Dune/docs/TLEILAXU_AMBASSADOR_RULES.md

Tleilaxu Ambassador revival: source contract

Primary-source review, 2026-09-07, with later runtime checkpoints below. This document supplements the Ambassador effects audit and runtime readiness review. Recorded source questions remain distinct from the Basic-first implementation choices.

First-death own Kwisatz Haderach — 11 October 2026

The source-supported separate KH identity below now appears in Atreides' private native or Bene Gesserit-copied Tleilaxu grant. Its original advanced activation and first-kill cycle1 record are required. It is not appended to the five ordinary native leaders and does not inherit foreign/shared custody.

The return clears its dead/battle-use state and advances the same cycle marker used by original Ghola and ordinary KH returns. Battle losses, ordinary roster identities, wallets, force pools and ordinary leader usage remain unchanged; quota independence retains the existing first-version qualification. A prior return marker stays guarded by the pending repeat-death interpretation rather than gaining a new exception.

Two native before programs recorded real seven-loss combat followed by a KH Lasgun/Shield death, real worm alliance and Ambassador placement/arrival, but offered no KH and rejected its choice. Four native/copied human/Easy programs now return the same token and source entrant once. Six consumer cases include both paths, owner/stale/exclusive errors, living/prior-return exclusion and all four minimal legal bot profiles. Styled390px humans use the native button, inspect awakened10-loss status, and explicitly select the legal copied Tleilaxu effect before returning KH; original Guild Movement still finishes. This does not settle the three policy questions below.

First-version leader alternative — 8 October 2026

The beneficiary may now revive one first-death own leader for free instead of returning forces. Its identity and death count remain unchanged; the original entrant resumes after the choice. The private leader selector and minimal legal AI path are connected. The independent grant does not spend the ordinary leader allowance provisionally, matching the existing independent force path; this is an implementation choice for the user-requested first version, not a settled quota ruling. Dead-twice, shared Duke/KH and revival-income interactions remain refinement boundaries. A direct Basic arrival-and-bot smoke passes.

Printed grant and immediate consequences

E3 p.8 says: “Revive one of your leaders or up to 4 of your forces for free.” Ecaz can assign an Ambassador benefit to its ally. This is one alternative for the beneficiary, not four forces plus a leader, a five-force Ghola card, or permission to revive another faction's leader. GF9 Ecaz & Moritani, pp.7–8

The effect acts when the Ambassador resolves; it does not instruct players to wait for the next Revival phase. Its explicit amount and zero price override the ordinary three-force amount and paid additional-force price for this effect. Physical returns go from Tanks to reserves; they neither ship onto the board nor resume an ordinary Revival turn. A chosen force is a physical counter, irrespective of combat strength. The recipient cannot revive nonexistent pieces. The numerical phrase permits selecting zero forces; that reading supplies a no-benefit resolution without adding a separate, unprinted leader-decline alternative. Ecaz's optional trigger remains separate from the beneficiary's selection.

The strongest straightforward reading is an independent event granting up to four, including when Ecaz benefits Fremen or CHOAM. Neither the Fremen restriction on buying additional normal revival nor CHOAM's normal free rate of zero cancels another effect's explicit free grant. However, the printed sentence does not specify which ordinary usage ledgers this event changes; independence of its immediate amount does not by itself settle every later ordinary-quota question.

Force accounting: resolved limits and remaining policy

Base p.9 sets the ordinary turn maximum at three. It separately gives each faction its normal free allowance and places revived forces in reserves. This cannot be applied mechanically to reduce the Ambassador's printed maximum to three. It also cannot establish that an earlier Ambassador consumes, or does not consume, subsequent ordinary allowance. GF9 base rules, p.9

The elite restriction is stronger and is resolved. Base pp.16 and 19 permit only one Fedaykin or Sardaukar revival per turn. November FAQ p.2 expressly preserves that restriction through Ghola, Emperor extra revival and Tleilaxu revival. Thus the Ambassador must share the actual turn's elite usage: an earlier elite return can exhaust its elite option, and its elite return can exhaust a later option. It must not reset that counter when ordinary Revival begins after a Spice Blow Ambassador. This is a concrete cross-phase bookkeeping obligation, independent of the still-unresolved ordinary force ledger. November FAQ, p.2

Ixian Cyborgs are not Sardaukar or Fedaykin. No corresponding one-Cyborg-per-turn rule appears in E1. Preserve selected Cyborg/Suboid custody and count each selected counter once; do not import a base elite limit merely because runtime groups these pieces under an elite property. GF9 Ixians & Tleilaxu, p.9

The remaining ordinary-ledger question has observable cases: normal three followed by Ambassador four; Ambassador four in Spice Blow followed by ordinary Revival; and Ambassador one followed by an ordinary free request. No retrieved publisher answer specifies the debit to revived or freeForcesRevived. Do not silently choose a counter convention by borrowing Ghola or normal revival. Faction privileges raising the normal maximum likewise do not enlarge this fixed four-force grant.

Leaders, identity and repeat deaths

The base normal process opens when a faction's leaders are unavailable, then permits one leader per turn through the eligible cohort. A revived leader killed again is face down and has a further cycle restriction. E1's negotiated early revival expressly mentions face-up or face-down leaders; the Ambassador's short grant does not. These are different permissions. Base p.9, E1 p.7

The unqualified one-leader grant strongly supports reviving a first-death own leader without waiting for all five; otherwise the special effect acquires an unstated prerequisite. Nevertheless, it does not expressly waive the distinct dead-twice restriction or say whether it spends the ordinary one-leader slot. Those consequential extensions remain a policy boundary. Do not claim that an existing Ghola implementation establishes them for the Ambassador. November FAQ p.6 limits the Tleilaxu early-revival service for another faction to one leader per Revival turn; that service is not this Ambassador. November FAQ, p.6

Specific identities compose as follows:

• Kwisatz Haderach: base p.17 says a killed KH is revived like a leader, without affecting the ordinary Atreides roster threshold. This supports an Atreides KH choice under the one-leader alternative. Preserve its own activation/death record; it is not another native leader disc or a free force. Base p.17
• Auditor: it is a CHOAM leader, so the own-leader alternative can include a dead CHOAM Auditor. Its normal early-return permission expressly consumes the ordinary leader slot, while the Ambassador's accounting is still unresolved. The published exclusions prohibit Tleilaxu foreign-ghola acquisition and Harkonnen capture. They do not prohibit CHOAM receiving its own free return. Existing repeat-death and sixth-disc cycle questions remain; this grant does not answer them. GF9 CHOAM & Richese, p.8
• Duke Vidal: E3 p.9 expressly restricts revival to Ecaz, including Ghola. An allied beneficiary does not inherit an exception. If the beneficiary is Ecaz, the revival is free under this effect, rather than charging Duke's normal five. The existing unresolved revived-disc destination and six-disc cycle issues remain exactly as documented in Ecaz revival rules; do not choose active Ecaz custody versus set-aside custody here. E3 pp.8–9
• Captured or foreign-ghola leaders: a living unavailable captive is not a dead piece in Tanks. The Ambassador does not grant a capture release or acquisition of an opponent's disc. A leader's temporary controller must not substitute for its legitimate revival owner. Exceptional concealed custody needs the existing generic unavailable projection, not an opponent-visible identity probe.

Keep physical identity and death history when returning a leader. A normal revived leader is usable, remains susceptible to its Traitor, and does not become a new disc. The base Ghola FAQ allows immediate reuse in a later battle, but that card-specific clarification does not authorize resetting unrelated histories or bypassing a still-pending Ambassador parent. Base pp.9,22

Income, prevention and other revival effects

Tleilaxu income. E1 p.7 grants bank income for each faction using free revival or a Ghola card. The Ambassador is literally a free return but is not a Ghola card. A one-spice success payment is therefore a supported general-trigger interpretation; a per-card Ghola exception cannot be imported to decide repeated payments. The retrieved text does not expressly settle whether an Ambassador outside Revival shares the faction's ordinary free-income entitlement, creates a new phase entitlement, or pays for each successful Ambassador. Current collectRevivalIncome uses one free payment per faction/turn and a separate per-use Ghola path. That is an implementation distinction, not a newly verified Ambassador ruling. A zero-force resolution revives nothing and should not mint revival income. Any actual income cancellation suppresses the income, not the already-completed return. E1 pp.7,12–13

Axlotl is explicitly phase-scoped. E1 p.5 states that token text identifies the phase in which a Tech Token works. Its general income rule pays at the end of the current phase. This is direct source support, beyond relying on the existing TECH_TOKENS.axlotl.phase=4: a Spice Blow or Shipment and Movement Ambassador must not accrue Axlotl income. The Tleilaxu-only exception remains independent. No artificial Revival phase, income reset, or phase-end payment should be introduced. E1 p.5

La La La and Recruits. La La La expressly prevents free revival during Revival; it is not a lasting prohibition on a later Ambassador in Shipment and Movement or one in Spice Blow. Recruits is played in Revival and changes current free rates and the ordinary maximum; the Ambassador's fixed four does not become eight. Neither requires a new intervention at the current phase-1/5 Ambassador window. E2 p.7, E3 pp.11,16

Special Tleilaxu Karama: timing verified. E1 p.6's short description prevents a player's force and/or leader revival without a phase qualifier in that sentence. A later focused retrieval recovered the publisher's November FAQ p.3 Advanced Karama timing table, and root independently read the complete indexed page. The table expressly restricts Tleilaxu's special effect to Revival. Therefore it supplies no pre-revival intervention for a phase-1 or phase-5 Ambassador; this conclusion now rests on the Tleilaxu entry itself, not the existing dispatcher or Guild's separate timing. Ordinary revival-income cancellation remains a separate power. No runtime timing change is needed. E1 p.6, November FAQ p.3

There is no generic post-trigger Ambassador Karama cancellation in E3's table: its Ecaz Ambassador row prevents placement. A separately applicable Tleilaxu income power may have its own response, but copying the normal revival queue would incorrectly add denied-cost, normal-limit and discount steps to an explicitly free effect. E3 p.16

Implementation decision boundary

The source-supported physical foundation can validate the beneficiary, one exclusive selection, Tanks custody, typed force count up to four, global elite usage, native/shared identity and safe zero-cost return. It can also keep movement, shipment and normal phase controllers unchanged. It must leave the following explicit until resolved:

1. Ordinary force/free/leader accounting before and after this independent grant.
2. Dead-twice eligibility and any extension beyond first-death own leaders; the existing Duke/Auditor cycle and Duke custody questions are not new questions to repeat.
3. Tleilaxu's free-income repeat scope for this distinct event.

These three change meaningful legal choices or resources and require a supported interpretation, including an explicit user ruling if no primary clarification is available. Exact examples are useful tests, not a prerequisite for composing the clear elite, identity, phase and fixed-quantity rules above. Special-Tleilaxu timing is now resolved by the FAQ table.

Verification used publisher-authored local extracts base.txt, ix-official-mirror.txt, choam-lelekan-mirror.txt, and ecaz-audit.txt under /tmp/dune-rules, plus freshly indexed official GF9 E1/E2/E3 and November FAQ passages. Movie-game rules, tournament amendments and unofficial implementations were not used as authority. No runtime files, tests, live rooms or automation were changed.

Engine wiring checkpoint, 7 October 2026

game/tleilaxu-ambassador-forces.ts is now wired into the Ambassador resolution. When an eligible entrant triggers a placed Tleilaxu token, the beneficiary — the Ecaz owner or its ally — receives the printed force alternative as a private ecazAmbassador decision at stage revival:

• one to four physical counters return from the Tanks to reserves, at zero cost, in the printed amount and without touching ordinary revival prices;
• the shared Fedaykin/Sardaukar one-per-turn counter is spent and enforced through the same helper (Ixian cyborgs keep their distinct uncapped treatment);
• the player view projects the maximum, the Tanks and elite inventory and the current elite usage to the beneficiary only, and the entry control offers a per-count button plus an explicit "Return no forces" decline;
• all four AI profiles pick a legal return from the decision owner's own view, or decline when the Tanks are empty.

Still gated, unchanged: the printed leader alternative (the decision's projection reports leaderAlternative: false), ordinary force/free/leader allowance accounting before and after this independent grant, dead-twice eligibility, and Tleilaxu free-income repeat scope. The three recorded policy questions above are not answered here. No ordinary revival allowance, price, phase or income path changes, and the Tleilaxu special Karama keeps its FAQ-resolved Revival-only timing.

Focused evidence: tests/tleilaxu-ambassador-engine.test.ts drives a genuine arrival into a placed token and asserts the projection, the typed return, the shared elite limit, malformed and over-maximum rejections with immutability, the ordinary-only return, the decline path and unchanged spice; the four-profile tests/ecaz-entry-bots.test.ts loop now covers tleilaxu, and the former "unsupported effect" pin was replaced by the supported offer/decline expectation rather than re-pinned.

Physical foundation checkpoint, 7 September 2026

The later game/tleilaxu-ambassador-forces.ts helper implements only the resolved physical force quotation. It accepts a beneficiary's faction, reserve/Tanks totals and typed elite inventory, and quotes one through four returned counters with detached before/after custody and the shared elite revival counter. It rejects malformed counts, unavailable ordinary/elite selections, unsupported elite factions and unsafe arithmetic. It uses the minimum necessary elite count when no explicit count is selected; zero returns remain a separate caller choice. Ixian cyborgs retain their distinct uncapped treatment.

Root reviewed the complete helper and its tests. All 11 focused tests pass, covering all twelve ordinary faction pools, mixed custody conservation, cross-event elite limits, Ixian quantities, invalid selections, safe arithmetic, detached results and independence from private information and RNG. The tests are registered in npm test; formatting, lint and full TypeScript checks pass. Root's focused result is /tmp/dune-tleilaxu-ambassador-forces-root.log.

Superseded 7 October 2026: the helper is now wired into the Ambassador resolution — see the engine wiring checkpoint above. Ordinary revival allowances, leader eligibility and income still remain unchanged, and the three material accounting/leader/income questions above remain pending user interpretation. The prior Guild checkpoint remains 2,930 passing registered tests plus twenty completed Basic games; these eleven new helper tests are additional focused evidence, not another full-suite or full-expansion run.