Astrarim

Astrarium: The Twelfth Hour

Lost astronomers, clockwork guardians and a dying star.

Long ago the Vesperine Court — astronomers, clockwrights and lens-grinders — discovered that the sun drifts a little farther away every age. To stop it they built the Astrarium, an astronomical clock the size of a cathedral, and took a fallen star for its heart.

The star did not want to be a clock. In one night the Court was stopped, hour by hour. The survivors sealed the machine under the earth, scattered the keys and broke the knowledge of where to find it into four measurements.

Now meteors fall again, clockwork servants stir, light bends strangely in the ruins and shadows keep the old tombs. The Aphelion is returning.

Early alpha (0.1.0) — please read. Astrarium is being built in stages and this is its first public preview. The final act (a hollow clock-observatory under the earth and the boss that guards it) and a large part of the equipment are in. Several steps of the progression between them are not yet: the mini-bosses are not placed in dungeons yet, most of the planned structures are missing, and the Meridian Key that opens the final gate cannot be earned in survival yet (see Try the final fight below). Back up your worlds and expect rough edges.

What is in this build

The world

• Fallen Star Crater — meteoric craters scattered over land biomes: starfall ore, a cache chest, and Cinder Wisps hovering over the crater.
• The Hollow Astrarium — the final structure, one per world. A court of standing monoliths marks the mouth of a long stairway into the earth, with the Gate of Hours near its top, an antechamber with Court tablets and a chest, and then the domed Hall of Hours: a clock-face floor, twelve pillars, an armillary sphere and the Astrarium Core.
• Zenith Observatory — also one per world. In this build only a placeholder monolith stands where the great observatory will be.
• Operators can read where both unique structures are with /astrarium locate astrarium and /astrarium locate observatory.

The Archon of the Twelfth Hour

A four-phase boss fought on the clock-face floor. Every attack is marked on the floor before it lands, and the Archon opens windows of vulnerability after its heaviest moves.

• The First Hours — the clock hand sweeps the floor sector by sector, the chime slams, star bolts fly and brass mites are called.
• Eclipse — the stars of the dome go out, Darkness pulses unless you carry a light, Anchor Stars shield the Archon until you break them, floor sectors erupt and stars fall.
• The Falling Star — gravity wells and blinking dashes while the sky comes down in earnest.
• Last Light — the Archon is permanently exposed and fast, and every half minute comes a Supernova that is designed to be survived only from behind one of the twelve pillars (it can be softened in the config).

Rewards are given to every player who took part: the Heart of the Last Star, one relic, starmetal and star fragments — and on a player's first victory the Eclipse Blade and the Chronostep.

Creatures

• Cinder Wisp and Dusk Shade spawn naturally. The shade is weak to light, blinks behind you when you look away and fades from sight in the dark.
• Clockwork: Brass Sentinel (overclocks, then stalls), Tick Mite (ticks, then bursts), Mender Drone (heals its allies), Armillary Guardian (shielded rings, slams) and the mini-boss Matron of Gears.
• Starborn: Meteoric Husk (a dormant statue that wakes when you come close) and the mini-boss Ember Colossus (molten waves, magma lobs, stomps, vents).
• In this build the clockwork and starborn creatures above, except the Cinder Wisp, appear only through spawn eggs or commands; their dungeons are planned for later versions.

Materials and gear

• Three tiers: Verdigris (after iron), Starmetal (after diamond) and Umbral (after netherite), each with a full tool set. Metal that mends itself: Verdigris in daylight, Starmetal under the night sky.
• Four armour sets with set bonuses: Surveyor's Verdigris (Wayfinder), Starwoven (Stargazer), Duskwoven (Veil) and the Regalia of the Twelfth Hour (Borrowed Time).
• Weapons with a character of their own: Starfall Maul (calls a star down), Prism Lensbow (a beam of light that pierces), Dusk Fang (backstab), Gnomon Glaive (reach and cone sweep), Cinder Cleaver (cleaves through burning enemies) and the boss-only Eclipse Blade, which stores Umbra with every kill.
• Artifacts: Chronometer (stasis field), Seer's Lens (reveals hidden blocks), Sunstone Lantern (burns shades, shields against Darkness), Chronostep (a dash through time) and Armillary Aegis (a shield that parries projectiles).
• More than forty blocks: Vesper stone, brass, verdigris, starglass, cinder and umbral building sets, plus the mechanisms of the final structure.

The Surveyor's Codex

Craft it from a book and a Star Fragment. It is a surveyor's journal that fills as you discover things: 35 entries in this build, from creatures and materials to structures, mechanics and the fragments of the Court's last letters. Riddles become summaries and then full entries as you learn more, and some entries are secret until you earn them.

Celestial navigation

The Astrolabe never points straight at anything. At night, under open sky, hold use to take a sighting; take a second one from far away and the Astrolabe triangulates the great work you are looking for. (A single sighting is enough if you turn triangulation off in the config.) The Star Chart that sets it on the Zenith Observatory is made from four Chart Fragments dropped by the four mini-bosses.

Try the final fight (operators and testers)

1. Get the key: /give @s astrarium:meridian_key. The Observatory that will grant it is not finished.
2. Get there: /astrarium locate astrarium prints the coordinates, or /astrarium tpto inside gatedoor takes you straight to the key door on the stairway.
3. Hold the key and right-click the Gate of Hours on the way down. In the Hall of Hours, hold it again and right-click the Astrarium Core to wind it. The Core refuses to wake on Peaceful.

The fight has been played through in test runs but is not yet balanced for survival play or for groups. The Archon scales with the number of players inside the arena (configurable).

Configuration

Two files are created on first launch: astrarium-common.toml (gameplay, read by the server) and astrarium-client.toml (visual options). Among other things you can change health and damage for creatures, mini-bosses and the Archon, scaling with players, whether boss attacks may break or ignite blocks (off by default), natural spawns, the boss reset delay and respawn cooldown, whether the arena gate locks, whether the Supernova is lethal, the Eclipse darkness pulses, the Astrolabe rules, camera shake and particle density.

Compatibility

• Minecraft 1.20.1, Minecraft Forge 47.2.0 or newer
• Required on both the client and the server. No other mods are required.
• English and Spanish.
• Not yet tested with other mods, on a dedicated server with players, or in multiplayer; please report anything strange.

Credits

All textures, models and animations are generated by the mod's own tools; the sounds reuse vanilla sound events with new names. Made with Minecraft Forge. Licence: All Rights Reserved.