Titulus Crucis

Titulus Crucis
Name	Titulus Crucis
Location	(1315,537)
Atlas ID	txg3z7
Creator	Servus Dei

The Titulus Crucis (Latin for "Title of the Cross") is a plaque that Roman soldiers put on the Cross above Jesus during the Crucifixion. The Latin on this plaque reads "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum," which means "Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews." This representation of the Titulus Crucis was often referred to as "the INRI" for brevity's sake. Servus Dei, a Discord server, organized the effort to ensure Jesus' representation on the canvas, including the Titulus, the statue of Christ the Redeemer, and other religious imagery on the canvas. By the end of the event, the Titulus Crucis remained on the canvas for over 40 hours.

r/place 2022

Location

The location of the Titulus Crucis began in the second expansion of the canvas, around the 1265, 553 position. Once the r/FFXIV group started constructing their logo, however, the Titulus was moved to the 1312, 537 position of the canvas, where it stayed for more than 40 hours thanks to the efforts of the Servus Dei members and the alliances in the area.

Organization

When it looked as though nobody would actively organize any effort to create something Catholic on the board, u/VoidZapper suggested in the Servus Dei Discord server that we "get Jesus on the board" with an easy-to-construct and easy-to-defend design. Servus Dei, being the largest Catholic server on Discord, had at least a few members like the idea, and interest quickly grew from there. u/VoidZapper communicated with two other Discord servers about the project Servus Dei started, but very few individuals outside of Servus Dei voiced any interest. By the end of r/Place 2022, Servus Dei had utilized its general chat, a dedicated thread, and a new channel dedicated to this effort. Members who participated temporarily received the "Illustrator" reward role to receive pings during the event, and afterwards they permanently received the "Servants of Jesus, King of the Jews (INRI)" role.

The great alliance was established by the group's representatives, u/RosaryPursuit and u/WorthwhileWayfarer, both of whom received the "Prince of Servus Dei" role for their great contributions to the cause.

Creation

First Attempt

The effort to create the Titulus Crucis on r/Place began when various groups of Catholic redditors started discussing the creation of the Vatican flag. However, no groups began organizing before April 1, leading many to give up on the flag effort before it even started. Then, on April 2 after the first canvas expansion, u/VoidZapper went to Servus Dei, a server he moderates, asking, "Yo does anyone want to do the Vatican flag on r/Place?" He then informed the server that he'd already started and had two yellow tiles placed. Before anyone had a clue of what to actually create, u/CatholicMemer (one of the admins of the server) suggested writing INRI, as it was "simple and doable." Immediately, u/VoidZapper created a few basic reference images for the group. Redditors unaffiliated with this project, believing this to be another Ukrainian flag, began adding more yellow than necessary, leading to the re-design as pictured in this section.

The initial I was successfully constructed, followed by the N, since to the left of the Titulus was pixel art but to the right laid only the void. The N was successfully constructed with minimal griefing, though by this point the lettering was large enough to be read from afar. The group was able to complete the R, but before work could begin on the final letter, the border of r/MonaLisaCrew cut through the Titulus. While Servus Dei tried to combat them, a rogue road construction completely obliterated all of our previous work. As the chaos in the region lessened, more and more pixel art efforts firmly established their territories, overtaking the Mona Lisa and road, both of which were subsequently abandoned.

Reconstruction on the Road

Most members of this project then gave up, but one user (u/RosaryPursuit) refused to lose hope. He insisted on recreating the Titulus, but this time on the abandoned road. He designed it to be smaller and less obtrusive to projects outside the road while taking advantage of the yellow road tiles and black border. Contacting personal friends for short-term help, he was determined to finish the Titulus, even if alone. And he succeeded.

Once u/RosaryPursuit finished constructing the Titulus, Servus Dei members found renewed hope, suggesting a white background reminiscent of a white-and-gold chasuble. It was at this point that the admins of Servus Dei created a dedicated thread to separate the r/Place discussion from the general chat, and u/VoidZapper began pinning tactical information to better coordinate the group.

First Alliance and Movement

Thanks to his diplomacy and wit, u/RosaryPursuit convinced most of the griefers to leave the project alone, and in his correspondence with one group, The Wheat Farm, he created our first alliance. When r/FFXIV entered the area to create their meteor logo, they began to grief the Titulus, as it sat where the bottom of their logo was planned to be. So, u/RosaryPursuit negotiated a treaty between us, granting us safe passage to another location. The r/FFXIV group, in fact, helped to move the Titulus to its third location.

The Titulus was moved over an abandoned portion of the Rainbow Road under the Aphex Twin logo. Our second ambassador, u/WorthwhileWayfarer, then joined our effort, literally staying up all night to protect the Titulus. Over the course of r/Place, he would lead our night watch twice, refusing to go to sleep and leaving the Titulus defenseless.

Peace, Reconstruction, and Antivoid

Our ambassadors established more alliances with r/twewy and r/716Place, as well as [r/wintergatan]], and peace resided in the region. The Helluva Boss group had created the I.M.P. logo by this point, and their right border and our left border overlapped. Since they had their own alliance with r/FFXIV, they and we left each other alone for the most part. Conflict arose, however, over the border issue. The Helluva Boss group began heavily griefing us, and showed no signs of leaving the Titulus alone, so our ambassadors parlayed with them and negotiated peace. We agreed to move by one pixel, with the blessings of r/twewy whose territory we encroached upon. We thereby successfully established the Titulus where it would stay until the end of r/Place.

It was this great alliance that protected the Titulus throughout the night and the next day and a half. While the Servus Dei group was mostly sleeping, our neighbors protected us from raids, and likewise when the r/wintergatan group slept, the Servus Dei group protected them from similar attacks. The peace was so stable that we sought out and helped defend pixel art far from the Titulus, such as the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which created yet another alliance with r/Brazil.

Near the end of r/Place, the streamer XQC attacked the area of the Titulus in a drive-by onslaught. These griefers completely destroyed the r/twewy Player Pin and most of the art to the right of us, including the Titulus itself. Within 20 minutes, however, we and our allies reconstructed the Titulus as though nothing had happened. We also helped rebuild r/twewy's Player Pin based on its new red design, the r/716Place art, and the r/AphexTwin logo.