Story
A 50-chapter saga across ten acts, from dockside prisoner to the eternal god Summus Deus, with 172 named NPCs and full dialogue trees.
The Story is your personal saga through Rome - a 50-chapter arc that carries you from a nameless prisoner stepping off the boat to the eternal god Summus Deus. Every chapter has objectives (break blocks, reach a rank, collect items) and pays out a currency reward when you complete it. The story runs in the background while you play - no menus to grind, just natural progression through the world.
How the Story Works
Each chapter is a set of objectives plus a reward. The moment you finish every objective in a chapter, the reward is deposited automatically and the next chapter begins - its opening dialogue plays via on-screen title, subtitle, and action bar text. There is no quest giver to find and no turn-in; the story advances the instant you qualify.
Type /story at any time to see your current chapter, its description, and every objective with a ✔ (done) or ✘ (in progress). For ranked objectives, the target is shown; for others, your live count appears next to the requirement.
The Ten Acts
The 50 chapters are grouped into ten acts of five chapters each, gated by rank (then prestige for the final two acts). Each act escalates the scale - from breaking 500 blocks at the docks to a five-quintillion-block final objective on the path to Summus Deus.
| Arc | Chapters | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| Act I - The Arrival | I - V (Ranks 1-5) | A nameless recruit steps off the boat. Rome is unmoved. |
| Act II - The Legion | VI - X (Ranks 5-10) | Prove yourself to the Tenth and earn your place in the ranks. |
| Act III - The Senate | XI - XV (Ranks 10-20) | Senators, conspirators, and the politics of the curia. |
| Act IV - The Frontier | XVI - XX (Ranks 20-35) | Beyond the walls - the frontier provinces and their secrets. |
| Act V - The Conspiracy | XXI - XXV (Ranks 35-50) | A plot thickens in Rome; choose your allies carefully. |
| Act VI - The Empire | XXVI - XXX (Ranks 60-75) | The imperial machine - power, trade, and administration. |
| Act VII - The Pantheon | XXXI - XXXV (Ranks 80-90) | The gods take notice. Climb toward the divine. |
| Act VIII - The Underworld | XXXVI - XL (Ranks 90-100) | Descend into Hades and face what waits below. |
| Act IX - The Apocalypse | XLI - XXXXV (Prestige 1-4) | The end of things - Titans, omens, and rebirth through prestige. |
| Act X - The Summit | XXXXVI - L (Prestige 5-8+) | The final ascension to Summus Deus, the Eternal. |
Objective Types
Every objective in every chapter is one of three types. They are tracked automatically as you play - there is no manual progress to report.
| Objective Type | What it requires |
|---|---|
BLOCK_BREAK | Break a cumulative number of blocks during this chapter (e.g. "Break 5,000 blocks for your faction"). |
RANK | Reach a minimum rank index (e.g. "Reach rank VIII"). Ranks are 1-indexed. |
ITEM_COLLECT | Hold a specific number of a material at once (e.g. "Hold 32 cobblestone"). The items must be in your inventory simultaneously. |
Rewards
Every chapter pays out a Denarius reward on completion, escalating sharply across the saga: Chapter I pays 500 Denarius and Chapter XXXXX pays 300,000,000 Denarius. Act boundaries add small Civitas gifts on top (25 after Chapter X, rising to 1,000 after the finale), and the final chapter also grants 1,400 Auctoritas plus the exclusive Summus Deus cosmetic - obtainable only there. AUREUS is never a story reward (it is store/premium only).
Selected milestones:
- Chapter I - Arrival: 500 Denarius
- Chapter X - end of Act II: 30,000 Denarius + 25 Civitas act gift
- Chapter XX - end of Act IV: 900,000 Denarius
- Chapter XXX - end of Act VI: 15,000,000 Denarius
- Chapter XXXXV - end of Act IX: 172,000,000 Denarius + 500 Civitas act gift
- Chapter XXXXX - Summus Deus: 300M Denarius + 1,400 Auctoritas + 1,000 Civitas + the Summus Deus cosmetic
Story payouts are authored progression - they ride the 25× Auctoritas gain multiplier where they pay Auctoritas, and their Denarius values are the raw authored numbers listed here.
Chapter Dialogue
When a chapter starts (and when it completes), dialogue plays across three on-screen slots. These are the narrative voice of Rome - atmospheric, world-building lines that set the tone without forcing you to read a wall of chat.
| Slot | Where it appears |
|---|---|
TITLE | Large centered title text on screen - used for chapter names ("Chapter I", "SUMMUS DEUS"). |
SUBTITLE | Smaller text under the title - used for chapter subtitles ("Arrival", "The Eternal City"). |
ACTIONBAR | Persistent text above the hotbar - used for narrative flavor lines ("The docks smell of salt and rot."). |
Story NPCs
The story is populated by 172 named NPCs, each with a full branching dialogue tree (172 trees ship in story.yml), across every corner of the Roman world. Right-click an NPC (when the Citizens plugin is present) to talk your way through their tree - choices can set story flags that other NPCs and chapters read. The cast spans every tier of Roman society and myth:
- Dockworkers & common folk - Titus your first contact, Marcus the dockworker, Lucia the fishwife.
- The military - Centurion Cassius, legionary Brutus, Legatus Maximus, Aquilifer Sextus.
- Merchants & traders - Apicius the silk merchant, Gallus the smith, Livia the alchemist.
- Politicians & nobility - Senator Aurelius, Consul Octavian, Cicero the orator, Cato the censor.
- Priests & religion - Pontifex Maximus, the Vestal Aquila, Augur Marcellus, the haruspex Tiberius.
- Gladiators & the arena - Spartacus the champion, Flamma the veteran, Lanista Crassus.
- Mythological figures - Hercules, Orpheus, Theseus, Daedalus.
- The Olympians - Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Minerva, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Mercury, Ceres, Bacchus, Pluto, Vesta.
If the Citizens plugin is not installed, the NPC section is ignored and the story engine still works fully via the /story command. The NPCs are a roleplay layer on top of the always-on chapter progression.
Sidestories & the Hidden City
Beyond the 50-chapter main saga, Rome is threaded with 34 multi-day quest chains — sidestories that unlock by rank, finish with real consequences, and populate the city with characters you have to earn the right to meet. Four major arcs anchor the system:
| Arc | Rank | The Hook (no spoilers) |
|---|---|---|
| The Grain Audit | VIII–XI | Forty sacks of grain walk out of the Galbana every week. The weigher knows. The queue knows. The clerk who moves them confesses by arithmetic — and his ending is your choice. |
| Two Theatres | V–VII | A respectable house with a thinning audience. An underground company behind a gate that never opens, rehearsing to applause nobody can source. You can work for both. It costs you. |
| The Night Watch | XII–XIV | Three houses burgled on moonless nights, every door re-locked behind the thief. The locksmith diagnoses. The fence underprices. The night-shift NPCs know more than the day shift ever will. |
| The Innocent Man | XV | A poem cut into a prison wall names the wrong torch. A physician reads hands. A ferryman returns a fare. The debt is a number; the ending is a stranger with a miner’s shoulders. |
Some NPCs in Rome are invisible until you earn them — hidden behind a rank, a finished chain, a choice you made, or the hour of night. There are twenty of these gates live today. The city changes shape as you climb it. /quests chains lists every arc available at your rank.
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/story | View your current chapter, its description, and your live objective progress (✔ / ✘ for each). |
/story seek | Teleport to the NPC (or waypoint) that grants your current chapter - the "lost as shit" fix. Says so when you are all caught up. |
/story admin set <player> <chapterId> | Staff: set a player's current chapter. |
/story admin reset <player> | Staff: reset a player to Chapter I. |
/story admin intro [player] | Staff: replay the current chapter's start dialogue (title/subtitle/actionbar). |
/story admin list | Staff: list every chapter id in story.yml. |
/story admin reload | Staff: hot-reload story.yml without a restart. |
The Long Arc
The story is designed to span your entire Imperium career. Acts I-VIII carry you from the docks (Rank 1) through the Underworld (Rank 100); Acts IX and X are the prestige arc, with chapter objectives that require Prestige 1 through 8 - each prestige also opens a named historical era (The Founders, The Republic, ... The Aurea Aeterna) with its own opening cutscene. The final title of the climb is Summus Deus, the supreme eternal god.
The final chapter, Chapter XXXXX - Summus Deus, requires breaking 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 blocks (five quintillion - the last number the 64-bit counter can meaningfully hold) at the absolute pinnacle of progression. Its completion broadcast is the end-state of an Imperium career: "SUMMUS DEUS - You are the Eternal. The cycle is complete."
Tips
- Check /story regularly. Chapters complete automatically, so you may have advanced without noticing the action-bar dialogue.
- Story pairs with the mine loop. Most objectives are block-break or rank-based, so the story advances naturally as you mine and rank up - no separate grind.
- Item-collect objectives need the items at once. "Hold 32 cobblestone" means 32 in your inventory simultaneously, not 32 mined cumulatively.
- Late chapters pay huge Denarius. The saga escalates to a 300M Denarius finale - pushing chapters is a real income stream.
- Prestige never resets your chapters; seasons do. Prestige opens the late acts (IX and X) instead of restarting you. A season reset does return you to Chapter I - but finished chapters replay with "Echo" fast-track flags (3× objective speed, 20% rewards).
- Lost? Use /story seek. It teleports you straight to the NPC who grants your current chapter.
- Talk to NPCs for flavor. Right-click story NPCs to immerse yourself - each has a one-line prompt that ties them to the chapter arc.