Avatar: Bending Arts

By
OddBoxer

A mod based on the world of Avatar the last airbender and its spin off media

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Description

Avatar: Bending Arts brings the bending of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra to Minecraft 1.21.1 (Fabric). Most players are born with one element, fight from their nation's stance, and grow their bending on an upgrade tree drawn as their nation's scroll. The rest are born with no bending and walk a warrior's path. Above them stand the Avatar and the Dark Avatar. There are two great spirits to fight, a Spirit World to explore and, with MCA Reborn, four nations that trade, hold grudges and go to war.

This page is a guide: what everything does, where to find it and how to use it.

Getting started

The first time you join, you're born with one element: air, water, earth or fire. About one player in five is born with no bending and chooses a warrior's path instead.
R enters or leaves the bending stance. In the stance your hotbar becomes your bending bar, and you can't mine or use items until you leave it.
1–9 use the technique in that slot. Hold the key for charged or channelled moves.
Left and right click in the stance throw your nation's light and heavy martial-arts strikes. They chain into four-hit combos and cost no chi.
B opens the Bending Scroll. Bending earns levels in your element, each level gives Insight, and you spend Insight on the scroll to learn techniques and their tiers. New techniques go into free slots on their own; drag them to rearrange.
Chi powers every technique. It refills on its own, three times faster while you meditate (sneak and stand still outside the stance). Using chi grows it, and more chi means harder punches, more armor and faster healing. /bending info shows yours.
The scroll's last tab holds your settings: your fighting style and which nation's look your HUD wears.
Keys can be changed under Controls → Avatar: Bending.

The four elements

Every technique has up to four tiers, taken from the shows and the new film. Each nation fights in its own martial art.

Airbending, 16 techniques (Baguazhang): Air Blast, Air Swipe, Air Bullet, Gale Slice, Suffocation, Air Ball, Air Vortex, Tornado, Explosion of Air, Hurricane, Air Movement, Air Scooter, Air Shield, Air Spout, Air Bomb, Air Tether. Airbenders also cushion hard landings with chi.
Waterbending, 21 techniques (Tai Chi): Water Jab, Water Bullet, Water Knife, Water Jet, Water Lashing, Wave, Maelstrom, Water Rope, Water Ring, Razor Rings, Bubble, Water Spout, Octopus Form, Water Shield, Ice Claws, Flow as Water, Water Extraction, Ice Column, Ice Disc, Ice Blade, Ice Prison. Needs water nearby: a pond, river, sea, full cauldron, snow, ice or rain. Stronger at night and strongest under a full moon.
Earthbending, 18 techniques (Hung Gar): Earth Levitation, Earth Block, Earth Dagger, Earth Compression, Earth Bomb, Earth Wave, Earth Wall, Earth Gauntlet, Earth Smash, Earth Shelter, Earth Elevator, Earth Armor, Seismic Sense, Earth Launch, Earth Preservation, Earthquake, Thick Mud, Earth Sinking. Needs earth near your feet: stone, dirt, gravel, clay and the like. Sand, metal and lava belong to the sub-bendings.
Firebending, 18 techniques (Northern Shaolin): Fire Fists, Fireball Barrage, Finger Flame Jet, Somersault Kick, A Single Spark, Charged Attack, Fire Ribbon, Fire Whip, Blazing Arcs, Fire Lashes, Fire Blade, Fire Breathing, Blocking Fire, Flame Charge, Wall of Flames, Disappearing Fire, Jet Propulsion, Blue Flames. Needs no source, but won't light with your head under water. Hotter by day, weaker at night.

Earth, metal and water benders reach farther the more chi they hold, up to twice as far.

Carry a source. A Water Pouch (leather and string) fills from any water or from rain. An Earth Pouch (leather, string and a clay ball) takes earth blocks right-clicked into it, like a bundle. The small forms draw on them when nothing is nearby. Bottles and buckets don't count as a source.

Sub-bendings and where their scrolls are

Each sub-bending is learned from a rare scroll. A scroll stays sealed until you have mastered its element (every tier of every technique), then you hold use to read it. Can't find one? Ask Koh (see below) and he tells you exactly where one lies.

Metalbending (earth): village smithies (weaponsmith, toolsmith and armorer chests) and abandoned mineshafts. Bends iron, copper and netherite that you carry, that stands nearby as blocks, or that it pulls out of ore. Metal Shards, Metal Arm Blade, Hurl Metal, Metal Shield, Metal Armor, Metal Shelter, Metal Wheel, Metal Disc, Metal Zipper.
Sandbending (earth): desert temples (most often) and desert village houses. Needs loose sand nearby; plain earthbending can't move sand. Sand Sailing, Sandstorm, Sandblast, Sinking Sands, Packed Sand, Sand Sculpture.
Lavabending (earth): ruined portal chests. Melts earth into lava that cools back afterwards. Lava Disc, Lava Blobs, Lava Tendril, Cooling, Molten Ground, Lava Moat, Molten Collapse.
Lightning (fire): Nether fortresses and bastions (most often a bastion's treasure room). Lightning Blast, Dual Lightning Blasts, Lightning Breathing, Ball Lightning, Lightning Burst, Lightning Redirection, Disruptive Spark, Arc Lightning, Lightning Stream.
Bloodbending (water): underwater ruins, and the elder guardians of ocean monuments when you kill them. Works only at night under a full moon (its page on the scroll tells you when the next one rises), unless you learn Yakone's Curse. Blood Lift, Knockout, Organ Crush, Bending Severing, Psychic Bloodbending, Yakone's Curse.
Healing (water): igloo basements (often), snowy village houses and village clerics' chests. Glowing water that mends wounds, cures poison, calms angry mobs and can bring someone back from death once. Healing Water, Restoring the Flow, Atuat's Chill, Heart Freeze, Spirit Calming, Spirit Water.
Flight (air): end city treasure (most often) and stronghold libraries. Free flight with momentum. Flight, Riding the Currents, Carry Aloft, Hurl, Aerial Roll, Plummet.
Spiritual Projection (air): ancient city chests and stronghold libraries. Leave your body behind as a spirit that flies through walls, find and call your friends, and enter the Spirit World. Spiritual Projection, Seeking, Calling, Spirit Communion.

Paths without bending

Born with no bending? Press B and choose a path. Each has eight moves, its own stance and combos, and runs on chi like bending does. Master one path to open the next. Weapons only need to be in your inventory: they hang on your body and come to hand in the stance.

Kyoshi Warrior starts with War Fans: Fan Throw, Fan Parry, Warrior's Feint, Turning Throw, Shield Wall, Warrior's Oath, Dance of Fans, War Paint. Craft more fans from 3 gold ingots, 3 iron ingots and paper.
Master Swordsman starts with a Steel Jian and a Boomerang: Boomerang Throw (tap to throw, hold to wind up a longer, harder throw), Lunging Thrust, Leaping Cut, Disarming Cut, Riposte, Use Your Surroundings, Hundred Cuts, Meteor Edge. The best sword is Sokka's Meteorite Sword: 2 Meteoric Iron, 2 gold ingots and a stick. Meteoric Iron comes from rare fallen meteorites in scorched craters.
Chi Blocker needs only bare hands: Pressure Jabs, Back Handspring, Aura Reading, Dead Arm, Pebble Flick, Circus Run, Melted Wax, Perfect Balance. Jabs stop a bender from bending and make anyone's limbs heavy. Metal armor turns the fingers aside.

Crafted gear

Metalbending police uniform: cap, chestplate, leggings and boots. Each is crafted from its iron piece with a chain above and below and an iron ingot either side. The chestplate lets a metalbender use Metal Zipper: tap to grapple to a spot, hold to swing.
Steel Jian: 2 iron ingots, 2 gold nuggets and a stick. Boomerang: 2 bones and 2 iron ingots.
Bison Whistle: a bone, a stick and string. Calls every bison you raised, from anywhere.
War Horn: a goat horn, a copper ingot and leather. Leads a raid (see the war section).

Raava and Vaatu

The spirits of light and darkness each come into a world once, as giant sky bosses. Raava comes by day and Vaatu by night, high above a player, and far more often when that player is in snowy land. They never come on Peaceful, and players in creative don't count.

Want to meet one? Ask Koh where it will come. From then on it comes only over its spirit portal (Raava the Southern by day, Vaatu the Northern by night), soon after someone waits within 96 blocks of that portal at that hour.
Raava leaves you alone unless you attack her. Talk to her in chat: words of peace, balance, kindness and protecting others earn her trust, while power, revenge and praise of Vaatu lose it. Once she trusts you fully she may, rarely, choose you as her host without a fight. Asking for her power never works.
Vaatu hunts everyone near him and answers with threats and temptation.
Both shrink as they're hurt and grow back if left alone for 30 seconds. They can't be killed: bring one to the edge of death and it takes you as its host. Raava makes you the Avatar, Vaatu makes you the Dark Avatar, and that spirit never comes to the world again.
They fight each other on sight. A spirit brought down by the other's host is sealed away for good instead.

The Avatar

You keep your birth element and learn the other three in the order of the cycle (fire, air, water, earth, starting after your own). They're on the Avatar's own page of the scroll, which earns half of all the experience you earn bending.
The Avatar State (2 Insight): every blow lands 1.3 times harder. Until you've mastered all four elements it only comes on by itself when you drop to 30% health, and half the time your past lives take over and fight for you. Once you've mastered all four, you enter it at will.
Forms only the Avatar State can make: Long-Range Fire Whips, Solar Fireball, Air Sphere, Strong Winds, Ice Fissure, Tsunami, Compressed Rock Bullets, Enhanced Earth Armor and Tectonics, plus rings of fire, wind, water and stone that each give you an endless supply of their element.
Paint your glow: under the scroll's settings you mark which pixels of your skin blaze in the Avatar State (your eyes by default, or an airbender's arrows).
Energybending opens to an Avatar who bends all four elements (20 levels into the Avatar's arts and 6 Insight). Spirit Portals opens or seals a portal, Bending Removal takes someone's bending, Bending Restoration gives it back or gives anyone a new element, and Giant Spirit turns you into a giant of light (left click punches, right click fires a beam from its chest).
When the Avatar dies, Raava moves on to a bender of the next nation in the cycle, and the old Avatar keeps only their birth element.

The Dark Avatar

Vaatu's host gets the same arts in red. When they die, Vaatu passes round the nations the other way (fire, earth, water, air). If the Avatar strikes the Dark Avatar down, Vaatu is sealed away for good.

The world's balance

War feeds Vaatu. The more nations are at war, the harder the Dark Avatar hits (up to 125%) and the weaker the Avatar hits (down to 75%). Peace and friendship do the reverse, and Raava and Vaatu themselves follow it too. The Avatar and the Dark Avatar see a balance medallion above their chi orb and get a chat message when it shifts, and /bending nations shows it to everyone. So the Dark Avatar has a reason to start wars, and the Avatar a reason to end them.

The spirit portals

Two portals join the world to the Spirit World. Both start sealed.

The Southern portal is in the nearest snowy land to a point about 1,500 blocks south of world spawn. Look for a huge stepped glacier of packed and blue ice with old trees frozen inside it. A tunnel in its north side leads to an ice cave with a glowing white-and-blue dome in the floor.
The Northern portal is the same distance north of world spawn, in a snowy basin of great old dark trees around a clearing. Its dome swirls purple, red-orange and gold.
Shortcut: before Raava has come, ask Koh where she will come and he gives you the Southern portal's coordinates. Ask after Vaatu for the Northern one.
Opening one: only the Avatar can. Hold the energybending move Spirit Portals within 10 blocks of the dome for 6 seconds (tier II: 20 blocks, 3 seconds). A column of light shoots into the sky that can be seen from far away, and everyone is told. The same move seals it again.
Crossing: while a portal is open, anyone can step into its light. You keep your bending and your items, and come out beside the portal's other end, by the Tree of Time.
Both open: small spirits wander out into the world of people, half-seen. Seal either portal to send them home.

Getting into the Spirit World

Through an open portal: walk into the light, and walk back into it to come home. Beds and respawn anchors don't work in the Spirit World, so make sure the portal stays open behind you.
As a spirit (Spiritual Projection): sit still and project, then fly your spirit down into a Spirit Oasis, the pool where the koi Tui and La swim inside the domed hall at the centre of every Water Tribe (snowy) village. Your spirit comes out in the Spirit World's swamp, and a voice tells you the way to Koh. There your spirit costs no chi and has no range limit, but it can't carry anything. Press Spiritual Projection again, or step into a portal's light, to wake in your body. If your body is hurt, you're pulled back at once.
Operators: /execute in avatarmod:spirit_world run tp @s 0 100 40

Map of the Spirit World

The Spirit World is laid out the same in every world. Coordinates are x, z (press F3):

Tree of Time (0, 0): the colossal tree where Vaatu was sealed, on a plain ringed by mountains. The portals' Spirit World ends are at 0, -125 (north) and 0, 125 (south).
Wan Shi Tong's Library (1500, 350), east: hangs upside down from giant trees. Climb the rope of vines under its dome to get in.
Koh's tree (350, 1550), south: on a mesa in a misty ravine. The hole at its foot leads down to Koh's chamber.
The swamp (-250, 1850): golden mist, giant trees and Roku's pool.
Hai-Riyo Peak (-1550, 700), west: walkways wind up to the dragon birds' nest at the summit.
Fog of Lost Souls (-1250, -950), north-west: a canyon drowned in white fog.

Between them lie Spirit Meadows, Dark Spirit Forests and Highlands, each under its own sky. There's no day, night or weather, and nothing hostile spawns. Small spirits live here: dragonfly bunnies, light spirits, radish lotus spirits and jellyfish spirits that swim through the sky. They're peaceful, and they come and sit around you when you meditate. Its blocks (Spirit Stone, Ancient Wood, Spirit Lanterns, Glowcaps and more) drop themselves when broken.

Koh the Face Stealer

Koh lives in the chamber under his tree (350, 1550). Climb down and he rises to meet you. His one rule is show him nothing. Show any feeling once he has told you his rule, and he steals your face and the fight begins.

What counts as showing a feeling:

In chat: an exclamation mark, shouting in capitals, laughing (lol, haha, xd), emoticons or emoji, stretched words like "sooo", and feeling words such as scared, help, angry, hate, kill, love, wow, sorry or sad.
While he leans in to stare at you: turning your head, stepping, running, jumping, attacking or starting a bend. Stand still and leave the mouse alone.

How to get his answer:

Stay calm, and quiet if you like. Every 12 seconds of silence he asks you something and leans in to watch your face.
Sit through three of these without a flicker, staying still and answering calmly or not at all.
He offers you one true answer. Your next chat message is your question. Ask within 30 seconds or he sends you away.
You get one answer per visit, and he won't see you again for 5 minutes. Say "goodbye" to leave whenever you like.

What to ask him (wording that works):

"Where is the metalbending scroll?" Name any sub-bending (metal, sand, lava, blood, healing, lightning, flight or projection), or ask "Where is a scroll?" for the first one you lack. He names the nearest place of that kind that nobody has been sent to before, within about 1,300 blocks of your bed or world spawn (or of your body, if you came as a spirit), and gives you its coordinates. Metalbending lies in a village, sandbending in a desert temple, lavabending in a ruined portal, bloodbending in an ocean monument, healing in a snowy village or igloo, lightning in a Nether fortress or bastion, flight in a stronghold and spiritual projection in an ancient city. The scroll is put into one of the place's chests the first time someone arrives; in an ocean monument, the first elder guardian killed drops it. You can ask for a friend's scroll too.
"Where will Raava come?" (or Vaatu). If it hasn't come yet, he names its portal, its hour and the coordinates, and from then on it comes only there. If it has a host, he names the Avatar (or the Dark Avatar) and tells you where they're standing right now. He also tells you if it's waiting to be reborn into a nation, or sealed away.
"When is the next full moon?" Tonight, tomorrow night, or in how many nights. Bloodbenders, take note. There are no eclipses; ask about one and he tells you about the moon instead.
"Which way to the library?" The direction and distance to the Tree of Time, the Fog of Lost Souls, Wan Shi Tong's Library, the swamp or Hai-Riyo Peak.
"How do I get home?" How to leave his world.
Anything else gets a cryptic truth of his own.

Coordinates he gives are written into your chat. Keep each question to one topic: he answers the first one he recognises, in the order scroll, Raava or Vaatu, moon, place, way home. "When is the full moon for bloodbending?" gets you a scroll answer.

Fighting Koh. The fight starts when you show a feeling, hit him, or say "fight me".

Only a quarter of your damage lands, except right after a stare. When he stares into your face, hold perfectly still through the whole stare: his face cracks and your hits do full damage for 6 seconds.
Dodge his lunge, get out of his coil before it closes, and watch for his raking legs and the stolen faces he throws.
Lose your face and you're Faceless for 30 seconds: you can't bend, you take 50% more damage and your sight goes dark. Hit him while his face is cracked to take yours back.
A carved pumpkin on your head only buys a moment; he knocks it off.
Beat him and he gives back every face, burrows away for 10 minutes, and gives Koh's Mask to everyone beating him for the first time. Wear it and he can't take your face.

Air bison

Rare herds live high in the mountains: one or two adults with three or four calves.
Sneak to approach. Walk up openly and the parents attack, and hitting any bison in a herd sets every adult on you.
Tame a calf by sneaking and feeding it apples. Each apple has a 1 in 3 chance to win it. Adults can't be tamed. A calf grows up over three in-game days, faster if you feed it.
Sneak and use to switch between Follow, Stay and Roam. Right-click with an empty hand to ride: two can ride a calf and five a grown bison.
Flying: jump to take off (or say "yip yip" in chat), hold forward to fly where you look, sprint to soar, jump to climb, sneak to get off. Left click whips up a gust with its tail; right click is an airbending roar.
Press V to let it cruise by itself, so everyone can walk around on its back.
A grown bison can fly for about 6 minutes, a young one 2. It gets its breath back on the ground and by eating apples, melon, hay, wheat, kelp, carrots, beetroot, berries or soup.
Give two of your grown bison a hay bale each and they'll have a calf.

Nation villages

New villages are built by the nation whose land they stand on, around its centrepiece. This works with or without MCA Reborn:

Water Tribes: snowy and swamp villages. Igloos, hide tents, and a domed hall with the Spirit Oasis inside.
Earth Kingdom: plains and desert villages. Timber halls under green tile around a three-tiered pagoda.
Fire Nation: savanna and jungle villages. Crimson halls around a Fire Sage temple.
Air Nomads: taiga villages, and any village in the mountains or 110 or more blocks up. Slim towers with blue cones around an air temple.

Every building is made from the stone and wood of the land under it. Villages generated before you added the mod stay as they were.

Nations and war (needs MCA Reborn)

With MCA Reborn, villages belong to these nations and remember what you do. You belong to the nation of the element you were born to, and so does the Avatar. Players born with no bending belong to no nation, so their deeds don't change how nations stand. Entering a village shows its nation, how it knows you and who it's at war with.

Villagers bend. About 15% of grown villagers bend their nation's element, and more of the guards do. They defend their village.

A village knows you once it sees you bend. Until then you're a stranger. After that it treats you by how your nation stands with its own:

Kin (your own nation): 20% off trades, and villagers like you a lot more.
Friendly (40 or more): 15% off. Cordial (10 or more): 8% off.
Wary (-10 or less): 15% more expensive.
Hostile (-40 or less): 40% more expensive. Guards warn you, then attack if you bend again within two minutes.
Hated (-70 or less, or at war): nobody trades with you, and guards and benders attack on sight.
Seen bloodbending, you're feared everywhere, even at home. Seen bending two elements, you're known as the Avatar and treated 25 points better.

/bending nations shows how every pair of nations stands and who is at war. /bending nations village shows the village you're in.

How nations stand. Each pair has a score from -100 to 100, starting at 0.

What pushes two nations toward war:

Killing a villager of another nation: -2 between their nation and yours (-4 for a guard or bender).
Wiping out a whole village: -25 more, and everyone hears about it.
Killing raiders: -1 between the raiders' nation and yours for each one.
A village taken by raiders: -4.

What brings them back toward peace:

Each raid beaten back: +3 between the two nations at war.
Killing raiders who attack another nation's village: +1 between your nation and that village's.
Freeing a village another nation took: +10 between your nation and the nation it goes back to.
Time: nations not at war drift 1 point a day back toward 0. Grudges fade, and so do friendships.

War can break out once a pair sinks to -75: each day there's a 40% chance the nation wronged most recently declares it, and a horn sounds for everyone. Peace comes automatically when the pair climbs back to -50. Wars don't cool off with time; raids have to be beaten back.

Raids. While two nations are at war, a village of either one with a player in it can be raided, on average about once every 10 minutes you spend there. 3 to 7 soldiers, mostly benders, attack its fighters. If every grown villager falls, the raiders take the village: it becomes their nation's, they settle in as its guards, and its centrepiece is rebuilt as theirs. A village gets a day and a half of rest after a raid.

Lead a raid with a War Horn. Blow it in a village of your own nation during a war. That village must have seen you bend. Its guards and benders within 64 blocks march with you to the nearest enemy village within 2,000 blocks, and you're told which village, how far and which way. Stragglers are brought up behind you, and your fighters defend you on the road. Walk into the enemy village and they attack it. Each village answers the horn at most once every 10 minutes.

If you take it, it becomes your nation's and pays you tribute: a chest beside its bell fills each day with what its workers make (farmers grain and bread, fishermen fish, shepherds wool, smiths iron and coal, librarians paper and books, and so on). Settlers from your nation move in, one a day, until six people work it. Up to a week of tribute piles up while you're away.
If you lose, it counts as a raid beaten back (+3 toward peace), and your surviving fighters go home.

Free a taken village. Kill its occupiers (the raiders who settled in as its guards). When the last one falls inside the village, it goes back to the nation it was taken from and its centrepiece is rebuilt. Everyone who killed one of its occupiers is a liberator: they get 25% off its trades and are never refused. Its master bender comes home and gives each liberator three lessons, one a day, worth 2 Insight each, in the master's element if you bend it and otherwise in your own.

Commands

Anyone can use /bending info, /bending nations and /bending nations village. Operators get more under /bending: elements, chi, Insight, techniques, spirits, the Avatar, bison herds, and nations (set relations, declare war, make peace, start a raid, claim or free a village).

Requirements

Minecraft 1.21.1 with Fabric Loader 0.16 or newer
Fabric API
Optional: MCA Reborn, for the nations, village benders, wars and raids

Good to know

Settings live in config/avatarmod.json: element odds, nonBenderWeight (set it to 0 so everyone is born a bender), chi, block-breaking switches, wars, raids, spirits and more.
Bending attacks on other players need PvP turned on.
Fan-made, and not affiliated with Nickelodeon, Paramount or Avatar Studios.

AI disclosure: This is an AI project. Because of that, it will never be monetized in any capacity: no paid versions, donations, ads or rewards. I originally made it for me and my friends, and decided to release it.