Arcana 0.1.6

Pocket invasions, anti-magic, spells that clash in mid-air, a waking Moon, new races, new creatures and a lot more magic. Here is what's new since 0.1.5.

Pocket invasions

Hiding in your Pocket Dimension is safe... for a while.

• Every second someone stays inside a pocket, magicule builds up in it. Leave it empty and it slowly drains away.
• At 300 magicule the pocket can be sensed: any Rift Travel caster within 16 blocks of its entrance can tear their way in. Every extra magicule lets it be sensed one block farther, so the longer you hide, the farther away invaders can come from (up to 10,000 blocks).
• People inside see the pocket's magicule on their screen, and are warned the moment it can be invaded.
• Rift Travel's menu shows an Invade button with the owner's name when a pocket is in reach. Confirm, tear the rift, and you're pulled straight in.
• Inside an invaded pocket, anything goes except destruction: fights break out and every spell can be cast, but no spell, explosion or fire can break a single block, dropped loot is left alone, and only the owner can open chests or build.
• An invader's only way out is another rift: cast Rift Travel again to tear your way back to where you came from. Not while you're in combat, though.

Anti-magic: Lucifer's bargain

Strike a deal with Lucifer and give up magic itself to devour it.

• Throw three offerings into Nether lava, in order: a Sinner's Ember, a Plucked Halo and a Brimming Black Heart (a Hollow Heart filled with a full pool of magicule). Lucifer rises from the lava and asks what you desire.
• "A new power" turns you into an anti-mage: your ordinary spells are sealed, other people's buffs slide off you, and your magicule becomes anti-magicule, a black-and-red bar that counts below zero and fills as you eat magic.
• Null Touch: your bare hands unmake magic. Punch a summoned creature, a buff or a raised spell to break it, or swing at the air to cut enemy spells out of the sky.
• Devour: open your hand into a black maw that pulls every enemy spell nearby out of the air and eats it. Eat past a full bar and the excess bursts out as a shockwave.
• Devil forms: Black Arm, Black Form and Devil Union cover you in a see-through black veil edged in crimson, with glowing eyes, horns, wings and a tail. Each hits harder and shrugs off more magic. In the higher forms you can even devour God spells, and Devil Wings are the fastest flight in the game.
• Eleven black spells, from Black Slashes to Black Step to Devil's Instinct (an anti-mage's auto-dodge), learned by tearing spell tomes apart or devouring spells.
• Black Sun: the anti-mage's spirit bomb. A black sun swells over your head, eating enemy shots that come near, then bursts on your enemies.
• Null Orbs circle you and unmake enemy shots that come close, or fly at an enemy when you swing. Silence drops a dark dome where enemies can't cast and their running spells come undone.
• "More power" instead makes you Lucifer's vessel: your spells hit a fifth harder and your aura turns red-black.
• Changed your mind? Drink an Absolution (brewed from a Seraph's Tear dropped by Heaven's angels) to return to the light.

Spell Clash

Spells now collide in mid-air.

• When two enemy spells meet in flight, or a beam crosses a spell or another beam, they lock into a push struggle, with a churning knot of both spells' colours, crackling arcs and sparks.
• The stronger side pushes the meeting point back towards the weaker caster. A lopsided clash is over in an instant; two close spells grind slowly, draining both casters' magicule.
• Fire more spells into the knot to tip the balance. When one side breaks, the winner turns on the loser carrying the damage of both. Two spells too close to call annihilate each other.
• Every projectile and beam spell takes part, including Flame Emperor's sun: two suns locking over a battlefield is quite a sight.

The Moon and Space

• Four new kinds of Moon ground: rolling Cheese Fields (yes, real cheese), Frozen Craters full of ice lakes and spikes, Selenite Valleys with glowing crystal spires, and vast Underground Seas.
• Fallen meteors lie half-buried in fresh craters, full of Meteorite, Starcore, Meteoric Iron and Moonsilver, and burning with White Fire, the only fire that burns without air.
• The Regolith Devourer, a new boss: a 60-block worm that swims through the Moon's ground, eats it, hunts by your footsteps and bursts out of the dust to swallow you whole. Inside its stomach, the acid burns, and its heart beats at the far end. Strike it there.
• From its scales: Devourer Scale armour (netherite-strong, no knockback, and spirit wards against elements) and the Gullet Pickaxe, which chews 3x3 tunnels.
• The Rimewalker, a six-legged ice strider that skates the Frozen Craters and spits frost.
• Real vacuum: in Space and on the Moon creatures that don't belong there choke, fire goes out, lava hardens and water freezes, unless you're inside a Protection Shield.
• Sunlight lights everything from the side the sun is on, with deep shadows on the other.
• Planetfall (new King spell): rise as a comet and come down on another planet as a falling star, hitting everything near your landing.
• Gravity Anchor (new Advanced spell): plant an anchor that brings normal gravity back around it, and grow its field.
• The Void Serpent is much stronger and its rift shots home in, and the Regolith Burrower can now grab you, chew you and throw you across the Moon.
• Moon rocks now drop Moon Cobblestone, which works like cobblestone.

New creatures

• Magicule Leech: drops from cave ceilings onto mages and drinks their magicule. Shake it off by sneaking!
• Banshee: a pale spirit of dark forests whose scream silences your magic, and who casts spells of her own.
• Void Thief: an End imp that snatches the item in your hand and makes you chase it.
• Kraken: a 90-block squid boss of the deep ocean that smashes boats, grabs sailors and drags them under. Its Heart of the Deep lets you breathe underwater forever.
• Ancient City guardians: the Sculk Revenant and the Echo Moth hunt by your magicule, not by sound, so sneaking won't save you.
• Sand Worm and the Dune Sea: a new desert biome with sandstorms, wrecked caravans and giant worms that hunt your rhythm on the sand. Plant a Thumper to call one, craft a Crysknife from its teeth, and bring home Spice.

New races and evolutions

• Fairy: a tiny glowing race with gossamer wings in your soul's colour. Flutter through the air, never take fall damage, and light up the dark. Evolves into the Fae Monarch, who flies freely and raises healing Fairy Rings.
• Every base race now has a second evolution path to choose from, each with its own look and ability: the Seraph, Shadowcat, Fenrir, Banshee, Geode Sentinel, Sporemother, Krakenborn, Primordial, Naga, Rat Lord and Pixie Trickster.

New spells

• Shadow Training (Saint): sink into your own shadow and fight a shadow of yourself to grow your EP. It gets harder the longer you stay.
• Cultivation Chamber (Saint): your shadow pulls you down into a dark realm of your own to meditate, better than Heaven.
• Dispel (Saint): strip an enemy's running spells and buffs, or cleanse yourself and your allies.
• Nameless and Void Coat (Saint): scramble your name for everyone else, or turn your body into a drifting starfield.
• Experience Recall (Advanced): pull experience orbs to you from far away.
• Radiation: Elephant's Foot, Radiation Sickness and Mutate.
• Ember Orbit, Cinder Torrent, Rime Ray, Storm Thread, Gloom Ray, Galactic Donut, Deepwood Emergence, Spirit Sphere, Gale Cleave, Shadow Reprisal, Magebane Infusion, Mending Familiar, Circle of Forfeit and Echo Sanctum.
• Soul Concord: two willing players fuse into one being, sharing their health, power and spells.
• New Wild Shape forms: Gummy Bear, Mallow, Echo Moth, Hollow Wraith and Void Ray. New summons: the Gummy Bear Troop and the Hollow Wraith.

White Flame, reborn

The Emperor's white fire now eats magic before it burns flesh.

• A tidal wave of white fire breaks across the land in front of you and leaves a sea of flame behind it.
• Anyone caught in the sea loses their absorption, buffs and magicule first. Their Deflecting and Absorbing Auras burn down, and enemy shots, walls, shields and tornadoes that touch the fire are devoured. Then the burning starts.
• At Master, everything it eats becomes fuel. Spend it to reshape the fire:
  • five white blades that tear through everything;
  • a wall of white fire;
  • or the White Sun: the whole sea drawn up into a sun and hurled.
• At Maximum, the Conflagration sets every enemy spell around you alight at once, and a phoenix rises from each one to hunt down whoever cast it.

Growing stronger

• Primordial: a new rank above God, for those with 1,000,000 EP and five Transcendences.
• Aura Rework: Deflecting and Absorbing Aura now have integrity that wears down, attunement levels that grow from the attacks they stop, and unlockable activations such as Return to Sender, Spell Steal and Shatterback. God and Emperor spells pass through, and beams can only be absorbed.
• Aura Sight (H), rebuilt: an aura now shows how strong its owner is, from a small flame in a weak creature's chest to blazing flames, lightning, floating rocks and a column into the sky for the mightiest. Strong players can be felt from far away, and Magicule Charge now makes your aura flare up for everyone to see.
• Power Suppression (new skill): hide your strength by turning your EP output down.
• Spell Restraint (new skill): turn any spell's power and cost down with a slider.
• Emperor and God spells now cost far more magicule, so they feel like the world-shaking finishers they are.

Protection Shields

• Layers: give your shield up to four extra walls, each with its own power: warnings, healing, elemental wards, deflection, a wall that casts your spell at attackers, or a veil that hides you from scouting magic. Build a Ward Stone pyramid under the core to unlock them.
• Aegis Anchors and the Binding Rite make a shield far tougher.
• Name your shield, see all your shields with My Shields, and take an old one down from anywhere.

Quality of life and other changes

• Pocket Dimension: open your pocket in mid-air, and choose who can walk in with a whitelist.
• Vampires: blood is only spent on healing, drinking no longer knocks your prey away, Amy's Blood strengthens your body, and a Totem of Redemption lets you visit Heaven.
• Summon Player: step out of the summoning circle to refuse a summons; distance now costs magicule.
• Ore Sight and Ore Ping find Arcana's own ores.
• Alchemic Breath can breathe an Ether Brew.
• Realm spirits now drop Spirit Hearts.
• A spell taught by another player is ready after far less practice, and can still be studied from its own book.
• Rift Travel marks are easy to rename now.
• The wizard set takes enchantments.
• Owners can hide a named creature's collar.
• More than a hundred items have new Minecraft-style pixel art.

Fixes

• Chests, barrels and signs inside a Protection Shield no longer lose what they hold.
• Leaving Heaven no longer freezes the server.
• Lighter, faster magic syncing for every player.
• The Morning Star Offering works at every Celestial City.
• Nine Lives and other death saves now work with knockdown mods.
• Many smaller fixes and balance changes (Razor Atmosphere, Prison Capture and more).

Updating

• Update Arcana on both the server and every player's game: 0.1.6 and 0.1.5 can't play together.
• The Dune Sea needs Lithostitched installed, and only appears in newly generated land.

On the Arcana server network (Arcana Hub 1.2.1)

• Auction house: type /auction on a world server to buy and sell items with other players for Insight or for items. See who is selling, collect what you earned while you were offline, and track your sales.