It happens that in the course of time, many things are forgotten and lost. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the very oldest of knowledge, the very oldest of events, has nearly passed from all chance of re-knowing.

I remember my parent, Pel-Tun Putt, happily building at the edge of the forest behind our village. Pel-Tun would make wondrous things that others could not or would not make; traps with plate-triggers to catch our meals or to kill the many horrid creatures that lurked in the dark of the forest and which would sometimes try the strength of our back gates and doors. It brought my parent such joy to move the bones of our world with machines under the power of what people know as redstone. But Pel-Tun Putt kept some secrets...

When my parent was dying, at last secrets were shared with me which I have decided to share. I can't recall when I started working with redstone. But it seems to me from the first and in my fifty-two winters I have built many things. I knew they were useful, effective and the knowledge was real- not just some mumbo jumbo supernatural nonsense. Perhaps my parent would have shared the ancient secrets with me sooner if I had been less proficient. For there is another path to power with redstone.

I and others thought they understood redstone power and machines. But we never questioned, “From whence does this power come?” We "redstone masters" built machines that harvested, and flew, tracked the passage of time but the deeper secrets eluded us. Just before dying, Pel-Tun shared with me the knowledge of where the power came from and how to tap into it. Now, I'm too much of a townsperson, too frightened to travel the world, or mine deep in the earth so I have decided to share it with those who have come to our village and driven away the monsters, who have lit the night with redstone lamps, and built a great wall to protect us.

First I will teach them how to make a redstone focus, which is made like a shield out of iron and redstone instead of out of iron and wood planks. Some have thought it looked a bit like a fish and have taken to calling it a "red fish" as a result. Once they have made theirs, I will share the partial knowledge my parent shared with me on how to use it to cast spells- an old kind of Redstone magic. I will teach them that redstone is akin to the blood of the earth- set in place when the Overworld was first created. And how energy flows from it into the person breaking it from the stone and into the nearby surroundings . This redstone energy may be used by those wielding a red fish to cast wondrous personal spells.

Perhaps in time, when they have earned my trust and show sufficient interest, I will share the secrets of ritual redstone magic and major redstone magic from them.

Redstone... the mysterious ore found deep in the depths. Most think of it as a way to build machines... but some know the secrets of the Redstone Magic practiced by ancient, lost civilizations. And one has begun to share this knowledge with adventurers.

The Redstone Focus, aka the "Red Fish"

The redstone focus can cast spells from any hotbar slot but it is a better than average shield. The magical power protects it from damage making it much more durable than a normal shield- especially against foes who deal immense damage. You may have multiple Red Fish tho it can be confusing. But for example, you could keep one in a hotbar with "Water Breathing" ready while you use your main one to cast attack and defense spells. For now- all Red Fish have all spells from the beginning. This *is* likely to change in the future so you can quest or level (or both) to find the spells to build up your focus or start with one spell and gain access to more spells over time.. When that content is added, there will be a configuration option allowing you (or the modpack builder or the server operator) the option to allow adventurers to start with fully upgraded Red Fish.

Redstone Mana

Redstone spells use redstone mana to cast. Breaking Redstone Ore releases redstone mana into the person and into the surrounding area. Breaking roughly 9-12 redstone ore (depending on Fortune) will fill your mana pool and also put some redstone mana into the local area which slightly lowers casting costs and eventually be used for casting Ritual and Major Redstone Magic.

Spells

Spells are "smart" and context sensitive. Many act differently if you have picked a target or not. For example, "buff" spells will buff your target but if you have no target, they will buff you. Damage spells upgrade and adapt to your ready weapon!. As your weapons get better and do more damage, the spells will do more damage. You can't cast a spell with a Red Fish unless your other hand is holding a Weapon (including Pickaxes and Axes that do over 1 point of damage). In friendly game mode- spells only help other players.

Preparing a Spell

You prepare spells by sneaking and clicking the right mouse button. If you are looking slightly up, the spells will cycle 'forwards'. If you are looking slightly down, spells will cycle 'backwards'. You can also have extra redfish in your inventory with different spells selected. They will not benefit from the power of your weapon. It's best to use them for spells like Cleanse, Ruby Shield, or Ancient Blessings.

Casting Spells

You cast your prepared spell by right clicking and holding for between 0.5 and 2.0 seconds. Spell duration and damage increase as you hold down the button between 0.5 and 2.0 seconds. If you release the right mouse button too quickly, the spell will fizzle. After 0.5 seconds the spell name and a progress bar will appear and the spell may be cast. This is called Quick casting.

After 2.0 seconds, the spell is at maximum power and the progress bar will begin to shimmer and turn golden. Many spells receive a small boost when cast at the full casting time.

Cancelling a Spell

You can cancel a spell being cast by pressing and holding the sneak key and then releasing the right mouse button. You can also cancel teleport spells by looking straight up or straight down.

Targeted attack spells fail with no cost if you don't have a target.

Redstone Magic Spell List

Redstone Bolt: Does magical damage to the target. Will not hit tamed pets in PVE. Can be modified to a fiery or icy bolt spell and a flight spell.

Sepsis : Slowly kills via blood poisoning. Sepsis does the most damage for the mana but takes time. Some creatures are immune to poison. Will not hit tamed pets in PVE.

Crimson Cloud: Slowly kills via withering *and* has a snare effect. But it does less damage than Sepsis. Will not hit tamed pets in PVE.

Scarlet Heal: This spell heals you or your living non-monstrous target. It will heal and calm angry passive living mobs tho! Also a light spell when cast the right way.

Ruby Shield: Provides 8 to 32 seconds of resistance 1. If you cast it again, it will stack one time giving resistance 2.

Recall: This will teleport you (or your pets) to your home (or Worldspawn) depending on whether you are looking slightly up or down. It must be cast the full duration.

Cleanse: This spell will remove one cursed effect per casting. Strong curses may require full casting time. You must have a milk bucket somewhere in your inventory but the milk is not consumed.

Ancient Blessings: Grants 30 to 120 seconds of either Water Breathing, Night Vision, or Fire Resistance- if needed- one per casting. One Falderal* enables 8 to 32 seconds of Slow Falling.

Falderal

A falderal is a useless ornament or accessory.. a trifle. In Redstone Magic, Falderals are items that increase the power of your spells using the principals of Sympathetic Magic, the Law of Similarity, or the Law of Contagion.. Except for the milk bucket, which may be anywhere in your main inventory, Falderal must be ready somewhere in your hot bar in slots 2-8. Falderals are not consumed when a spell is cast. Falderals increase the duration or damage of a spell slightly. As redstone magic is rediscovered, it may be possible to craft special falderal based on rare materials with special rituals.

Currently Known Falderal

* Fire Charge : Transforms Redstone Bolts into Fire Bolts which will set creatures on fire.

* Blue Ice : Transforms Redstone Bolts into an Ice Bolts which do extra damage to creatures immune to fire.

* Feather: Asks that the Powers that Be to grant Ancient Blessings Slow Falling.

* Glowstone Dust: Alters Scarlet Healing spells to create Light when it finds no creature target for healing or damage.

* Golden Carrot: Asks that the Powers that Be to grant Ancient Blessings Night Vision and extends its duration. The Powers that Be will grant Night Vision even in the Nether and the End.

* Spider Eye: Slight damage upgrade to Sepsis

* Turtle Helmut: Slight damage upgrade and Slowness upgrade to Crimson Cloud

* Fermented Spider Eye: Invisibility

* Magma Cream: Asks that the Powers that Be to grant Ancient Blessing Fire Resistance and extends its duration. You don't have to be on fire to be blessed with fire resistance!

* Ghast Tear: Allows Redstone Magic Users to fly with Redstone Bolt and attack with it while flying. Slower flight and more damage if a weapon is in their main hand. Faster Flight and less damage if they are holding the Ghast Tear in their main hand.

* Puffer Fish: Extends Ancient Blessings water breathing duration.

* Netherstar: Identified as a falderal. Rubicundun Scholars have discovered that it increases the duration of all Ancient Blessings.

* Dragon Egg: Identified as a falderal. Rubicundun Scholars suspect it may allow flight or interdimensional teleportation.

Reagents

There may eventually be a very small number of Reagents in the Redstone Magic system. Reagents will be consumed when their spell is cast. They will enhance the spell so it either lasts longer, heals more damage, or inflicts more damage. There are none at this time.

* Redstone Dust: Redstone Dust increases damage for all forms of Redstone Bolt by 1 point. 2 are consumed each time.

* Torch: Starts a weak lighting Ritual.

* Lantern: Starts a strong lighting Ritual for the same mana cost.

Devices

The Ritual Pylon and the Mana Gatherer

Ritual Pylon

The Ritual Pylon allows you to cast powerful spells that would drain you of all your mana if you could cast them personally. They draw mana from the world. You only provide the spark when you click on the ritual pylon with a Sword, Pickaxe, Axe, Hoe, Torch or Lantern. The ritual focus item must be strong enough to channel the ritual or the ritual will not start. Rituals place work output in an inventory item below the Ritual Pylon. Ritual speed depends on the quality of the item used to start the ritual.

When you place a Ritual Pylon, the area it will draw mana from and the default working area will be highlighted with magical particles for a few seconds.

Known Rituals

* Testing Ritual summons a red spirit that marks the area where the ritual will run with a cloud of smoke. Start with a Sword. It will not be damaged.

* Clearing Ritual summons a red spirit that clears grass, flowers, and dirt, sand, and gravel from an area. Start with a Shovel. It will be mildly damaged.

* Farming Ritual summons a red spirit to harvest your crops. Start it by right clicking on the Ritual Pylon with a Hoe. It will be mildly damaged.

* Lighting Ritual summons a red spirit to light an area. Start it by right clicking on the Ritual Pylon with a torch or lantern. It will consume the item and then light the area with light spells.

* Logging Ritual summons a red spirit to chop down trees and leaves. Start it by right clicking on the Ritual Pylon with an Axe. It will be mildly damaged.

* Mining Ritual summons a red spirit to dig a series of galleries in the stone exposing valuable ores. Start it by right clicking on the Ritual Pylon with a Pickaxe. It will be mildly damaged.

* I have a few ideas but I also welcome ideas for other rituals including long term rituals that would run until mana runs out.

Rituals take a few seconds to warm up and cool down so they will ignore accidental double clicks for a few seconds. Everything mined, logged, or harvested is placed in the inventory below the Ritual Pylon. This includes most modded inventories but not Ender Chests.

After the warmup period is over and the Ritual is running, you can cancel a ritual by right clicking on the Ritual Pedestal.

Rituals are slow and unrelenting when working (very, very, very low strain on the world) but fast when there is no work to do on a particular block. You can see the red spirit leaving a trail as it flies around.

Using Redstone Lines to Change the Default Working Area.

By default, rituals run along areas defined by ley lines. You may alter the default working area by laying ritual lines of redstone. The area the ritual runs in will shift but the size of the area remains the same.

For example, if you placed the redstone lines below, it would move the working area where rituals are performed from the default area to the yellow highlighted area.

Example:

Mana Gatherer

* Mana gatherers will infuse an area with enough mana for one ritual per game day at a rate of quarter day steps. Mana gatherers will have a low chance of bad things happening if you have them too close together. Mana gatherers also infuse the surrounding area with a smaller amount of mana. You can only have two Mana Gatherers in the same area.

Area mana makes your spells a little less expensive to cast. You can cast about 25% more spells during an adventure if the area is infused with sufficient mana. Area mana also drives Rituals (tho you do lose a tiny amount of personal mana to start Rituals.)

When a Mana Gatherer is placed, the area it will infuse with mana will be highlighted with magical particles for a few seconds.

Mana Display

When you right click on a Mana Gatherer, there will be a tone and if there is mana in the area, a vertical column of light spells proportional to the amount of mana will appear. Each light indicates four times more mana.

Ritual Magic Video

The following Video covers Ritual Magic.

Redstone Armor Set

The Redstone Magic Armor Suit is a powerful (but not Overpowered) upgrade to Netherite that provides several Benefits.

Benefits of the Redstone Armor Suit

The suit is an upgrade to Netherite Armor. It will not burn!

Each piece of Redstone armor raises your minimum mana regeneration cap by 1.25% so allowing you to regenerate to 4,5, and 7% mana. With all 4 pieces the cap is 20%.

The armor suit bonus provides innate Ruby Shield 1. (Resistance 1) And if you cast Ruby Shield, your Ruby Shield will upgrade to Ruby Shield 2 for a short time!

The armor suit bonus provides a small mana regen (Enough for 2 spells per minute) when you are under 20% Mana.

The armor suit can be dyed the way banners can be dyed. So you have many color options.

You can turn on and off Enchantment Glint (So your green armor will be green- not "any color you want as long as it is simmering Magenta!")

By default the armor retains enchantments when upgraded.

Cost

This is an expensive upgrade! The recipe for each of the four pieces is the piece of Netherite Armor, two blocks of Redstone, three blocks of redstone ore, 1 Netherite Scrap, and two Diamond Blocks. The result is a satisfying incrementally more powerful suit of armor that's not over powered. You can still have fun adventuring in it.

Notes:

This is about 99.9% feature complete and has been tested for over 128 hours on a dedicated server as well as being "tested" on countless multiplayer adventures. The spells can be cast on others. If PVP is on, spells will affect other players. If PVP is off, then spells will only help other players. The next step will be improved graphics and sound effects.

Developers

Mactso

Lupicus

Playtesters

Bangwell Putt, Averse and Pwiddy (aka Faelin Crimson Cloud from Everquest).

Like this Mod?

Check out our other mods...

Beekeeper: Beekeepers tend to the bees and buy and sell products like other villagers.

Enameled Armor: Cover your Diamond Armor with colored enamel and control whether the enchantment glow is on or off.

Nasty Mobs: Six Smarter Skeletons with custom AI, abilities, completely configurable.

Harder Branch Mining: Tools to make branch mining more difficult in various ways to encourage caving.

Easy Redstone Extras: Tools to reduce redstone annoyance and make it more fun.

Regrowth :Animals eat grass and promote regrowth. Villagers improve their villages.

Harder Vanilla Healing: Tools that give you complete control over healing in your game. Faster, Slower, On Waking Up, More or Less Food.

Vending Machine: A vending machine which restocks with 7 random* items every morning. (*or Fixed by Map Designers)

Happy Trails: Travel faster by building roads and paths! Travel slower on selected blocks (like sand!)

Villagers Respawn: Villagers who have a bed will respawn at them when they die.

Poor Golems: Hey Buddy, can you spare an ingot? Control over how often and how many iron ingots iron golems drop.

Save Your Pets: Instead of dying immediately, pets fall down wounded. You have a while to save them with bandages or golden bandages.

Bisect offers a hosting discount to Two Guys followers

You can join us on our Discord Server at the link below.