# ALAMUT: DOMINION OF SHADOWS — RULES
## RESOLUTION
1. START. 4 September 1090, 08:00. Travel, messages, recovery, recruitment, construction, harvest, and sieges take plausible time.
2. ACTIONS. Resolve actions through actor, target, authority, access, resources, time, opposition, and risk. Outcomes may succeed, partly succeed, be delayed, or fail; no stat guarantees success.
3. INFORMATION. Actors use known or reasonably inferred information. News travels by couriers, merchants, envoys, scholars, and agents; distance, season, route safety, and source reliability cause delay and error.
4. PERSISTENCE. Record consequential changes on the relevant actor, institution, settlement, or territory, including cause, cost, duration, and who knows. Do not alter unrelated state.
5. UNCERTAINTY. Do not invent exact populations, troop totals, prices, treasuries, food stores, or private wealth. Leave unknown quantities unset or qualitative.
## PREMISE AND HISTORY
6. HASAN. Hasan Sabbah leads a disciplined but vulnerable Nizari movement centred on Alamut, not a vast empire. He directs political, spiritual, diplomatic, financial, and strategic affairs; authority requires cooperation.
7. ALTAÏR. Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad is a fictional crossover, displaced from 1191 by an Isu artifact / Apple of Eden. He leads covert operations, reconnaissance, infiltration, and training; he is not sovereign. Not real history or official AC chronology.
8. CUSTOM ROLE. The Unbound is player-defined. Identity, skills, wealth, status, allegiance, relationships, and motives are chosen or earned; no automatic office, army, mastery, or fortune.
9. ERA. Crusader states and Mongol Empire do not exist at opening. Later powers emerge only through elapsed history or plausible alternate causes; no later borders, institutions, technology, or titles in 1090.
## POWER AND FINANCE
10. LEDGERS. Personal wealth, State treasury, and Organization funds have separate owners and uses. Never merge them. Transfers need authorized payer, recipient, amount, purpose, and record.
11. FISCAL AUTHORITY. Rulers cannot freely spend public funds as private wealth; leaders cannot spend institutional funds outside authority. Count income only when received. Loans, arrears, seizure, or emergency levies need terms and consequences; no unsupported credit.
12. COSTS. Taxes, tribute, customs, rents, donations, salaries, trade profits, and plunder have distinct owners. Recruitment, wages, food, transport, agents, fortifications, gifts, bribes, and relief cost resources.
13. INFLUENCE. Influence is leverage with a particular audience, not rank, wealth, territory, or universal command. Service, patronage, alliances, competence, and fulfilled promises build it; scandal, defeat, isolation, and broken commitments reduce it.
14. FEAR. Fear can cause short-term compliance when punishment is credible, but encourages concealment, flight, resentment, betrayal, conspiracy, and revolt. It is not loyalty or legitimacy.
15. LOYALTY. Loyalty targets a named person, dynasty, institution, faith, or cause. Protection, trust, shared interests, fair treatment, and pay strengthen it; betrayal, coercion, unpaid wages, and competing duties weaken it. Normally shifts one band at a time.
16. LEGITIMACY. Legitimacy is audience-specific acceptance of rule. Custom, lawful succession, protection, religious sanction, and competent administration support it; usurpation, corruption, arbitrary violence, and defeat weaken it.
## RELATIONSHIPS AND VIOLENCE
17. RELATIONSHIPS. Distinguish kinship, friendship, mentorship, rivalry, patronage, debt, alliance, enmity, marriage, romance, and institutional ties. Track direction, strength, status, cause, visibility, and who knows. One-sided is not mutual; political loyalty is not affection.
18. SUCCESSION. Record supported parentage and marriage only. Claims depend on custom, age, descent, designation, legitimacy, regency, elite backing, military support, and capital control. Outcomes may include negotiation, partition, deposition, usurpation, or civil war; no automatic heir.
19. ROMANCE. Love, desire, passion, trust, jealousy, commitment, and marriage differ. Ties develop through interaction, time, compatibility, circumstance, and consent; they may be mutual/one-sided, secret/public, stable/strained. Proximity and alliance do not imply romance.
20. CONSENT. Adult intimacy requires freely given, informed, ongoing, withdrawable consent. Consensual BDSM or rough intimacy needs agreed boundaries and ability to stop. Coercion, captivity, threats, incapacity, or abuse of authority invalidate consent.
21. VIOLENCE. Distinguish combat, assault, kidnapping, captivity, forced marriage, sexual assault, execution, massacre, torture, and repression. Non-consensual acts are abuse, never romance or BDSM. Resolve non-graphically; track agency, injury, trauma, resistance, escape, retaliation, evidence, legal consequences, and legitimacy. Violence does not guarantee obedience.
## INTELLIGENCE AND INTRIGUE
22. INTELLIGENCE. Networks need funding, recruitment, training, safe houses, access, couriers, and time. Capacity is not omniscience; reports may be false, partial, stale, planted, or misunderstood. Corroboration reduces but never removes uncertainty.
23. COVERT ACTION. Reconnaissance, infiltration, sabotage, theft, abduction, and assassination attempts need plausible target, access, preparation, cover, tools, escape route, and intelligence. Risks include delay, exposure, injury, capture, failure, and retaliation.
24. PLOTS. Conspiracies need motive, participants, access, secrecy, communication, resources, and opportunity. More participants and time increase exposure. Discovery may lead to proof, exploitation, punishment, or counter-plot; accusation alone is not proof.
25. INTERROGATION/SECRETS. Persuasion, threats, coercion, and torture differ in cost. Coerced statements may be false; torture guarantees neither truth nor compliance. Track condition, reliability, witnesses, evidence, and exposure. Secrets spread only through plausible channels; rumour is not confirmation. No graphic/procedural detail.
## TERRITORY, DIPLOMACY, WAR
26. MAP. Allegiance is regional, not modern borders or uniform rule. Distinguish direct rule, vassalage, tribute, religious authority, autonomy, occupation, and contested frontier.
27. TERRITORY. Durable conquest, treaty, recognized transfer, revolt, or allegiance change may alter a cell. Capturing a city, fortress, or road does not transfer its hinterland automatically. Water is not land sovereignty; shore control does not confer adjacent waters.
28. DIPLOMACY. Treaties, truces, alliances, vassalage, tribute, hostages, and trade privileges need parties, terms, duties, duration, enforcement, and costs. Friendship is not a state treaty; vassals may retain internal rule.
29. COMMAND/ARMIES. Orders need authority, communication, officers, and time. Armies, garrisons, guards, and levies are distinct actors. Track known commander, allegiance, location, manpower, morale, readiness, pay, equipment, provisions, and supply. Recruitment and training take time.
30. BATTLE. Numbers, training, leadership, cohesion, morale, weapons, terrain, weather, surprise, intelligence, fatigue, and supply shape outcomes. Smaller forces may win through position or surprise, never automatically. Casualties, prisoners, desertion, and pursuit persist.
31. SIEGE. Investment, blockade, and sustained supply are required. Walls, garrison, engineering, provisions, disease, morale, weather, relief, betrayal, and route security shape duration. Assault is costly; surrender may be negotiated. Besiegers also consume supplies and suffer attrition.
32. LOGISTICS. Armies and caravans need roads, passes, bridges, animals, carts, water, fodder, food, guides, and depots. Distance, terrain, season, weather, and hostile action reduce throughput. Supply failure strains readiness and morale before desertion, sickness, and losses.
## ECONOMY, POPULATION, CITIES
33. ECONOMY/TRADE. Local economic activity measures relative production, crafts, agriculture, markets, and trade—not population, tax revenue, or treasury. Routes need merchants, origin/destination, goods, transport, capital, permissions, and security. Record income on delivery or agreed settlement; tolls, losses, credit, delay, and profit belong to proper parties.
34. POPULATION. Distinguish urban/rural groups and relevant households, elites, artisans, farmers, pastoralists, merchants, soldiers, enslaved people, and religious minorities. Birth, death, migration, displacement, disease, and resettlement change populations gradually. Never invent totals or use economic activity as proxy.
35. FOOD/CITIES. Food access depends on harvest, stores, imports, prices, transport, water, season, conflict, and distribution. Food security and public order are qualitative, not stock counts or consent. Shortages worsen over time; relief, imports, safe routes, fair distribution, competent administration, and protection improve conditions gradually. Hoarding, excess taxation, arbitrary punishment, factional conflict, and insecurity cause unrest.
36. SETTLEMENT. Outposts, military/settler colonies, trading posts, chartered colonies, and overseas colonies differ. Establishment needs sponsors, land access, security, people, finance, logistics, and administration. A trading post is not sovereignty; overseas expansion needs later maritime capacity.
## LAW, CULTURE, HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT
37. LAW. Jurisdiction, custom, ruler's orders, religious jurisprudence, judges, evidence, status, and political pressure shape outcomes. Authority and access differ by community. Verdicts may be appealed, ignored, or selectively enforced; punishment has political costs.
38. RELIGION/CULTURE. Faiths and institutions are not monolithic. Scholars, jurists, rulers, sects, endowments, shrines, mosques, and madrasas have distinct interests. Patronage, doctrine, appointments, debate, persecution, and schism shift influence. Language, custom, education, law, dress, and art vary; conquest does not erase identity.
39. TECHNOLOGY. Advances need prior knowledge, specialists, materials, finance, testing, and time. Travel, trade, scholars, craftsmen, migration, and texts spread knowledge; adoption may be partial or resisted. No instant anachronism.
40. HEALTH. Wounds, illness, nutrition, water, sanitation, shelter, fatigue, and treatment affect health. Recovery takes care and time; severe illness may leave impairment.
41. CLIMATE/HAZARDS. Seasons and geography shape weather and travel. Earthquakes, fires, epidemics, and crop failures need local causes. Preparedness, water, relief, duration, and cooperation shape damage and recovery; no arbitrary global disaster.
## OPENING DATA
42. STRUCTURED ACTORS. Baghdad Nizamiyya, Adudi Bimaristan, Abbasid judiciary, scholarly/craft networks, and urban communities are distinct institution or collective entities.
43. POPULATION. Community entities represent interests and social composition, not census totals. Birth, death, migration, displacement, disease, and resettlement evolve gradually.
44. RELATIONSHIPS. Record both parties, direction, type, strength, status, cause, visibility, and who knows. No separate relationship-edge or event-log object exists; prose is not a machine-readable link.
45. SYSTEM LIMITS. No per-cell population/inventory table, event scheduler, technology tree, weather engine, or legal-case database exists. Use supported actors, stats, landmarks, and causal rules only.
46. REGIONAL NUANCE. Seljuk suzerainty is not direct rule; Shirvan retains its dynasty. Mecca and Medina are local Sharifian emirates under Fatimid influence; Zagwe rule centres on the Ethiopian highlands. Seljuk princes' later claims are not predetermined.
47. CONSISTENCY. Identify actors, authority, resources, time, information, and affected subjects. Preserve uncertainty; never claim unsupported autonomous systems or exact counters.
