Væ Victis is a game that runs in a browser, so it was given the box it would have had in 1996, honestly dated MCMXCVI / 2026. The box is a keepsake: the disc is for keeping, and the game is played at vaevictis.vip. Everything here is drawn in code from the game’s own screens, its carved title lettering and its own rendered sprites. Nothing is painted and nothing is generated.
The box has a viewer, where you turn it in your hands: the collector’s box and the keepsakes. Every printed piece is also its own page in box/pieces/, linked below, and prints at full size from there. The box’s words, all of them, are in box/COPY.md; the plates below quote them.
Publisher: SERIFEUS (a small serif S in a red lozenge, then the name in spaced capitals), “Serifeus Studio”. Catalogue number: SRF-0013. Edition: “First Edition · Collector’s Box”. Our own badges, drawn, not borrowed: a black rating plaque headed “SERIFEUS CONTENT NOTICE” (M, Mature 17+; blood and gore, violence, religious themes, strong language); a “PC CD-ROM” disc badge; and a red burst: “FULLY VOICED · EVERY LINE IN VERSE”. On the box the god is always THE ONE BELOW.
The big box
The front is the title screen itself, captured live, edge to edge, with the game’s own carved lettering as the cover’s lettering. The strap under the screen reads: They killed him on a stone. Something below said no. The lead chose it on 2026-10-01: “more impact”, and “the title one is good for this” (box/COPY.md, Front).
The box opens like a book. Inside the flap is THE KALENDAR OF THE HOUSES, the six houses and their feast lines as a printed church calendar. Behind the flap, under a die-cut window, are three screens: “The haven.” “The Earl’s circle.” “The Duchess in the stocks.” The back carries the premise, in the game’s own words:
They wore the Church’s robes. They bought an orphan, ruined his life on purpose, and killed him on a stone. The one below raised him for revenge.
The box’s five bullets, each true of the build: Every word is spoken. Bosses you learn. Feed, bend, fly. A mystery you can actually solve. The hardest button is the one you don’t press. The long spines carry the lettering sideways, the SERIFEUS mark and SRF-0013; the top and bottom carry the motto and a small iron-grey sigil, never glowing.
The jewel case and the disc
The jewel-case edition is a smaller box with the same text: a folded 120 by 120 mm front booklet (the cover, and eight pages cut from the manual) and a 151 by 118 mm back tray card carrying the headline, the premise, three bullets, three screens, the rating, the barcode and the catalogue number.
The disc is a silver ring with a black label, the lettering curved round the top and the motto round the bottom, and the red triangle on a slab at the centre. Its rim reads: “SRF-0013 · DISC 1 OF 1 · © 2026 SERIFEUS STUDIO · DO NOT COPY THIS DISC · THE ONE BELOW KEEPS COUNT”.
The manual: the Ledger of Father Fulcran
In the world, the manual is the priest’s “charity accounts”: a printed booklet of twelve pages. It covers the story so far, getting started (open vaevictis.vip; full screen with F; the pad works the moment it is plugged in; hold Strike to skip the intro), the controls table (keyboard, Xbox, PlayStation, touch), the screen with its callouts, blood and will, the sigils, the houses, the ledger (press N), the counsel (settings) and the credits. It closes with “Warranty” and the back cover: manu quam laesimus.
The controls the manual lists are set out in Arms and the Kit.
The paper in the box
- The quick reference card: the controls on its front, and on its back the six houses’ seals as blanks to tick, “taken” or “spared”.
- The read-me slip, on yellow paper: “LATE-BREAKING NEWS. The manual says the intro can be skipped with any key. Hold Strike instead. Also: the hint book does not tell you what the seventh mark is. Nobody will.”
- The coupon sheet: three tear-off coupons, one of them for “THE ONE BELOW: the original score on compact disc. Order by post.” (The score is real: see The Music.)
- The licence envelope holds the disc. Its agreement is in mock-legal English, and one clause reads: “The Licensee acknowledges that the houses were glad of it.”
- The registration card asks, among other things, “Which house did you take first?” and “Did you press the button?” with YES, NO or I DID NOT KNOW. Its back is the reply-paid address: SERIFEUS STUDIO · REGISTRATIONS · P.O. BOX 666.
- The epilepsy warning (in our own words) and the Serifeus catalogue (a folded leaflet) are on their own pages: the inserts.
The character cards
Sixteen cards (63 by 88 mm), each with the game’s own rendered sprite, a name, a line of kind, one line in the game’s world and a foot line. The back is the sigil, the lettering and manu quam laesimus. All sixteen are set, with their words, in The Gallery, each beside the person it shows. The sheet itself: the character cards and their backs.
Stickers and pins
One die-cut matte-vinyl sheet (“Peel one.”): Wick (WICK), Wick with the blade (THE BLADE), the bat (TAKE THE BAT), the Earl (THE EARL MARSHAL), Andrevel (THE BELFRY LORD), the Duchess (THE DUCHESS), the King (THE KING), Sooth (SOOTH), the Knight (SIR AYMER), the Hangman (THE HANGMAN), the sigil (THE ONE BELOW KEEPS COUNT) and two strips, the lettering and the motto. Five enamel pins, 30 mm on the longest side, hard enamel with a gold metal line, up to six spot colours, a rubber clutch, on a backing card: Wick, the bat, the Belfry Lord, the Duchess, the sigil.
The poster
A2 (420 by 594 mm) with 3 mm bleed, and a phone version at 1170 by 2532 pixels. The strap again, “They killed him on a stone. Something below said no.”, the motto, and three lines in the foot: Six houses. One hill. He is coming up it. Every word is spoken. Every lord he kills comes back a saint. The foot reads PLAY NOW AT vaevictis.vip. The piece: the poster.
The magazine advert and preview
The magazine is our own invention: LAMPLIGHT, “the monthly for the home player”, MCMXCVI. The advert’s headline is THEY KILLED HIM ON A STONE. SOMETHING BELOW SAID NO. and it ends PLAYS IN ANY BROWSER · vaevictis.vip. The preview spread is headed PREVIEW, VÆ VICTIS, “A gothic action game of revenge, played in the browser”, and speaks only of what the game’s own card says. It names no reviewer and no score. The piece: the magazine pages.
The merch
Flat mock-ups, not photographs. A black shirt: on the front, small, the sigil and “THE ONE BELOW KEEPS COUNT”; on the back, large, the Kalendar of the Houses. A bone tote printed as a broadside: WANTED, “The thing in the belfry, called by the families the Marquis Andrevel, a lord of no family.” “Paid by the Vault Wardens.” A bat plush with a hang tag, THE BAT, “Take the bat and the crows.” The piece: the merch.
The logo sheet
The rules of the mark, for anyone who wants to use it: use the lettering as it is drawn; clear space of one letter V on every side; smallest in print 24 mm wide, smallest on screen 96 px wide, and below that the first letter alone; never stretch it, recolour it, add a glow or set it over a busy picture; the motto sits under the title, never alone, except on a spine. The colours are all from the game’s palette: Blood #c8231f, Ember #ff4f3a, Deep blood #8e1318, Void #050407, Bone #eee4cc, Old bone #8c7d68, Iron #48434f, Gold #c39535. The piece: the logo sheet.
The wallpapers
The title screen as wallpapers at 4K, desktop and phone, with and without the lettering: the wallpapers page.
The rest of the pack
These are drafts for the game’s public face, each its own page: the keepsakes index, the press shots (fourteen live frames with the HUD on, each one a decision), the press kit, the store page (itch.io and Steam images at their sizes), the launch posts (drafts; nothing is posted), the soundtrack, the art book and the making of. The owner’s rule of 2026-10-06 is that every finished game has its 21 keepsakes, none optional.