The core rules will be used as written in almost every round. However, the core rules may be adjusted by Q for a specific round scenario. Any change to the core rules must be noted in the round protocol.

Boundaries

Killing round boundaries regulate what weapons may be used at a given location and time by an assassin to `kill' their victim. Agents who do not observe the boundary rules will be penalised.

A weapon may not be used to kill in or from an area where its use is illegal.

Open Kill Zones

Any legal weapon may be used in an Open Kill Zone. The only restrictions are those indicated elsewhere in these rules. Any area outside of a building on the University of Canterbury Campus is an Open Kill Zone.

The campus is generally taken as including the grounds between Clyde, Creyke, and Ilam Road, excluding the obvious private properties. To the south the boundary runs around the Recreation Centre and track, along the edge of the Ilam Primary School and the UCSA car park.

Campus does not include the Halls of Residence, Ilam Flats, Ilam Playing Fields, Ilam Gardens, or the University Staff Club.

No Kill Zones

No means no. Kills are not permitted in or from a No Kill Zone. Unless otherwise specified all off-campus locations are No Kill Zones, see below for exceptions to this rule. Other No Kill Zones include:

• Public restrooms for the opposite sex.
• The Highlander Rule; no kills on Holy Ground.¹
• Moving vehicles of any kind or vehicles stopped in traffic. Any ordinary wheeled conveyance (e.g bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards or scooters) is counted as a vehicle. Mobility aids for the disabled (e.g wheelchairs) are not counted as vehicles
• Any footpath along a road running around the campus boundary.
• All Lecture Theatres, Laboratories, Tutorial Rooms, Libraries, and Staff Offices (unless its your office, in which case you can kill any fool who enters).
• All campus businesses, especially the Banks. This includes RDU but not CANTA, Student Executive Offices (student politicians are not innocent bystanders), or the Union Cafes.
• The K.A.O.S. noticeboard corridor. The corridor ends when you run out of walls on both sides of you.
• During the meeting of a UCSA club in the UCSA building the room where the club is meeting is a No Kill Zone.

In a Limited Kill Zone some weapons are banned or otherwise subject to regulation or limitation.

• Ranged weapons are not permitted inside buildings.
• To be legal a kill inside a building requires either the Assassin to gain surprise, or for the victim to be gullible. These concepts are explained in detail below.
• In the Lower Common Room (LCR) only Honey Traps, letter bombs, contact poison, and ingested poisons are legal. When you sup with devils you had best use a long spoon. The balconies are considered to be part of the LCR.
• In the Union Cafes only ingested poisons and Honey Traps are legal. When a cafe is closed it is no longer a cafe.
• At K.A.O.S. Parties only Honey Traps, duels, and Executions ordered by the Dictator are legal.
• The Vampire rule. At the Victim's place of residence (anywhere they pay rent or board, or spend more than three nights a week at) the Assassin can only kill the victim with a Honey Trap or a Bomb, if they have been invited into the house by someone who lives there. An Assassin may only enter a bedroom if invited in by the Victim.

Surprise Kills

Inside a building once a Victim is aware of your presence you may not attempt to kill them. To prevent confusion the victim should acknowledge that they have seen the Assassin (say `Hello Assassin' or some other cheery witticism). Drawing a new weapon, or suddenly using a drawn weapon does not satisfy the requirement for `surprise'. However if someone turns their back to you, then this counts as `gullibility' (see below). The idea behind this rule is to encourage a stealthy backstab of the victim by the assassin, and to remove the possibility of running fights that involve a risk of injury.

If your intended victim kills you while you're in the act of surprising them, then you count as being surprised. Tough luck chump.

This is a rule that is often the subject of disputes. See Disputes and Appeals for more information on resolving disputes.

Gullibility Kills

Gullibility overrides the requirement for surprise on all indoor kills. The key to a gullibility kill is that it requires action on the part of the victim to trigger their demise.

A victim who handles a device coated with contact poison, drinks a spiked can of drink, or that triggers a booby-trap that the Assassin has given them deserves everything they get.

One year the Dictator's Assassin was studying at Waikato University. There was a killing round in progress at Canterbury and Malcom Harbrow (better known as `Idiot' <sup>2</sup> ) was attempting to kill the Dictator. The Dictator supplied a small program called `gothic.exe' to the Dictator's Assassin, who promptly forwarded it by e-mail to Idiot with the message that it was a really cool graphic. Idiot assembled the program, which had been divided into six files, and ran it. The word BOOM appeared on his computer screen. Within thirty minutes the Dictator's Assassin had received a reply that started with `D'oh!'

The Players

Agents must identify themselves as a player in the Round when they are on-campus by prominently displaying a K.A.O.S. badge or a K.A.O.S. T-shirt. 3 A badge should be worn towards the centre of the upper torso (below the neckline and above the bottom of the ribcage). Wearing a badge on your belt, shirt seam, choker, or hat, does not count, no matter how stylish! Badge Kills If an agent is not wearing a badge (or t-shirt) in an easily visible location any other agent in the Round may claim the credit for a `Badge Kill' on them. To claim the kill you should first intercept the victim and verify their lack of badge (or t-shirt). After doing so (or if unable to do so) you must report the badge kill to Q. Once Q has verified the badge kill by consulting the victim the kill may be recorded. 4

Accidental Deaths An agent is safe from the effects of their own devices when building and testing them. In the actual kill attempt agents can blow themselves up with their own device, swallow their own poison, and shoot themselves. In this case they are dead, and no other agent receives any credit for the kill. If you trigger a device, or contact a poison intended for another victim you are dead (see gullibility), and no other agent receives any credit for the kill. If you are the struck by the crossfire of an assassination attempt then you count as a bystander, unless you were deliberately exposing yourself to the fire... There is a tale told of a cunning Agent that had purchased two bottles of coke, and filled one with an insidious poison - carefully marking the cap of the bottle so that he would not drink out of it accidentally. Alas, an even more cunning Agent carefully switched the bottle caps when he was not looking... The Ten Minute Rule In most killing rounds in which a player has more than one life there is a ten minute period following a kill in which the victim may not kill or be killed again. Recording a Kill It is the responsibility of both the victim and the assassin to ensure that a kill is recorded on the club noticeboard, or with Q as quickly as possible after the kill has been made. Assassins may not get credit for kills that go long unrecorded!

Killing a bystander may result in a penalty. If you are sure someone is your Assassin, you may risk killing him or her. Bystanders should not normally be involved in the round, and any agent that elicits participation from a bystander that leads to their accidental death is subject to penalty.

Target Summary

Some examples should clarify the preceding rule sections.

• If Agent A, assigned to assassinate Agent B, instead kills Agent D through a bomb or poison, then D is dead, but A does not receive any credit for the kill. A is not penalised unless they encouraged D towards their demise.
• If Agent A, still chasing Agent B, had pulled a ranged or contact weapon on D and killed them, then D would not be dead and A would be penalised.
• If A laid a bomb for B and an innocent bystander triggered the device A will normally be culpable for any penalty involved, unless B encouraged the bystander to trigger the device.
• If A laid a tripwire device that a bystander walks through then A is to blame.
• If B is getting a bystander to open their mail for fear of letter bombs, and there is a letter bomb, then B is responsible for the death of the bystander.
• The innocent bystander in the illustration above is C. B (in the pram) doesn't seem to have a badge, and may be subject to a badge kill.

The accidental death and bystander rules are dependent on the personal honesty of the agents playing in the round. Remember - it is only a game!

Mercenaries

The use of mercenaries will always be subject to the protocol for that round. Q must decide how many lives a mercenary may be allowed.

Any agent may recruit mercenaries to assist them in the killing round. Anyone eligible to play in a round, that is not actually playing in or organising the current round, may be recruited as a mercenary. The fee for the service is negotiated between the hiring agent and the mercenary.

Notice of the hire of the mercenary must be posted on the club noticeboard at least one clear hour before the mercenary enters the game as an active participant. The notice must specify the name of the mercenary, who has hired them, and when their contract expires.

A mercenary is treated as a physical extension of the hiring agents' body. If the mercenary is killed, so is the agent, and vice versa. The mercenary may use any weapon that the hiring agent is permitted to use.

A mercenary may only be hired by one agent at a time, but they may be bribed by anyone. It is so hard to get good help these days!

1. Holy ground is considered to include the Chaplin's Office, the Marae, and the regular places of worship of a conventional religion. Spontaneous revival meetings don't count! Neither do random hotdog stands on fridays.

2. Though not in the pejorative sense. Honest.

3. A K.A.O.S. t-shirt must feature either the K.A.O.S. `Gun and Knife' logo or the words `K.A.O.S.' prominantly displayed. T-shirts that are merely popular in K.A.O.S. (like `Campus Crusade for Cthulhu' or `I'm on the Side of the Angels' t-shirts) don't count.

4. Badge Kills are Boring kills. Anyone showing too much enthusiasm for nit picking over them will be shot, and chalked up on the Dictator's score card.