Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

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

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

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

Divinities

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

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

Some Divinities are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Divinities who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

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

Proposals

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

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

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

Voting

Any Divinity may cast their Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the official post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, DEFERENTIAL (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal), or VETO (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal and the Divinity is the Imperatrix).

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

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

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

Resolution of Proposals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Calls for Judgment

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

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

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

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgment, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Divinity may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts.

If no Divinity has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

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

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

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

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

Dynasties

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

The Imperatrix may Vote to VETO any Proposal.

Victory and Ascension

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Divinity’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.

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

Dynastic Rules

The Old Gods

The Minor Gods of the Roman Pantheon walk abroad in the present day, assuming fresh faces and identities. Each Divinity may or may not have an Old Name, tracked in the GNDT (and defaulting to not having an Old Name). If a Divinity has no Old Name, they may choose a they may choose a Nomen from the Pantheon, and - if no other Divinity has that Old Name - set their Old Name to that value. The Nomens of the Pantheon are the names listed in the “Deity” column at http://www.unrv.com/culture/minor-roman-god-list.php.

The Old Name of the Divinity known as Alecto is always “Alecto”.

If upon de-idling or advancing to a new age the GNDT-values of a Divinity are reset, the value “OldName” is not changed.

Piety

Each Divinity has a Prominence, which is tracked in the GNDT and must be a Roman numeral no lower than I and no greater than C. Each Divinity’s Prominence starts at I.

As a weekly action, a Divinity may Manifest, and add X to their Prominence.

Ages

Whenever the Age is advanced, all values tracked in the GNDT are reset to the values defined by the rules for new starters, all Adult Mortals become Dead, and all Child Mortals become Adult. The current Optimus Divinity may be reflected in the blog sidebar.

Whenever a Divinity who has not been active in the current Age unidles, their values in the GNDT are re-initialized as if they joined as a new Divinity.

Rules can be tagged so that they only apply during certain Ages. A rule which has [I] in its title only applies if the Age has not advanced during this Dynasty. A rule which has [II] in its title only applies if the Age has advanced once, and no more than once, during this Dynasty. A rule which has [III] in its title applies only if the Age has advanced twice in this dynasty. Rules which do not apply in the current Age have no effect on the gamestate or the rest of the ruleset. A rule may have multiple tags; in which case the rule applies to all of the Ages for which it is appropriately tagged. Rules without a tag apply at all times as normal. Any subrules of a tagged rule are considered to have the same tag.

The Prophecy of the Gatekeeper [I]

It has been foretold that this Age will come to an end when the Chosen One dies and is not succeeded. One mortal is the Gatekeeper, denoted separately on the Mortals page. If the Gatekeeper becomes Dead, and there is at least one Child, they cease to be the Gatekeeper, and a random Child becomes the Gatekeeper instead. If the Gatekeeper becomes Dead and no Mortal has the status Child, the Age advances.

The Divinity who had the highest value for Prominence at the end of this Age will be the Optimus Divinity for the next Age. In case of a tie, the Divinity who's Old Name appears more often as a Legacy on the Mortals page will be the Optimus Divinity. If this is also tied, the current Optimus Divinity will remain the Optimus Divinity for the next Age.

The Prophecy of the Apocalypse [II]

The wisewomen say that the gods' continuous growth in power will culminate into an Apocalypse which will usher out the age of mortals and set the stage for the battle that will see one god ascend to ultimate power. When the total number of Worshipers among all Divinities is 8,000 or more, the Age advances. Each Divinity's Divine Power (which may be non-integer) is calculated as W/100+P, where W is that Divinity's number of Worshipers and P is their Prominence (converted to a regular number). The Divinity with the highest Divine Power at the end of this Age will be the Optimus Divinity for the next Age. In case of a tie, the Divinity with the highest Prominence will be the Optimus Divinity for the next Age. If this is also tied, the current Optimus Divinity will remain the Optimus Divinity for the next Age.

Constancy

There is a column in the GNDT called Lingering Effects. This column is not reset when the Age is advanced.

The “Mortals” wiki page and the “Temple” GNDT statistic are considered Gamestate even if the rules that regulate their alteration currently do not apply.

Influence [I]

The Old Gods divide their Influence over the world into the spheres of the Ephemeral, Material and Domestic; these levels of Influence are tracked by three columns in the GNDT, each with possible values of Positive (++), Neutral (N), or Negative (—). A Divinity defaults to having Neutral Influence in each sphere. At any time, if a Divinity has Neutral influence in all three spheres, they may simultaneously set one of their own Influences to Positive and another to Negative.

Mortals

The Old Gods reserve their attention for those few mortals whose lives they can affect, who are listed on the Mortals wiki page. Each such listing comprises a mortal’s name, their Status (“Child”, “Adult” or “Dead”), their Legacy (either blank, or a Nomen from the Pantheon), their Spouse (either blank, or the name of another Mortal), and the single sphere or two spheres of Influence in which they can be affected.

Let Z be a number equal to one half of Quorum, rounded down; if at any time the Mortals page lists fewer than Z non-dead mortals, the Imperatrix may create new, Adult mortals with a blank Legacy and Spouse and list them on that page until there are Z non-dead mortals. Of the possible combinations of one or two spheres of Influence (Ephemeral; Material; Domestic; Ephemeral and Material; Ephemeral and Domestic; Material and Domestic) to which mortals may be vulnerable, the Imperatrix must distribute new mortals among them as evenly as possible.

A mortal with a status of “Child” may neither have a Spouse nor be another mortal’s Spouse.

Circle of Life

Every Monday, if there exist any Adult Mortals, and if no Divinity has done so that day, any Divinity may choose a random Adult Mortal. That Mortal becomes Dead. Every Wednesday, if there exist any Child Mortals, and if no Divinity has done so that day, any Divinity may choose a random Child Mortal. That Mortal becomes an Adult.

Every Friday, if there exist less than half of Quorum non-Dead mortals, and if no Divinity has done so that day, any Divinity may randomly choose an integer between 1 and 10, inclusive. They may then create a new Child mortal with any unused name [choice of the Divinity who creates it] and vulnerability according to this table:

1-2: Ephemeral
3-4: Material
5-6: Domestic
7: Ephemeral and Material
8: Ephemeral and Domestic
9: Material and Domestic
10: Create two mortals instead, by the same process.

Playthings

As a weekly action, if no other Divinity has done so within the past 12 hours, a Divinity may meddle with a non-dead mortal by creating a Story Post with the title “Meddling with MORTAL’S NAME,” where MORTAL’S NAME is the name of any mortal from the Mortals wiki page. This is called a Meddling Post, and the mortal in question is called the Plaything. The Divinity shall also note the spheres of Influence to which that mortal is vulnerable as flavor text. No Divinity may meddle with a mortal if that mortal has been a Plaything within the past 24 hours.

Divinities may join in by posting a Tormenting Comment or an Uplifting Comment on the Meddling Post. A comment may be only one of these categories; if it would be multiple, it is instead neither of them. Only the first eligible comment by any Deity on any Meddling Post is considered to be one of these comments.

If the comment includes the word “Torment” and the Divinity has a Negative Influence in one of the spheres affecting the Plaything, they Torment the Plaything and may increase their Prominence by up to V.
If the comment includes the word “Uplift” and the Divinity has a Positive Influence in one of the spheres affecting the Plaything, they Uplift the Plaything and may increase their Prominence by up to X.

Note that no such action may increase a Divinity’s Prominence beyond the limits set in the rule “Piety.”

When 24 hours have elapsed since the Meddling Post was created, the meddling is ended, and no further comments may be made on it.

If any Divinities Uplifted the Plaything, the one among them with the lowest Prominence when the meddling ends becomes the mortal’s Patron. If any Divinities Tormented the Plaything, the one among them with the highest Prominence when the meddling ends becomes the mortal’s Nemesis. If no Divinities Uplifted the Plaything or if no Divinities Tormented the Plaything, when the meddling is finished, the Plaything has no Patron or no Nemesis, respectively. In the case of ties for Patron or Nemesis, the Plaything has no Patron or no Nemesis, respectively.

Within 24 hours of the end of a given meddling:

If the Plaything has a Patron, the Patron may set the Plaything’s Legacy to their Old Name if they meet at least 1 of the following conditions:

The Plaything has no Nemesis;
The number of Divinities that Uplifted the Plaything is greater than or equal to the number of Divinities that Tormented the Plaything in this Meddling Post.

If the Plaything has a Nemesis, the Nemesis may set the Plaything’s Legacy to their Old Name if they meet at least 1 of the following conditions:

The Plaything has no Patron
The number of Divinities that Tormented the Plaything is greater than the number of Divinities that Uplifted the Plaything in this Meddling Post.

If, at the end of a meddling, the number of Divinities that Uplifted the Plaything is greater than or equal to twice the number of Divinities that Tormented the Plaything, that Plaything's Patron may, if the Plaything is an Adult without a Spouse, make them the Spouse of another Adult mortal without a Spouse and vice versa.

If, at the end of a meddling, the number of Divinities that Tormented the Plaything is greater than or equal to twice the number of Divinities that Uplifted the Plaything, that Plaything's Nemesis may set the status of that Plaything to Dead.

The End of the Age of Mortals [II]

Immediately after the Age is advanced for the first time, Divinities may claim one or more of the following Aspects provided that they meed the eligibility criteria detailed after the Aspect’s name. Aspects are tracked in the Lingering Effects column of the GNDT. Any Aspect whose eligibility calls for a Divinity to have performed an action or possess a certain status more than any other Divinity is available to all parties in the event of a tie.

Trickster - initiated and legally commented on Meddling posts than any other Divinity
Demiurge - ended the Age of Unreason with a ++ in the Material plane
Smith - ended the Age of Unreason with a ++ in the Domestic plane
Muse - ended the Age of Unreason with a ++ in the Ephemeral plane
Judge - ended the Age of Unreason with an N in all planes
War - Tormented Playthings more than any other Divinity
Love - Uplifted Playthings more than any other Divinity
Victory - ended the Age of Unreason as the Patron of more Mortals than any other Divinity
Betrayer - ended the Age of Unreason as a Nemesis of more Mortals than any other Divinity
Sloth - neither increased nor spent Prominence, nor initiated or legally commented upon a Meddling post, during the Ageof Unreason

Temples [II]

Each Divinity may have a temple, the status of which is tracked in the GNDT, and defaults to "Not Built". A temple’s status may be any one of the following:

Sanctum Sanctorum
Aedis Magna
Templum
Delubrum Parvum
Not Built

Worshipers

Each Divinity has a number of Worshipers. This number is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to 50. The number of Worshipers each Divinity has may not exceed a specific Limit, which depends on the status of that Divinity's Temple. If, at any time, a Divinity's number of Worshipers would be higher than their Limit, it is set to their Limit instead.

The Limits for the different Temple statuses are: 100 for Not Built, 200 for Delubrum Parvum, 400 for Templum, 1000 for Aedis Magna and 5,000 for Sanctum Sanctorum.

Rites

When a Mortal's Spouse is set and it was previously blank, the Prominence of the Divinity with the same Old Name as that Mortal's Legacy is increased by I. When two Mortals' Spouses are set to each other, they were previously blank, and both Mortals have the same Legacy, the Prominence of the Divinity with the same Old Name as their Legacy is increased by an additional III.

When a Child Mortal becomes Adult, the Prominence of the Divinity with the same Old Name as that Mortal's Legacy is increased by IV. When an Adult Mortal becomes Dead, the Prominence of the Divinity with the same Old Name as that Mortal's Legacy is increased by II.

Victory

The Divinity named Josh has achieved victory.

Glossary

Keywords

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

Can: "is able to"

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

Core Proposal: A Proposal whose changes are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of admin status from one or more Divinities.

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

Day: References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 GMT, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

May: "is permitted to"

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

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

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

Shall: "is required to"

Should: "is recommended that"

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

Subject: The "subject" of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is "" (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

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

Vote: The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule 1.4 “Voting”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

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

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

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

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero. Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
Unless otherwise specified, when “X” is a number, to spend X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X); to gain X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to transfer X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A's V and add the amount A's V was reduced by to B's V. Unless otherwise specified, a rule that allows Divinities to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Divinity (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Divinity who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of a division should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the division is instead the result rounded towards 0.
If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified.

Rules and Proposals

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

Time

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

Spelling

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

Names

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

Ruleset 85

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