Gameplay

Ascend is a free-for-all match where every player starts as the same basic mob and evolves their way up a ladder of increasingly dangerous forms. The first player to reach the apex stage and land one more kill + complete one more evolve ritual wins.

Core loop

1. Kill an opponent. This unlocks one evolve charge.
2. Stand on solid ground, hold sneak for 3 seconds (2 with the Quick Evolver kit).
3. The evolution ceremony plays and your morph advances one stage.
4. Repeat until you've climbed to the apex (Chicken by default), then get one more kill and one more evolve to win.

The apex stage does not auto-win on arrival. Once at the apex, the player must land one more kill AND complete one more sneak-evolve ritual before the match ends. This keeps the final stretch contested instead of degenerating into a victory lap.

Player commands

• /play ascend - join any available Ascend arena (queues if cross-server).
• /play ascend <mapId> - queue for a specific map.
• /leave - drop out of the current arena.
• /chat match | team | staff | global - switch chat scope.

Kit selection happens through the in-game kit-selector GUI - right-click the Nether Star in the waiting area to open it.

You can also queue by right-clicking a connection sign an admin has bound via /tea lobby sign bind ascend [mapId] (see the Tea user guide for sign/spawn admin details).

Admin commands

Arena and lobby admin commands are shipped by Tea - see the Tea user guide. The ones you'll reach for most often with Ascend:

• /tea arena allocate ascend [map] - force-allocate an arena (for testing).
• /tea arena start <arenaId> - fast-forward the current WAITING/COUNTDOWN phase.
• /tea arena observe <arenaId> - drop in as an invisible spectator.
• /tea lobby sign bind ascend [map] - bind a connection sign to Ascend.

Default ladder

Ascend ships with 13 stage templates. 6 are on the default ladder; the other 7 are scaffolded but inactive - slot them into stage-order: in plugins/Ascend/config.yml to use them.

#	Stage	HP	Melee	Ability	Notes
0	Iron Golem	40	6	Ground Pound	Starter. 50% knockback resist.
1	Blaze	32	5	Flamethrower	No fall damage. Takes damage in water.
2	Spider	36	5	Web Shot	No fall damage. Speed I.
3	Creeper	28	4	Sulphur Bomb	Throwable coal that detonates.
4	Slime	22	4	Slime Slam	Half fall damage.
5	Chicken (apex)	16	3	Egg Blaster	No fall damage. Double jump (space mid-air).

See Configuration for how to edit, reorder, enable, or disable stages.

Abilities

Each stage has exactly one ability. The full catalog of 14 shipped abilities:

Id	Behavior
ground_pound	AoE hurt + upward launch within 4 blocks (Iron Golem).
slime_slam	Mid-air ground-pound that deals AoE damage on landing (Slime).
sulphur_bomb	Throwable coal projectile, detonates on impact or at max flight. Configurable radius/damage/knockback (Creeper).
web	Fires a web projectile that slows on hit (Spider).
flamethrower	Cone-shaped sustained stream, sets targets on fire. Fully tunable (Blaze).
egg_blaster	Chicken's egg projectile; detonates in AoE on hit.
blink	Short teleport in aim direction (Enderman).
leap_rip	Pounce + bleed damage (Wolf).
crossbow_volley	Multi-arrow volley (Piglin).
soul_slash	Withering cleave (Wither Skeleton).
molten_bounce	Bouncy AoE slam (Magma Cube).
sonic_boom	Line-AoE shockwave (Warden).
dive_bomb	Aerial nosedive attack (Phantom).

Every ability is fully config-driven - cooldowns, damage, range, durations, knockback, fire ticks - tune them under abilities.<id>: in plugins/Ascend/config.yml. See Configuration for the tunable values.

Kits

Three kits ship with Ascend. A player's currently-selected kit is applied when they join a match. Kits are passive perks - none of them grants an ability (those come from the stage the player is currently on).

• Darwinist - iron sword icon. Balanced starter, no perks.
• Quick Evolver - feather icon. Evolves in 2 seconds instead of 3.
• Health Harvester - golden apple icon. Heals 4 HP on every kill.

Right-click the Nether Star in the waiting area to open the kit-selector GUI and choose one. Selection persists per player across matches.

Death flow

When a player dies in Ascend:

1. They're put in SPECTATOR mode for game.death-spectator-seconds (default 3).
2. If game.devolve-on-death: true (default), their stage drops by one (floor at 0).
3. They're respawned at a participant spawn in the arena with the stage's loadout and HP.

Set devolve-on-death: false in plugins/Ascend/config.yml if you want pure kill-accumulation: dying never costs you progress.

Evolution ceremony

When a player evolves, they're whisked off to a private ceremony chamber instead of morphing in place:

1. They're locked into spectator view of the map's ceremony stand.
2. Their old morph stands in front of them, then dissolves in a particle + thunder burst.
3. Their new morph appears.
4. They're returned to a random participant spawn at the new stage.

The ceremony is per-player - other people in the arena see nothing of what's happening, even when several players evolve at the same time.

See Map authoring for how to place the ceremony chamber on a new map.

Morphs

In combat, players appear as their current stage's mob - opponents see and hit a Chicken, a Blaze, an Iron Golem, etc. Players see themselves in first-person as normal so the controls don't feel weird.

Win condition, timeouts, and ties

• First player to reach the apex stage and then land one more kill + evolve wins.
• game.max-match-seconds (default 300) is a hard cap on the LIVE phase. When reached, the player with the highest stage wins; ties result in no winner and the match resets.
• Admins can force-end by calling /tea arena release <id> (see Tea troubleshooting).