjacker who has received their Symbol Name may change their Occupancy Tier to any Tier from Tier 1 to Tier 5, inclusive. Mindjackers have a Home Tier equal to their level.

A Mindjacker with a Symbol Name may be subjected as an Avatar would to another Mindjacker's Mindjacking, with the following modifications:

They count as having every star sign.
If they would be destroyed, they instead lose their Symbol Name and the Ascendant forces them to Descend twice.

A Mindjacker is not affected as an Avatar would be by their own Mindjacking attempt.

A Mindjacker with a Symbol Name counts as an Avatar for the purpose of determining what messages appear in the Ascendant's responses to Astromantic Rituals, Psychic Pings, Tasting the Quantum Soup, and Resonance Testing if and only if they have had the same Symbol Name since the action was performed.

If a Mindjacker's Symbol Name is included in an Extrasensory Assassination message, they lose their Symbol Name and the Ascendant forces them to Descend once. Then, the Ascendant should generate a Portent stating the lost Symbol Name, the name of the Mindjacker who held it, and the name of the Mindjacker who performed the Extrasensory Assassination who caused it to be lost.

No Mindjacker with a Symbol Name counts as an Avatar for the purpose of Portents generated by the rule "Portents".

Matterium Smuggling

As an Existential Action, any Mindjacker who meets the Smuggler’s Criterion may Smuggle. Smuggling is an Atomic Action with the following steps:

Set their Level to 4.
Gain 2 Matterium.
Set their Suspicion to 7.

Tier 7: Inverted Tesselation Grid

No Mindjacker may cast a vote of AGAINST on any proposal.

The Ascension Criterion for this Tier is that the Mindjacker must have at least one Observation.

As a daily action, any Mindjacker without the Meme for this Tier may acquire it; if they do, and it doesn’t already appear, they must add the phrase “As a daily action, any Mindjacker without the Meme for Tier 7 may acquire it” to the text of the rule Tier 2: Post Singularity Consciousness.

Harder Hunters

When a Mindjacker is Launching a Hunter/Seeker, they must include a third Hunter criterion: a specific Star Sign.

Inverted Fingerprint

As soon as is practical after transferring Suspicion via Blameshifting, the Mindjacker who transferred the blame shall privately message the recipient of the Suspicion with a part of their Symbol Name that they have not disclosed to that recipient since acquiring their current Symbol Name, along with the phrase “framed you”. If they have already disclosed their entire current Symbol Name to a given recipient, they may not Blameshift to that recipient.

Mindjackers may not include the phrase “framed you” in messages sent under the rule “Near-Field Psyonics”.

Tier 8: The True Reality

As a Forkable Existential Action a Mindjacker may increase their Matterium by 1.

Every single Mindjacker whose Level is 8 or higher has achieved victory.

As a daily action, if no Mindjacker holds the Meme for this Tier, any Mindjacker whose name does not appear in the Memetic Exclusion list may acquire it. Immediately after changing their Level to 9 via Memetic Tunneling, a Mindjacker must add their name to the Memetic Exclusion list and then lose every Meme they have.

The Memetic Exclusion list is as follows. Any Mindjacker whose name appears in this list cannot acquire the Meme “tubicinate” by any means.

Josh

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

Dormancy [Active] [Standard]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active] [Standard]

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

Dynastic Distance [Active] [Standard]

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

Malign Emperors [Inactive]

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

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

Dynastic Tracking [Active] [Standard]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Reality page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. Ascendant may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address, provided that page did not exist at the time the Ascension Address was posted and does not begin with the word “Ruleset”.

No Collaboration [Active]

If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the Ascendant is not considered a Mindjacker for the purposes of this rule.

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

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

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Mindjackers 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. (Mindjackers should also not make deals based on being made Emperor of the next dynasty by other means than achieving victory or being passed the mantle.) This limitation does not apply to proposals that would explicitly award Victory.

Alliances [Inactive]

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

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

If “No Collaboration” is active, it does not apply to communications between Mindjackers 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 Mindjackers 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). A Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker may post or may End an Event. To End an Event is to make it Ended by submitting a comment on that post saying it is Ended or is being Ended, and then immediately taking its Ending Action(s), if any. Once an Event has been Ended, it may not become Open again, nor may any Mindjacker End it 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 Ascendant 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 Ascendant 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 Mindjacker (other than the Ascendant) who authored at least one of those votable matters and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

Reinitialisation [Active]

If they have not already done so in the current dynasty, a Mindjacker 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 Ascendant is privately tracking any information about them then they should do likewise at their first opportunity. When a Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjackers.
Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
Dynastic Action: An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
Dynastic Proposal: A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.
Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Mindjacker's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Mindjacker's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Mindjacker's Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Mindjacker 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. Mindjackers , as well as people who are not Mindjackers 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 Mindjackers 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. Mindjackers are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
Hiatus: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Private Message: A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.
Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Mindjackers is half the number of Mindjackers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Mindjackers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Mindjackers.
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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post’s Status must be changed to reflect its status. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post by a New Mindjacker is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or Ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any Admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Mindjacker is defined as a Mindjacker who has been a Mindjacker for fewer than seven days or a Mindjacker that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Mindjacker’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 Mindjacker may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Mindjackers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement. The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

A Mindjacker may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Random Generators

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

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

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

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Mindjacker with such access. Only a Mindjacker with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Mindjacker making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
When a Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
If a Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.
Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
Unless otherwise specified, to “spend,” “pay” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” or “pay” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Mindjacker can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Mindjackers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Mindjacker only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Mindjacker (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
A Mindjacker 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 Mindjackers 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 Ascendant (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Ascendant when the ruleset allows it. If a Mindjacker should already know such a piece of information (in that the Ascendant has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Ascendant may repeat it to them.

Rules and Votable Matters

If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
If the Admin enacting a Votable Matter reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Mindjacker A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Votable Matter has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Mindjacker 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), Mindjackers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
A Mindjacker 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.
Mindjackers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Mindjackers with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
A Mindjacker may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

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

The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
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;
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;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Mindjackers may Kick each other” and “Mindjackers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Mindjackers may not Kick each other);
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 “Mindjackers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Mindjackers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Mindjackers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Mindjacker may have another Mindjacker as a Mentor. Mindjackers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Mindjacker 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 Mindjacker requests a Mentor, or a new Mindjacker has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Ascendant should select a Tenured Mindjacker and ask them to take that Mindjacker 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 Ascendant should announce it in a blog post. The Ascendant should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

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

If there is no Ascendant, any Mindjacker who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Ascendant 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 Mindjacker 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 Mindjackers .
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 “Mindjacker” and “Ascendant”.

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

Mindjacker (Player)
Ascendant (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.

Ruleset 215

Contents

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Mindjackers

Idle Mindjackers

Dynasties

Votable Matters

Votes

Enacting and Failing

Tags

Proposals

Special Proposal Voting

Resolution of Proposals

Calls for Judgement

Victory and Ascension

Fair Play

Dynastic Rules

Levels of Reality

Avatars

Avatar Activity

Symbol Names

Star Signs

Memes

Detectedness

Tier 1: Techno-Witch Reality

Mindjacking

Potency

Anchors

Ascension Timer

Portents

Astromancy

Tier 2: Post Singularity Consciousness

Reality Enforcers

Encryption

Triggers

Skywriting

Reality Recurse

Forkable Actions

Astral Connection

Hunter/Seeker Algorithm

Tier 3: Psychic Dreamscape

Near-Field Psyonics

Broader Triggers

Weaponised Psyonics

Astral Disjunction

Guilt Implantation

Tier 4: Protoplasmic Quantum Soup

Riding the Quantum Surf

Side Channel Leakage

Matterium Mechanics

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Flavour

Tier 5: Hypersquid Sonic Waveform Ocean

Switching

Portent Backdoor

Waveform Resonance

Echoes

Ontological Guardians

Tier 6: The Wall

Spectrographers

Turnabout

Matterium Smuggling

Tier 7: Inverted Tesselation Grid

Harder Hunters

Inverted Fingerprint

Tier 8: The True Reality

Special Case

Seasonal Downtime [Active] [Standard]

Dormancy [Active] [Standard]

Imperial Deferentials [Active] [Standard]

Dynastic Distance [Active] [Standard]

Malign Emperors [Inactive]

Dynastic Tracking [Active] [Standard]

No Collaboration [Active]

Mantle Limitations [Active] [Standard]

Alliances [Inactive]

Event Types [Active] [Standard]

Bounties [Inactive]

Reinitialisation [Active]