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🕯️ The Concept

Items despawning on the floor is a tragedy. Epitaph replaces loot drops with a physical gravestone built at the exact location of death. Each grave stores the player's items safely in a locked chest, carves their last chat message in stone, and records the full context of their passing — creating an organic, ever-growing graveyard wherever battles occur.

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✨ Features

🪦 Physical Graves A stone structure with the player's head is automatically built at death. Graves hold all the player's items and XP (converted to bottles) in a locked chest — only the owner can open it.

💬 Last Words If the player typed anything in chat within the last 60 seconds before dying, it's automatically engraved on their grave as their last words.

🌿 Decay System Graves age over time through four states: Fresh → Ancient → Ruin → Gone. Each stage changes the grave's appearance. Configure exactly how long each stage lasts — or disable decay entirely.

📍 Grave Finder Lost track of where you died? /grave find points you toward your active grave — no more wandering.

📖 Death Records Every death is logged permanently. Use /grave list to browse the server's full death history, or /grave history <player> to look up a specific player's past deaths. Generate a physical Book of the Dead with /grave book <player>.

📊 Server Stats /grave stats displays server-wide death statistics — most dangerous locations, most common causes, total graves spawned.

🏛️ Cemetery (Optional) Define an official cemetery with /grave cemetery-set. Graves can be automatically relocated there, organized in rows, with passive epitaph messages shown to players who walk nearby.

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🔗 CivCraft Suite Integration

Epitaph enriches every grave with context from the other plugins of the suite — automatically, with no configuration needed.

Plugin	What gets added to the grave
⚔️ ReanimateMC	No grave on KO — only on real death. Grave notes if the player was previously knocked out.
🏹 BountyBoard	Grave displays the active bounty and the hunter's name if killed for a reward.
🕵️ Witness	Grave links to the Witness crime report ID and notes the number of witnesses present.
🪪 Reputation	The player's reputation tier at time of death is carved onto the grave.
⚖️ Tribunal	Judicial executions generate a permanent obsidian grave with the charge, judge and tribunal name.

All integrations are soft dependencies — Epitaph works perfectly with none of them installed.

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💻 Commands

All commands are also available as /grave and /graves.

Command	Permission	Description
/grave find	epitaph.use	Points you toward your active grave
/grave list [page]	epitaph.use	Browse the server's full death records
/grave history <player>	epitaph.use	View a specific player's death history
/grave visit <player>	epitaph.use	Teleport to a player's grave (Cemetery mode)
/grave book <player>	epitaph.use	Generate a physical Book of the Dead
/grave stats	epitaph.use	Display server-wide death statistics
/grave retrieve	epitaph.retrieve	Retrieve your grave items from anywhere
/grave remove <player>	epitaph.admin	Remove a player's grave from the world
/grave restore <id>	epitaph.admin	Restore a previously removed grave
/grave cemetery-set	epitaph.admin	Set the cemetery location
/grave cemetery-info	epitaph.admin	Display cemetery status and stats
/grave reload	epitaph.admin	Reload the plugin configuration

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🔑 Permissions

Permission	Default	Description
epitaph.use	✅ Everyone	Access all public commands
epitaph.retrieve	✅ Everyone	Retrieve items from your own grave remotely
epitaph.open.others	⚙️ OP	Open and loot other players' graves
epitaph.immune	❌ Nobody	Prevent grave generation on death
epitaph.lastwords.bypass	❌ Nobody	Prevent chat messages from becoming last words
epitaph.admin	⚙️ OP	Access all admin commands

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⚙️ Configuration Highlights

epitaph:
  chest_expiry_hours: 48       # How long items stay in the grave
  last_words_window_seconds: 60 # Chat window captured for last words
  proximity_radius: 18          # Blocks before proximity alert triggers

degradation:
  fresh_hours: 24
  ancient_hours: 168            # 7 days
  ruin_hours: 720               # 30 days
  auto_delete: false            # Graves never fully disappear by default

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