OU WILL INITIALLY BE ASSIGNED a number of honours as your domain, and noble house.   Your family will consist of the lord, his wife, and a number of children of each sex.   As has been said before, Blood Royal is a dynastic game, and your persona will be invested in the current lord of the domain; this means, that, if the lord dies, you will become the main heir.   So, you can't die in this game, unless you neglect to provide yourself with an heir (and possibly several) before charging off to war.

Before the accusations of sexism start to fly, it has to be said that, unfortunately, feudal Europe was not a place where women were allowed much chance to run things (directly, anyway).   This is not to say that, in the game there will never be a woman ruling a domain, but primogeniture and male precedence is the order of the day.   Sorry, ladies.

T THE START OF THE GAME, the Emperor's throne is vacant.   The goal of every player is to achieve enough political influence to be enthroned as the Emperor (or possibly to install the desired `puppet'!).  All players start out as reasonably powerful nobles, and through diplomatic, economic and military means seek to expand their influence and prestige amongst their peers in order to gain support for election as Emperor.

HERE ARE MANY ROADS - and no doubt most of them will be travelled by players - along which a king, and his kingdom, can travel to ruin, and there is no room here for a general guide to strategy in the game.   There is, however, one way in which all players can lose:

As time progresses, and in despite of the wars, famines and other disasters which befall the kingdoms, inventors, philosophers and artists will continue to strive to raise the level of social and technological civilisation across the kingdoms.   There can only be one end to this - eventually, in some dark corner of a university library, someone will propound that malign doctrine - REPUBLICANISM!   Once this happens, the word of this new system will spread like the plague, and once the people become disaffected (for perhaps completely unrelated reasons), the REVOLUTION will be upon us.

This is the end of the game, and one at which all true monarchists should hang their heads in shame.   It is impossible to predict when this will happen, and many factors within the game will slow or accelerate the climb to democracy, but it should always be borne in mind.

HIS SECTION IS INTENDED to give an overview of the game; as will be seen, the structure can be broken into parts, and these are described in detail under later headings.   As described above, the aim of Blood Royal is to control the character eventually elected as Emperor.  In order to win enough votes for your candidate, you must obtain as much influence for your house as possible.

Influence can be obtained in many ways.   All dynastic connections with other families will have a bearing on the influence you can wield; the closer the connection, the more effect.   The possession of lands (provinces and honours) also brings prestige, as will success in achieving diplomatic successes.   Success in war will also bring fame and influence, albeit of a kind more likely to fade over time.   Some activities may be unpopular, such as annexing territory, and a loss of influence may initially result.  Influence will also be gained as your domain becomes more prosperous; so keeping the people happy and improving the production of commodities will be of long-term benefit.

Initially, as a minor noble, you will have little influence with which to achieve your aims, but as you grow in power, and extend your dynastic alliances, you will be able to take more and more wide-ranging action.

HE METHODS OF GAINING INFLUENCE thus described divide the game into three areas - diplomatic, military, and economic.   Each is described in detail in its own section.

A turn in Blood Royal represents one year of game time.  Each turn, you will submit a set of commands, each defining an activity to be performed by an individual, an army, or as a general task for your domain.

Tasks fall into three broad categories - diplomatic, military and economic.  These are described in more detail in the following sections, but broadly speaking, they can be defined as follows.

Diplomatic tasks are concerned with your relationships with other noble and royal families, and with the other members of your own family.

Military tasks are concerned with the defence of your territories and the realm, with the strength, training and leadership of your forces, and with attacks on your neighbours.

Economic tasks are concerned with improving the wealth and productivity of your people and lands, and in channeling more of that wealth into your own hands.

Each task will have a cost, which may be in money, influence, or both.

Influence is a term covering the amount of persuasion, diplomacy, or favours you can call upon to achieve your aims. Your available influence, calculated each turn, will be based on your status, the marriages and alliances you have with other families, the territories you hold, and your military and economic standings, but is influenced by many factors within the game.

Money is obtained from income from the production of your lands, and your control of trade within your lands through taxation and tolls.

For some commands, the stated cost may be variable, and the actual cost will depend on specific factors for this use of the command. For example, the cost of asking another noble to support one of your actions will rise if he/she is of high rank, but will decrease for someone closely allied to you; changing your diplomatic alignment towards another person can be done in small steps at a low cost, or in a single jump at a high cost in influence.  Also, spending more than the required minimum can increase your chance of success.

Some commands are dependent on having taken specified other actions previously. An army commander cannot be appointed unless an army has been mustered for him to lead, and a marriage cannot be annulled unless it has taken place.

All the available commands are described in detail in Achieving Your Aims, and are summarised in Appendix Three.   The descriptions of the commands in Achieving Your Aims will add to the descriptions of the areas of the game in the following sections: The Diplomatic Game, The Military Game and The Economic Game.

Note that the terms 'command', 'action', 'activity' and 'task' are used interchangeably throughout these rules.

It must be emphasised that reading this manual in detail will be a great aid to success.   Not all the most important information is stated explicitly or clearly; some of the key facts are hidden away in obscure corners.

ACH TURN, your report will include information on the loyalty, morale, prosperity, etc., of all your holdings (kingdoms, provinces, towns, castles, armies).   Maintaining the loyalty and morale of your people is very important; they will tend to work harder when they're happy, and if someone should attack you, they will resist all the more.

The loyalty and morale of your people can be adversely affected by shortages of important commodities (such as food), and births, deaths and marriages in your family can also have a significant impact (although the bearing of the effect depends on the personal popularity of the character(s) involved).   If you are a subject noble within a kingdom, changes in the royal family will also affect your domains.

Paying attention to your domain, whether by funding research into production, removing corruption and dealing with wrongdoers, travelling around the countryside in person, detailing troops to defence, etcetera, will have a beneficial effect.

T IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER that the continued existence of your game position is not dependent on the personal survival of your leading character.   In a game of reasonable length, it is indeed probable that the 'chieftain' will die, and be succeeded by one or other of the possible heirs.  No noble house, or its domain, will ever disappear completely; there will always be a minor relative somewhere to continue the line.   Over the course of a game, however, your star may fall dramatically before it rises again.   You may find that, some particularly disastrous train of events may leave you paying homage to a new overlord (even another player!).   Be patient, watch for your opportunity, and you should rise to glory again.