The Tabularium

Rome's record office, and the game's archive of collectible lore. There are 115 tablets across five sections, and none of them are bought or dropped: each one unlocks from something you have already done.

How tablets unlock

Bestiary — a zone's ordinary creatures are recorded together the first time you fight there; a boss's tablet needs the boss dead. The two who wait inside Britannia's dungeon and raid open from the road instead — the campaign is how their story is learned.
Places — two per zone: one for arriving, one for beating what guards it.
Gods & Rites — in Latium, learn the battle art and you learn who it belongs to; the north's rites are learned by walking its ground and its road.
Relics — defeat the boss that carries the unique, or for the two the road itself uncovers, read far enough to know what you are holding.
People of Elynia — finish books of The Long Road.

Nothing is granted retroactively because nothing needs to be: unlocks are derived from your character on every request, so an old account opens everything it already earned.

Listening instead of reading

Every tablet is narrated. A tablet you have unlocked carries a Listen button under its text in-game; a locked one looks exactly as it always did. The recordings are read by a single voice and total a little over half an hour across the archive and The Long Road together. The narrator has its own volume in the Sound menu, separate from music — music drops to a murmur while it speaks rather than stopping, so the playlist never loses its place.

Bestiary

Tablet
Stray Dog Outskirts of Rome	The city feeds them by dying at the edges, and they have learned the taste.
Street Thief Outskirts of Rome	He does not want your life, only everything you are carrying.
Drunken Mercenary Outskirts of Rome	Paid off after a war nobody names, and still armed.
Hungry Wolf Via Appia Woods	The pines came back before the wolves did, and then the wolves came back.
Wild Boar Via Appia Woods	Sacred to Diana, and entirely uninterested in the distinction.
Highway Bandit Via Appia Woods	He robs the living when he can and the dead when he cannot.
Grave Robber Ruins of Pompeii	Pompeii is the richest unguarded house in the world, and it does not lock.
Ash Wight Ruins of Pompeii	The ash kept the shape and gave back everything except the rest.
Lava Golem Ruins of Pompeii	The mountain left something behind that never finished cooling.
Starved Lion Catacombs of the Colosseum	Kept hungry on purpose, and then forgotten in the dark.
Rebel Gladiator Catacombs of the Colosseum	He went down the wrong corridor on purpose and never came back up.
Catacomb Warden Catacombs of the Colosseum	He collects the fare from the arena’s dead and files it as paid.
Lemur Shade Gates of Avernus	A lemur is a dead Roman who was never laid to rest properly.
Stygian Boatman Gates of Avernus	A stopped crossing is a market, and a market draws men with poles.
Bronze Talos Gates of Avernus	Set to keep the gate, and never told the gate had failed.
The Rat King Outskirts of Rome	Twelve grown together in the dark, on a floor of funeral coin.
The Alpha Wolf Via Appia Woods	She dens in a family tomb that somebody left standing open.
The Gladiator's Ghost Ruins of Pompeii	He is still waiting to be carried out, and nobody carried anybody out.
The Hound of Hades Catacombs of the Colosseum	A watchdog on the wrong bank, because nothing has crossed in years.
Charon, Ferryman of the Dead Gates of Avernus	He is not a god, and he resents the comparison.
Ladon The World	A hundred heads, one tree, and not one hour of sleep in an age.
Saltmarsh Hound Rutupiae Landing	The marsh feeds them at every low tide, and the sea keeps setting the table.
Coastal Wrecker Rutupiae Landing	He lights false beacons, and the coast does the rest of the work.
Bog Revenant Rutupiae Landing	The marsh keeps what it is given, and it was given a great deal.
Wealden Boar Silva Anderida	The southern hunters were right: the northern stock is worse.
Oak Druid Silva Anderida	The grove has tenders still, and they remember what Rome did.
Antlered Stalker Silva Anderida	It wears a stag skull, and it is not a stag underneath.
Wall Deserter Vallum Aelium	He left his post alive, which the wall does not forgive.
Pictish Raider Vallum Aelium	The wall was built because of her people, and she takes that as a compliment.
Mile-Castle Shade Vallum Aelium	He noticed dying, and did not consider it grounds for leaving his post.
Highland Wolf Caledonian Highlands	The packs up here have never once seen a wall they respected.
Cairn Guardian Caledonian Highlands	Somebody has to keep the stones, so the stones stood up.
Mormaer’s Champion Caledonian Highlands	Every pass has its holder, and every holder has buried his predecessor.
The Tide Warden Rutupiae Landing	Somebody taught the sea to take payment, and nothing taught it the rest.
The Green Rite Silva Anderida	Not a creature. The thing the grove does when its dead are disturbed.
Brennus the Painted Vallum Aelium	He keeps two hundred Roman names better than Rome kept the men.
The Hooded One Caledonian Highlands	The north’s whole rite in one figure, and it cannot finish its round.
The Aquilifer of the Ninth Mithraeum of the Ninth	He carried the eagle north, and he has not put it down.
The Arch-Druid of Mona Grove of Mona	Rome burned the grove once. What answers now was never buried.
Nilotic Raider Canopus Delta	Not hungry, not poor, and armed by somebody with a temple’s budget.
Nile Crocodile Canopus Delta	The oldest tax-collector on the river, and the only honest one.
Cultist of Sobek Canopus Delta	Crocodile teeth for armour, and a river for a priest.
Sobek’s Herald Canopus Delta	Every dawn, from a drowned king’s brow, he revoked Rome’s licence to eat.
Tomb Jackal Necropolis of Memphis	Only a jackal. In this city that is almost a comfort.
Anubian Sentinel Necropolis of Memphis	Jackal-headed stone that stands when you cross a threshold, and sits when you are dead.
Khopesh Revenant Necropolis of Memphis	They kept their names, their drill, and the hooked sword. Rome kept nothing of them.
The Unwrapped King Necropolis of Memphis	The priests stopped when the grain stopped, and left him on his feet.
Scarab Swarm Vallis Regum	A thousand small deaths that roll the sun uphill every morning.
Sand Wraith Vallis Regum	The wind wearing every soldier who ever died of thirst between these walls.
Mummified Legate Vallis Regum	Cohors II Ituraeorum, posted under Augustus, never recalled. Still holding the pass.
Sphinx of the Red Cliffs Vallis Regum	It asks one question at dawn, and it has never yet accepted an answer.
The Vizier of the Silent King Serdab of the Silent King	He still speaks for a king who was meant to be silent.
The Avatar of Sobek The Court of Sobek	The river god, holding court in a hall the river has climbed to reach him.

Places

Tablet
The Necropolis Wall Outskirts of Rome	Rome forbids her dead a grave inside the walls, so they wait outside them.
The Milestones of the Appia Via Appia Woods	Every mile is numbered, and every mile is somebody’s address.
The Ash Line Ruins of Pompeii	The grey starts in a field, and the drivers stop at it.
The Porta Libitinensis Catacombs of the Colosseum	The gate of the arena that only the dead go through.
The Crater Lake Gates of Avernus	The water gives back no reflection, and the birds fly around it.
The King’s Floor Outskirts of Rome	A nest floored in coin, none of it ever spent.
The Opened Tomb Via Appia Woods	Built to last, opened from outside, and standing open two years.
The Amphitheatre of Pompeii Ruins of Pompeii	The oldest stone arena in the world, and somebody is still sweeping it.
The Spoliarium Catacombs of the Colosseum	The room below the sand where the dead are stripped and not named.
The Near Bank Gates of Avernus	The gate stands open and the queue never shortens.
The Quicklime Quay Rutupiae Landing	The dead of a province go home from this dock, in theory.
The Weald Silva Anderida	Not a wood. One tree, a hundred miles wide, and defended.
The Vallum Vallum Aelium	Eighty miles of stone, and every mile is a duty roster.
The High Passes Caledonian Highlands	Rome marched an eagle up here once. The hills still hold the receipt.
The Drowned Jetty Rutupiae Landing	The old landing, drowned a lifetime ago, and still taking fares.
The Grown-In Grove Silva Anderida	The forest’s register, kept in living wood, one hand-width a year.
The Hall of Poles Vallum Aelium	Two hundred and eleven Romans, lime-washed, ordered, and cared for.
The Ninth’s Line Caledonian Highlands	Five thousand men lie where the march stopped, and both rites refuse them.
The Grain Quay Canopus Delta	Every barge on this water is Meret’s or owes her, and every one is late.
The Drowned Head Canopus Delta	A king’s head in the shallows, older than the city and wearing the wrong crown.
The First Pylon Necropolis of Memphis	The living city moved. The dead one stayed, and nobody told the guards.
The Open Tomb Necropolis of Memphis	A door standing open in a city built on the principle that doors stay shut.
The Valley Floor Vallis Regum	Red granite, cut kings, and a toll that is not paid in grain.
The Last Terrace Vallis Regum	Where the light strikes first, and the question is cut above every door.

Gods & Rites

Tablet
Vesta	Her fire is not lit and must never go out.
Minerva	She holds a spear and a shield, and prefers the shield.
Jupiter	The bolt is his, and the bolt is not a metaphor.
Diana	She hunts, and she does not explain herself to anyone.
Mars	Father of the city, and not a metaphor either.
Fortuna	She is worshipped honestly, which is rarer than it sounds.
Libitina	The goddess in whose grove the dead are counted.
The Lemuria	Nine black beans, thrown over the shoulder, and no looking back.
The Hooded God	Three small figures in one cloak, at every crossroads in the north.
The Unburied Name	A name unsaid at any rite is a debt in every one of them.
The Rite of Ash	What a burned grove does instead of dying.
Sobek	The river with a crocodile’s face, and the first collector of the tithe.
Anubis	The jackal at the door, who checks the name and lets nobody through unfiled.
The Sun That Is Asked About	Every religion on this river agrees on the sun. None agrees on whose it is.

Relics

Tablet
Ferryman's Obol	A coin bitten once, for a passage nobody else will pay.
Scythe of Charon	Not a weapon. A tool of office, held far too long.
Ladon-Scale Aegis	A hundred heads watched this scale harden.
Golden Apple of the Hesperides	Taken from a tree that was never yours.
The Dragon Standard	A wind-sock in the shape of a serpent, and the sound it makes.
The Ratio Libitinae	The city’s register of its own dead, and the gaps in it.
Tide Warden’s Trident	A fish-spear that learned to collect fares.
Sickle of the Green Rite	Bronze, moon-curved, and it has only ever harvested one crop.
Warhorn of Brennus	The carnyx does not signal. It testifies.
Cairnstone of the Hooded	One stone from the walker’s own cairn, warm on the underside.
Aquila of the Ninth	The eagle that was never captured, because it was never put down.
Torc of Mona	Grove-gold, fire-blacked, and it was never anyone’s to give.
Khopesh of the Herald	A sword the shape of a jaw. He was announcing something with it.
Diadem of the Unwrapped	The uraeus is still on it. So, technically, is the head.
Riddle-Eye of the Sphinx	One inlaid eye of red granite. It knows the answer. It is not telling.
Was-Sceptre of the Vizier	The staff of dominion; he spoke for a silent king with it for centuries.
Sobek-Scale Aegis	A shield faced with one scale. The god grew another. He did not miss this one.

People of Elynia

Tablet
Fortunata	She bought herself twice and kept both receipts.
Strabo the Venator	One eye left, and he points with it.
Aulus Sura, the Doctor	He has buried more students than he has trained, and says so first.
Hilarus of the Tabularium	He files the dead because nobody else will, and pays for names.
The Sibyl of Cumae	She answers the question you have not asked, and never the one you did.
Veturia the Libitinaria	She has shipped a thousand dead home, and the tide brings them back.
Meret of the Barges	She has fed Rome for thirty years and has never once been thanked in person.