Living Volcanoes
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Discover a living Overworld with volcanoes, supervolcanoes, lava flows, flaming projectiles and ash clouds. Explore mineral-rich landscapes with render and simulation distances adjustable up to 50 chunks.
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Description
Terra Alive — Living Volcanoes
An Overworld that rumbles, erupts and transforms.
Terra Alive is a Minecraft Java mod for Fabric that makes volcanoes part of the world itself. They generate naturally, follow their own activity cycles and can erupt without commands. Explore resource-rich volcanic landscapes, monitor pressure and prepare for lava flows, fiery projectiles and falling ash.
Volcanoes built into world generation
- Small, medium and large fully formed volcanoes.
- Land volcanoes that grow progressively.
- Submarine volcanoes and gradual island formation when deposits reach the surface.
- Very rare supervolcanoes with large calderas and particularly dangerous eruptions.
- Natural generation in eligible Overworld biomes: plains, savannas, mountains, windswept hills, badlands and oceans, depending on the category.
- New volcanoes can have shield shapes, steep cones, secondary craters or calderas.
Volcanic terrain combines rock, surface soil, vegetation, ores, cavities, conduits and lava reservoirs. Protected summit and vent areas help limit damage to the volcano from its own eruptions.
New structures appear in newly generated chunks. Previously explored terrain is not automatically regenerated.
Varied cycles and eruptions
Each volcano has its own rhythm of rest, rising pressure, activity and gaps between events. Growth, activity and pressure profiles can be redrawn after a rest period.
Each eruption selects new combinations of flow rates, branches, salvos, projectile types and ash behavior. Several compatible behaviors can occur together. Available variants are selected with equal chances within their respective sets, so different volcanoes can behave differently.
New volcanoes also provide warning signs:
- A warning phase lasting 1, 3 or 5 minutes of loaded time.
- Rumbles, glowing fissures and steam emissions.
- Visual camera tremors.
- Instruments for monitoring volcanic activity.
Real lava, from craters to valleys
Volcanic lava uses the vanilla fluid. It rises through the central column before projectiles launch, overflows the crater and spreads in multiple directions. Tunnels and flank vents can also release lava from the reservoir.
Flow networks follow the terrain and can create long lava streams. The system is designed to support at least 512 blocks of continuous lava on favorable terrain; actual reach depends on the landscape, supply and loaded chunks.
A supplied flow stays hot. A genuinely disconnected branch starts its own cooling timer, even while the volcano remains active. Cooling takes 14 loaded Minecraft days, or 336,000 ticks.
Cooled lava can become basalt, smooth basalt, stone, andesite, blackstone, magma blocks or tuff, as well as ores.
Explosive eruptions
Six projectile families can appear together during an eruption:
- Basalt shards.
- Hot scoria.
- Lava balls.
- Rock blocks.
- Volcanic bombs.
- Giant boulders.
Projectiles launch from the center, follow falling trajectories and produce effects according to their type: direct damage, ignition, slowing, blast damage or craters. Flaming projectiles and explosions accompany the lava overflows.
Volcanic impacts preserve ores protected by the mod. Nearby buildings and terrain remain vulnerable.
Water inside the reservoir is dangerous: when it reaches lava inside the volcano, it can trigger a violent hydrothermal reaction followed by an explosive eruption. Initial blast variants use settings equivalent to 32, 64 or 128 TNT. Separate water arrivals can trigger separate reactions without repeating the same reaction indefinitely.
Ash that transforms the landscape
Active volcanoes emit ash. Clouds can expand, drift, reduce visibility and obscure the sun, potentially creating night-like darkness without changing the world's time. This shadow affects natural monster spawning conditions.
Regional ash radii depend on the category:
- Small volcanoes: 512, 768 or 960 blocks.
- Medium and large volcanoes: 1,024, 1,536 or 2,048 blocks.
- Supervolcanoes: 4,096, 6,144 or 8,192 blocks.
Ash can persist for 7, 14 or 28 loaded Minecraft days after an eruption. Regional coverage does not force the entire affected area to load.
Falling ash creates visible layers on the ground, plants and leaves. Deposits accumulate, fall when unsupported and can erode or wash away in water. Ash is prevented from settling on lava.
Depending on the profile, deposits can bury or burn vegetation and affect trees. Clouds also have creature effects, including visibility impairment and thermal or respiratory effects depending on their profiles.
Ash never deals damage to players. Lava, projectiles, monsters and scalding pools remain dangerous.
Collect and craft with ash
Powdered ash is also a crafting resource:
- In contact with water, 8 units of ash produce 4 clay balls. Leftovers are retained and saved.
- 2 ash powders + 1 clay ball → 1 gunpowder.
- 4 ash powders + 2 dirt blocks → 4 ash-earth blocks.
- 4 ash powders + 2 stone blocks → 4 ash-brick blocks.
Dangerous land with valuable resources
New volcanoes contain diamond veins, underground chambers and amethyst. The visible size of veins and caves depends on the available rock volume; cavities and lava can interrupt them.
The statistical material distribution for new cooled lava flows is:
- Iron: 15%.
- Gold: 8%.
- Coal: 1%.
- Diamond: 2%, spatially grouped into veins.
- Emerald: 2%.
- The remaining 72% is shared equally between the seven cooling rock types.
These proportions do not guarantee a fixed quota in each small flow. Older flows retain their saved mineral distribution.
Hot springs, geysers and returning vegetation
New volcanic terrain can include pools and geysers with varied profiles:
- Neutral, healing or temperature-dependent pools.
- Healing pools restore half a heart every 5 seconds after 10 seconds of immersion.
- Scalding pools deal one heart of damage per second.
- Harmless or dangerous steam jets.
After cooling, eligible surfaces can gradually regain plants, saplings and developed trees. Delays depend on the profile and use loaded time. Modified or covered surfaces are skipped, and ores are not replaced with dirt.
Flaming monsters
Hostile monsters on an active volcano and up to 128 blocks beyond its flanks can receive the volcanic effect, including monsters that arrive after activity begins.
- Visible flames on their bodies.
- Immunity to fire and lava while affected.
- Melee attacks and projectiles that can ignite players for 4 seconds.
- Entering water permanently removes the volcanic effect from that creature.
- The flames add no block light under vanilla lighting behavior.
- A 50% chance to drop an additional 1–3 gunpowder on death.
- Flaming creepers receive double the bonus gunpowder, double damage and double explosion radius.
Villagers, ruins and monitoring
Villagers can sound the alarm, return home during a warning and try to flee nearby lava flows or impacts. They use normal navigation: they are not teleported or made invulnerable, and escape depends on available paths.
Partially ash-buried ruins can appear inside new volcanic terrain. Their chests use vanilla village-house or desert-temple loot, depending on the profile.
Three instruments help monitor volcanoes:
- Seismograph: observes activity at a distance.
- Pressure gauge: measures pressure near a lava lake or vent.
- Redstone volcanic alarm: signals when pressure reaches a threshold of 60, 70 or 80.
Right-click to consult an instrument; sneak and right-click the alarm to change its threshold. Measurements can be exact or indicative depending on the profile.
Shapeless recipes:
- Seismograph: 4 iron ingots + 2 copper ingots + 2 redstone dust + 1 quartz.
- Pressure gauge: 4 copper ingots + 2 iron ingots + 3 glass blocks.
- Alarm: 4 copper ingots + 4 redstone dust + 1 bell.
Render and simulation distances up to 50 chunks
Terra Alive allows render and simulation distances of up to 50 chunks. It does not force these settings: existing selections are preserved.
These are real loaded and simulated chunks, not just distant scenery. On dedicated servers, the server controls its own distances; increasing the client's setting alone is not enough.
Large distances can substantially increase memory and processing requirements. Choose settings appropriate for your hardware and player count.
Saving, configuration and simulation
Profiles, events and progress are saved. Activity waits when its required area is not loaded; local processing, including cooling for independent lava branches, respects its own chunks.
New ecological features apply to newly created volcanoes. Existing volcanoes retain their profiles and do not receive automatic terrain transformations. Lava, ash and explosion processing is spread over time using configurable budgets. Disabled options remain disabled.
Installation and versions
- Minecraft Java Edition with Fabric Loader 0.19.3 or newer and Fabric API matching your Minecraft version.
- 1.21 family: targets 1.21 through 1.21.11, requiring Java 21 or newer.
- 26 family: targets 26.1, 26.1.1, 26.1.2, 26.2 and 26.3, requiring Java 25 or newer.
- Install only the JAR for your Minecraft family, on the client and on the server for multiplayer. Do not install both family JARs together.
Current release status: 0.2.1-candidate. All 17 targets compiled and passed their code tests. This version has not undergone client or server Minecraft runtime validation: visuals, performance and interactions with other mods still need in-game confirmation. Compatibility with future versions is not guaranteed.
Promotional illustrations are presentation artwork, not gameplay screenshots.
More creations by Joranne / Mes autres créations
Discover my other projects for Minecraft Java Edition. Click an image or a name to open its CurseForge page. Java mods, data packs, server plugins and modpacks are listed separately. Bedrock add-ons have their own project pages.
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Living Volcanoes Team
