Dune/docs/NEXUS_TLEILAXU_RULES.md

Tleilaxu Nexus: primary-source contract

Source audit, 10 September 2026. This document does not certify runtime support or open expansion release gates. The common Nexus rules apply. Betrayal's existing unanswered reaction-privacy question remains separate.

Sources

• The Tleilaxu face in the original printed-component photograph, freshly inspected at /tmp/dune-nexus-cards.jpg. The authority is the photographed GF9 card text.
• GF9 Ecaz & Moritani, pp.9,11,16: common mode and disposal rules, Duke restrictions, Homeworld and Nexus FAQ. The previously acquired publisher-authored PDF mirror at /tmp/dune-e3-nexus-rules.pdf and its extracted text were reread; fresh publisher-indexed excerpts were retrieved. Direct official PDF access remains unavailable.
• GF9 Ixians & Tleilaxu, pp.6–7,9 and Karama table: ordinary Face Dancer cycle, native revival powers, typed Ixian forces and cancellation boundaries.
• GF9 base rulebook, pp.9,13,16–19,22, and November 2020 FAQ, pp.2,5–9: ordinary revival, repeated deaths, special forces, Kwisatz, Ghola and special revival permissions. Fresh official indexed excerpts were inspected. Existing Ghola implementation is not substitute authority for this Nexus effect.

Permanent Traitor markers — 15 October 2026

The shared snapshot's optional removed zone accounts for Moritani victim cards permanently out of circulation, retaining the canonical census and existing Loyalty exclusion. It is not Cunning's temporary set-aside group: those revealed Face Dancers still return after the replacement draw. Cunning draws only active reserve cards, preserves the permanent zone and binds its own original source in history. Later markers do not rewrite an older completed receipt; absent-zone signatures keep their old grammar. Focused Face Dancer/engine regressions and the coupled native exchange checkpoint pass, not a new full native Moritani/Face-Dancer combination audit. Physical role/census contract and actual proof.

Cunning: complete physical operation

Native Tleilaxu sets aside every revealed Face Dancer, privately draws the same number of replacements, and only then shuffles the set-aside identities into the Traitor Deck. Unrevealed dancers remain held. The panel has no phase restriction, no subset choice and no second choice after drawing. Printed Tleilaxu face

Implementation composition:

1. Bind the native owner, currently held Tleilaxu Nexus card, event, turn/phase, complete original Face Dancer group and original reserve order.
2. Take the entire revealed group out of held custody. Draw exactly its size from the original reserve. New dancers are unrevealed; retained dancers keep their identities/statuses.
3. Shuffle the removed identities into the remaining reserve, spend the physical Nexus card and commit one receipt. The removed identities cannot be among this action's replacement draws. No player acknowledgement is needed after this automatic operation.
4. Return only public owner/count/effect information to other seats. New identities, reserve order and historical private snapshots stay server/owner-only. Reads and retries cannot repeat the draw, shuffle or reset.
5. Use the shared physical census from Harkonnen Nexus; do not recreate cards from current leaders or borrow held identities when a malformed reserve is short.

E1's native third-reveal cycle is different: after all three reveal, return all three, shuffle, then draw three. Its ordinary Mentat action replaces one unrevealed dancer, also shuffling before drawing. Preserve both operations and their original usage counters. Cunning does not consume ordinary Mentat replacement or grant a second such replacement. In a stable ordinary game the third reveal already completes native cycling, so Cunning normally sees one or two revealed dancers. Do not manufacture an interruption before that mandatory reset or trigger another reset after Cunning. E1 pp.6–7

With zero revealed dancers there is no replacement group. No retrieved source grants a free zero-card reshuffle. A nonempty-group runtime prerequisite is the supported useful action boundary; this audit does not establish a general rule permitting voluntary no-effect Nexus disposal. The native Karama table stops ordinary Mentat replacement but excludes other Face Dancer effects, supporting treatment of this distinct refresh without that ordinary cancellation window. This is source composition, not blanket Nexus immunity.

Recommended pure API: refreshRevealedFaceDancers(snapshot, universe, {event, owner, turn, phase}, random) -> {state, receipt}. It should require no selected IDs and return a completed operation. Engine timing must preserve any pending native reveal/cycle transaction instead of replacing that transaction's reserved dancer underneath it.

Secret Ally: established facts

Only an unallied holder in a game without Tleilaxu can use this mode. During Revival the panel grants one own leader for free and up to five own forces at one spice each. The five forces are not free; zero forces is permitted by the quantity wording. This is neither the Ghola card's alternative choice nor an acquisition of foreign leaders. Printed Tleilaxu face

The amount and price override normal values for the granted return. A native faction's free rate does not automatically make these specified paid counters free. Recruits doubles ordinary free rates; it does not say to double this fixed five. Preserve exact normal/starred counters and actual bank payment, never battle strength as a counter count. Returned forces ordinarily enter reserves. Base p.9, E3 p.11

Important compositions and exclusions:

• Tleilaxu is absent, so no native Tleilaxu revival income, negotiated service or special Karama can apply. Secret Ally does not import the faction's entire ability sheet. At the time of playing it, the holder also has no formal Emperor ally; do not offer Emperor-funded extras as part of this transaction. A later alliance/ordinary action has its own rules.
• A Cheap Hero is a Treachery Card, not a dead leader disc, and is not revivable. Neither a living captured leader nor an opponent's dead leader becomes eligible through this grant.
• Advanced Fedaykin/Sardaukar share the one-per-turn revival limit across producers. The November FAQ preserves that limit through Ghola, Emperor extras and Tleilaxu. Basic stars retain physical identity without importing the Advanced cap. Ixian Cyborgs have no matching one-per-turn restriction. November FAQ p.2, E1 p.9
• The one-spice force price expressly applies to this card's force group, including permitted typed counters. Do not call ordinary Fremen paid-revival validation and silently reject the explicit card grant, or charge Ixian Cyborgs their ordinary three-spice price.
• Kwisatz is revived like a leader, supporting its own Atreides identity as a candidate once accounting is resolved. Auditor is CHOAM's own leader, with existing special revival/slot rules. Duke may only be revived by Ecaz, including through Ghola; its destination/cycle questions remain pending. These exceptional identities cannot resolve the general leader-accounting question. Base p.17, CHOAM & Richese p.8, Ecaz revival audit
• Southern Hemisphere applies to newly revived starred Fedaykin and therefore needs this producer's exact earned group, subject to the existing threshold/splitting/arrival boundaries. Tleilax's own Homeworld cannot confer a native benefit when Tleilaxu is absent. High Ix's paid-Cyborg trigger may apply to an actual positive payment here; its existing bonus quota/shortage questions remain unresolved. Preserve both deployment and Ix benefit gates.

Secret Ally questions that still affect implementation

The inspected E3 FAQ does not answer these. The earlier blanket gate is superseded by the explicit recommended prototype policy below; that choice is not publisher clarification or a separately answered numerical user ruling.

Issue	Concrete interpretations requiring a ruling
Ordinary force accounting	Is this an independent five-counter return in addition to normal revival, or a replacement/expanded normal allowance? For example, may a player take normal three and then five with this card, and does the card spend subsequent free allowance?
Leader slot and eligibility	Does the free leader use the ordinary one-leader slot, or grant an additional revival? Does its unqualified permission waive the all-leaders-unavailable condition and the distinct face-down/repeated-death restriction?
Partial combined benefit	Can a holder play only the paid-force portion when no eligible dead leader exists, or decline an available leader while taking forces? The panel joins one leader and the force allowance with “and,” unlike an explicitly optional leader clause.

Normal leader revival has an unavailable-roster trigger and a separate repeated-death cycle. E1 expressly permits face-down leaders for its negotiated service, and the FAQ separately discusses native foreign-ghola revival. Neither automatically grants those permissions to an absent-faction Nexus effect. Similarly, the FAQ's Emperor extras are explicitly additional, while this panel does not settle its ordinary counter debit. Base p.9, E1 p.7, November FAQ p.6

The 14 October choose-recommended-option instruction supersedes the coordinator's earlier recommendation to ask again. The related Ambassador wording remains a separate contract; this implementation does not invent publisher answers or apply its policy to another component.

The committed action binds the actual held card, current turn/phase/owner event, selected own leader/Kwisatz/Duke and exact physical paid group. It uses the original return/skill/reserve helpers and an explicit nexusTleilaxu Homeworld source. The per-phase source permission records the shared five-counter ceiling; no native Tleilaxu income or cancellation owner is manufactured.

Source-search follow-up

The prior requested search found no publisher/designer answer to these questions. The publisher-authored expansion rulebook, pp. 11, 14–16 establishes other Nexus interactions, not this allowance/slot/partial-use accounting. Search summaries conflating Secret Ally with native revival or Ghola are not rulings. Publisher provenance remains unanswered; the explicit recommended prototype policy below is a separate implementation decision.

Recommended combined revival prototype — 14 October 2026

The selected provisional interpretation is complete and visible:

• Shared allowance: expand the ordinary ceiling to at least five, with earlier ordinary returns counting against it, not an extra five. Card-first and ordinary-first both retain that ceiling afterward. A larger native or Recruits allowance is not reduced, but the fixed card group never exceeds five. Every card counter costs one bank spice; none is an actual free force.
• Leader: one own dead leader is mandatory, costs zero and consumes the ordinary one-leader slot. Zero forces is legal; force-only use is not. The card waives the unopened unavailable-roster prerequisite, not repeated death/face-down cycles or special custody. Do not write the synthetic open cycle into ordinary history. Kwisatz/Auditor and own eligible Duke reuse canonical identity rules; captured/living/foreign-Ghola/Cheap Hero choices are excluded.
• Existing limits: Advanced Fedaykin/Sardaukar share their one-per-turn cap across producers; Basic keeps physical stars; Cyborgs keep their actual identity and the printed one-spice price. The explicit card grant does not pass through the native Fremen paid-revival prohibition.

Own Ecaz repeated six-disc cycle and Advanced-Harkonnen Duke custody guards remain explicit pre-existing candidate limitations, not a whole-card blank. No native Tleilaxu early-revival or income response can exist while that faction is absent. Southern Hemisphere receives the actual new typed deposit through its original signed deployment/arrival continuation. Broader optional module acceptance remains open.

Implementation: game/nexus-tleilaxu-revival.ts, game/nexus-tleilaxu-options.ts, game/revival.ts, original engine and Homeworld return helpers, components/nexus-tleilaxu-revival.tsx. Genuine Basic/Advanced fixtures preserve original setup and cards: a real Emperor shipment/weapon kills Dr. Yueh during the actual winning eight-counter exchange, a real worm opens Nexus, the other two seats ally, and the original Tleilaxu singleton is drawn before quiet Revival. Staging is only unplayed deck order and original-producer entropy; no hands, forces, deaths, Tanks, wallets, alliances or phases are fabricated.

Final nine-file union141/141, types/lint and app build pass. Native cases cover paid/zero force use, both ordinary/card orders, typed and repeated-death boundaries, wrong actor/quantity/stale event rejection and the next real turn. All four legal policies return the actual leader and five counters for5 spice. Actual390×844 table: Dr. Yueh returns with deaths1/cycle0 unchanged; Atreides spice11→6, Tanks8→3, reserves10→15, ordinary returns5 and leader slot consumed. Exactly one physical Nexus is discarded, the offer disappears and Ready remains enabled. No overflow or browser errors. Owned hosts/tabs/ scaffolding were removed; local proof stays outside Git. Full Nexus, faction, combined-module and deployed acceptance remain open.