[s-b] [auto] Wonko submits p45

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Wonko has submitted a new proposal, p45.

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Proposal 45/0: Hooked on Gremlics
A Standard Proposal by Wonko
Last modified on nweek 87, nday 5

[[Note that the title spells "HOG", making this worth a genechip]]

[[
"NERVES" I announced smugly. I tossed my Tiles down next to VEER, enjoying the satisfying click of plastic on metal. Now _there_ was a winning word, long and hard to take. I reached for the Bag.

"INVERSES" called out The Voice from across the table.

I stared at em. Sure enough, e had the Tiles and took the square. I looked back at my own Rack, and the IS sitting in the middle of it, with the sinking feeling of a player who's been shot down and could have prevented it.

Grumbling, I reached into the Bag and pulled out two tiles. I paused.

I squinted a bit, wondering if maybe the figures would resolve themselves into the familiar English letters. They didn't.

The tiles were average tiles - about half an inch to the side, made of plastic but colored to look like mahogany. Inscribed on them were two very strange characters. The first was a bright red shape like a stretched out S; the top was enclosed by a bluish-gray circle, and a purple line went through that to a dark brown wedge shape to the side. The second had two brown curves shaped a bit like the flame of a candle; in the middle was a dot that seemed to change color between blue, red, and brown as I tilted it. A strange pretzel-shaped blotch of red and grey connected the bases of the curves.

"Whatcha got there?" asked the Baron.

I looked up. "Who put these Tiles in here?"

I tossed them onto the wooden half of the table; the other players leaned in to see.

"Huh" said Peter. "That's strange."

"Y'know what it reminds me of?" asked The Voice. "It reminds of a Monolith."

I thought back to the last time I'd seen a working Monolith. "I think you might be right. Enrique showed me something like this once. I think they're runes."

"How do we play Tiles with that?"

I struggled to recall what the Scoring Gremlin had said.

"Hmmm. Enrique told me once that the reason nobody used High Gremlic anymore was because it was more of a puzzle than a language. One of the other Gremlins got bored in Hiding one day and made the thing up more to amuse emself than anything else. The trick was that every symbol could be interpreted at least two different ways, and it depended on the elements used to forge it as well as the context of the symbol which would be used. Then there'd be puzzles - you give someone a bunch of runes in order, and they have to figure out what it says.
  It never really caught on, I think. Nobody really understood them except Obelix, and he wasn't into puzzles. He just made Monoliths with them." 
I paused. 
"We were never quite sure how that worked, actually. I mean, they were just lines and squiggles, like any other language; there's no reason why the Monoliths should have worked at all."

"They're Gremlins. They probably just enchanted them or something. Can't they do that?"

"I suppose that's probably it, yes..."

"Anyway, what do we do with these tiles?"

"Well... I think this one's called hchcerr... ccccher... I can't really make that noise, but it's like saying 'her' underwater with your throat in a blender. It's used either as an 'h' or an 'r', depending on all sorts of things. The other is definitely a derar - 'e' or 'a'. They're both fairly common runes, I think"

"Underwater with your throat in a blender?"

"Maybe that was a bad analogy."

"I'll say. So how do you want to play them?"

I thought for a moment, and grinned. "I think I'd like to play them like this:

]]
Amend rule 6-1 of the Ruleset to replace 
{{
Each Tile may have a Tile Letter, which is any of the 26 letters in the standard English alphabet (case doesn't matter).
}}
with
{{
Each Tile may have a Tile Letter, which is any of the 26 letters in the standard English alphabet (case doesn't matter), or any of the Gremlic Runes.
}}

Create a rule in the Tiles section of the Ruleset:
== Gremlic Runes ==

Gremlic Runes are Tile Letters. Each Rune has a set of letters associated with it called its Values; a Rune is denoted by listing its Values between slashes, as in /vd/.

A string of Tiles containing Gremlic Runes forms a Nomic Word if and only if it forms a Nomic Word for every possible choice of Value for each Rune in it. [[ Hence "ri/dv/er" is a word, because river and rider are both words, but "in/dv/erses" is not, because inderses isn't a word]]

[[
"That seems like it'll just make everything harder and more complicated", pointed out the Baron.

"How about we award points for it, then?"
]]

Amend rule 6-7 to replace 
{{
If a player controls that Zone, then that player gains Amplitude equal to the number of Tiles in the Zone
}} with 
{{
If a player controls that Zone, then that player gains Amplitude equal to the number of Tiles in the Zone times n, where n is one plus the number of Runes in that Zone.
}}

[[
"Well, it'll certainly make things interesting."

"How many of those are there, anyway?" asked The Voice.

"Let's find out." I dumped the bag out on the table.

Every single Tile had the letter 'W' on it.

"What the hell...? Did one of you guys mess with the Tiles?"

I paused. "Guys?"

I looked around at the other players. They were absolutely still, staring off into space. I turned back to the Tiles. They were still all 'W's.

Slowly, I grabbed the heap of Tiles and pushed it back into the Bag.

For a few seconds I simply stared at the Bag. It was still the same black silk Bag we'd had the whole game.

I reached in slowly and pulled a new Tile, knowing full well what I was about to see.

It was a 'Q'.

I stared at it in disbelief, and then dumped the Bag out again. The tiles all had different letters on them.

"What the hell is happening?" I said aloud, with a calmness the quite surprised me.

"You're dumping out all the Tiles." Peter's voice startled me.

"Y'know, because you turned the Bag over" added the Baron helpfully. "Tiles fall out when you do that."

I stared. "But you just... They were..." I stopped, and started again, slowly and deliberately. "Did any of you see anything strange, just now?"

They looked at each other. "Besides you trying to steal a 'Q'?" asked the Baron.

I dropped the 'Q'.

"But the Tiles were wrong!" I cried.

"They look alright to me..." said Peter cautiously.

"You feeling ok?" asked The Voice.

I stared at them. They really had no idea what I was talking about. Had I imagined it?

"I thought I saw... Nevermind." I gave up. "It must've been my imagination."

"Ok..." 

"It was just a trick of the light. Let's find those runes."

They shot me quizzical looks as they set to rooting through the Tiles.

"Found one!" called Peter.

"Me too!" said The Voice.

Within three minutes we'd searched the whole pile, and found seven new tiles.
]]

Create the following Tiles in the Bag:
1x /vd/
1x /rh/
2x /rl/
2x /ae/
1x /tz/

[[
We continued playing, but I felt very uneasy. What had just happened? Why didn't anyone else see it? Had I really just imagined everything? And where had these Tiles come from in the first place?

Suddenly I wasn't so sure that playing games with magical runes was such a good idea...
]]

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