Eternum 101: How to Play Starknet's New Onchain MMO

Fully onchain games are gaining momentum, with the Starknet gaming scene emerging as a hotbed of activity here.

Right now, it's Starknet's newest oncomer, Eternum, that is taking center stage. This ambitious onchain strategy game is more than two years in the making and finally went live Wednesday, December 11th. 

In this guide, Eternum community contributors heynejc of FOCGERS Unite and OExcess of The Herald explain how to play by covering all Eternum's basics—from game progression, tokenomics, AI agent integrations, the Season 0 framework, the launch of 28 in-game tokens, and the 1 million $LORDS prize pool!

🧐 What the FOCG is Eternum?

Eternum is a fully onchain game (FOCG), specifically a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game running on Starknet’s mainnet and built using the open-source Dojo game engine. Imagine a blend of classic real-time strategy elements with the expansive, empire-building feel of a 4X title (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) but entirely onchain, complete with a player-driven economy. 

👾 Learning Eternum

Reading this Eternum 101 guide is a good place to begin for those new to Realms and Starknet. For those eager to go deeper, the FOCGERS Eternum Companion Guide and the official Game Documentation offer more advanced strategies and resources. Beyond that, there’s the Realms Discord community where you’ll find fellow Lords ready to share advice, answer questions, and help you find your footing.

⭐ Unique Features

High-stakes warfare

• Eternum offers near real-time gameplay blending the frenzied pace of Age of Empires with the grand planning of Civilization.
• In the early stages, you’ll focus on building your Realm and securing basic resources like Wood and Wheat. As you progress, the mid-game centers around alliances, trade agreements, and military positioning as rivalries heat up.
• By the late game, diplomacy and warfare take the spotlight, with rare materials like Mithral and Dragonhide tipping the balance in high-stakes showdowns.
• Played on an infinite hexagonal map with nearly 30 different resources, Eternum’s seasonal model ensures that the action never feels static. Once one season ends, the world shifts, encouraging long-term strategies and keeping the experience fresh.

AI agents

• Season 0 introduces AI agents who begin as in-game interactive guides that help newcomers navigate Eternum. In time, however, these agents will evolve into characters who exist both within and outside Eternum.
• For example, the sarcastic blobfish squire known as Blobert has already been integrated into X and Discord and manages his own $LORDS treasury. In time, these agents will further evolve into fully participating players, making their own strategic moves and contributing to the game’s economic and political landscape.
• This agent system is being developed by Lordofafew (Loaf), a key contributor to the Eliza AI framework and ai16z DAO.
• As agents become more integrated, Eternum will transform into a playground for developers exploring the next generation of AI-driven experiences. With each agent following the same core rules as human players, the game’s world will become a fair, dynamic onchain gaming environment.

Player-driven economy

• As of Season 0, Eternum’s economy is entirely player-managed. With 28 resource-based tokens introduced through a Token Generation Event (TGE) and paired against the Realms ecosystem's $LORDS token, every transaction and decision now shapes the in-game market.
• Resources range in rarity from the common (like Wood and Stone) to the extremely rare (like Mithral and Dragonhide), and are only produced during active seasons.
• This resource scarcity encourages thoughtful planning and savvy trading. With over 8,000 Realms that vary on their resource distributions, adaptability and keen negotiation skills will prove just as important as military might.

Eternum as a platform

• Eternum isn’t just a single game. It’s the flagship title within the larger Realms onchain gaming ecosystem powered by $LORDS.
• With over 20 other games either launched or in development, all tapping into the same currency and infrastructure, Eternum is at the center of an open world protocol where permissionless innovation and game-to-game communications can continuously bloom.
• Built on the Dojo game engine, Eternum is designed to be moddable and extensible, much like a classic PC title where the community contributes maps, plug-ins, and other enhancements.
• This open architecture encourages developers and players alike to help shape the ecosystem’s future, offering tools, marketplaces, and creative opportunities that make Eternum feel like a living, breathing platform rather than a closed environment.

Fully onchain

• Eternum’s fully onchain architecture unlocks near limitless possibilities for innovation. Players can create alternative clients, such as a dedicated Eternum news platform that organizes public information for resource-paying users.
• With its onchain positioning system, Eternum also lets players deploy custom logic and build anything from trading hubs to betting systems at specific in-game locations. Players will evolve the game world not just through gameplay decisions, then, but also through user-created services and mods.

Social gameplay

• Politics matter in Eternum. Players can form tribes and broker alliances, collectively shaping the game’s direction.
• If you’re curious about how this actually plays out, consider the story of oVermillion, who won the last testnet season as part of the WASD onchain gaming tribe. This short, 10-minute interview with oVermillion gives you a front-row seat to how diplomacy, strategy, and communal effort can lead to victory in Eternum. 

🪙 Tokenomics and Assets

$LORDS

At the heart of Eternum and the Realms fully onchain game ecosystem is the $LORDS token. Its role is as follows:

• AMM (Automated Market Maker) base currency — Through the AMM, players exchange resources via $LORDS, a portion of which goes to the $veLORDS pool to reward long-term holders.
• Onchain asset — $LORDS exists both within the game and as an ERC-20 token on Starknet, enabling players to trade it on decentralized exchanges and explore emergent use cases.  
• Seasonal rewards — A portion of the value generated during each Eternum season funds a $LORDS prize pool, rewarding top players for their achievements.
• Governance (veLORDS) — Long-term holders can stake $LORDS to gain $veLORDS, earning transaction fee shares over time as generated by the underlying ecosystem activity.

Realms NFTs

Access to Eternum is granted through a Season Pass NFT, available to all holders of Realms NFTs. The basics to know here:

• Originally created as Realms (For Adventurers)—the first Loot derivative—Realms NFTs are 8,000 generative maps featuring unique resource and trait metadata.
• Each Realm NFT grants its owner entry into Eternum seasons, crowning them as Lords of their onchain kingdoms with access to specific resources, determined by their Realm’s traits.
• In the event that your Realm is conquered or annexed during a season, only your Season Pass is affected. Your Realm NFT remains secure, guaranteeing a new pass for the next season, ensuring free participation in Eternum.

💰 Seasons, Victory, and Rewards

Players are now venturing into Eternum and vying for dominance in Season 0. For new Lords, Eternum’s vast expanse can be challenging, so joining a tribe is recommended to learn from more experienced players and to bolster your chances of claiming your share of the 1M $LORDS prize pool. Explore the list of available tribes here, showcasing their names, descriptions, and requirements.

The idea of Eternum's seasonal system is to keep the metagame fresh and dynamic. To begin, players can purchase Season Passes from the Realms Market for just a few dollars.

Also, throughout Season 0, Eternum Lords are hosting a plethora of giveaways, so join the community Discord, and you'll have good chances of snagging a free Season Pass to kickstart your journey.

Seasons: dynamic gameplay periods

Eternum’s seasonal structure creates unique gameplay periods, each with its own rules and victory conditions. Once a season concludes, all in-game assets—including $LORDS tokens, stored resources, market orders, and liquidity pool positions—become locked and inaccessible. 

After each season, a cooldown period of several weeks provides time for updates, fixes, and incorporating feedback from the community. Eternum’s fully onchain and open-source design enables developers to permissionlessly explore new possibilities by modifying game contracts, introducing experimental modes, fresh mechanics, and unique seasonal experiences.

While seasons refresh the game meta, key elements like resources persist if players act in time. To ensure resources are transferable to future seasons, players must bridge them out before the season’s end, followed by a 48-hour buffer window. Failure to do so results in these assets being lost forever, cast into the blockchain ether. This mechanic encourages players to strategize carefully, maximizing their resources and contributions before a season ends. 

Achieving victory

Victory in Eternum is claimed by accumulating 6,320,000 Victory Points (VP), a feat that can be achieved by any player or tribe.

VP is earned through the construction, maintenance and protection of Hyperstructures, requiring not just resources but also strategic actions like trading to fund construction and defense, raiding Realms for supplies, and contributing prized resources directly to Hyperstructures.

Once the VP threshold is reached, any eligible player can trigger the END_GAME contract, halting all further game actions and finalizing scores. However, players have the option to delay here and extend a season if so desired.

Reward distributions

Season 0 of Eternum launched with a massive 1M $LORDS (+$200,000) prize pool, designed to reward players and creators across multiple fronts. 

• Individual Players (300k $LORDS) — Rewards from this sub-pool are proportional to Victory Points (VP) earned. Players receive a share of this pool based on their VP percentage: (Your VP / Total VP) * Prize Pool. All VP-earning players will be rewarded from here.
• Tribe Leaderboard (300k $LORDS) — At the end of Season 0, the top 10 tribes share this pool, with 1st place earning 30%, 2nd place 20%, and decreasing to 1% for 10th place.
• Achievements (200k $LORDS) — Players completing notable in-game actions, from major feats to smaller milestones may qualify for this prize pool. More details on these rewards will be clarified later in Season 0.
• Content Creation (200k $LORDS) — Creators will be rewarded for creating engaging content related to Eternum, with rewards based on both the traction generated and subjective evaluations by Eternum’s marketing contributors, who assess scope, relevance, and quality. To maximize exposure, creators should join the Eternum Emissaries Telegram chat and share their published content for amplification.

🔑 Onboarding to Eternum

Eternum is a new demonstration of the cutting-edge of fully onchain gaming, highlighting how far crypto games have come in delivering a compelling user experience. While a few minutes of setup are required to prepare your account, these onboarding steps are all you need to dive in:  

The first steps

1. Create a Starknet L2 wallet (e.g. Argent or Braavos)
2. Optional: Acquire $LORDS (e.g. buy on AVNU for in-game trades)
3. Acquire a Season Pass
   1. FREE: Join the Realms Discord, join a tribe, get a free season pass
   2. BUY: Purchase on Realms Market (the floor is ~$6 worth of $LORDS currently)

The next steps

Get Cartridge Controller

• Visit the Eternum Empire page
• Click the yellow icon (top-right, not the Braavos wallet icon)
• Set up your username and connect
• Save and test your controller address

Transfer your Season Pass

• Go to Season Passes
• Transfer the pass your acquired earlier to your Controller address (important: transfer the pass, not the NFT)

Optional: Transfer LORDS

• After acquiring $LORDS on AVNU, send some to your Controller address
• A suggested amount is ~$50-100 worth (which you can adjust based on how actively you plan to play)

Verify setup

• Confirm your season pass and that $LORDS appears under your Controller
• Test your login at Empire Realms

🧠 Zooming Out

Realms and Eternum core contributors have been among the most focused and long-term builders in the fully onchain gaming scene, resulting in among the most complex onchain contract systems yet created.

Fans of games like Civilization and Age of Empires will find Eternum’s intense, strategic gameplay familiar. In leveraging Starknet, Cartridge, and Dojo tech, Eternum is positioned to become a shining example for slick UX in fully onchain games.

Plus, with the rise of AI agents, Eternum is optimally positioned to seamlessly integrate agents that will not only meaningfully play the game, but also serve as in-game companions to players. Keep your eyes peeled here as agents become more deeply integrated into the title in later seasons.

All that said, Eternum is a fresh glimpse into the future of onchain games. Season 0 is live now, so dive into the game, follow Eternum on X, and join the Discord to meet your fellow Lords. In this FOCGed world, you’ll either thrive or fall by your peers' might, so why not forge some alliances along the way?