Give your NPCs real spells. Magic NPCs makes mobs cast spells from Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks — driven by datapacks and config, so any mob can become a spellcaster, with first-class support for Villager Recruits and a per-NPC magic-school system for recruits and villagers.

What it does

Datapack-driven. Drop a small JSON in data/<pack>/spellcasters/ naming an entity type and a list of Iron's spells — that mob now casts them. No tags, no add-on mods. Shipped loadouts make Recruits (and, as an example, skeletons) cast out of the box, and any pack can override them.
Magic schools (recruits & villagers). Assign each individual recruit or villager one of the nine Iron's schools — fire, ice, lightning, holy, ender, blood, evocation, nature, eldritch. Its spell pool is built dynamically from that school, so it even uses spells added by Iron's add-ons. Schools are assigned automatically on spawn (recruits by chance/rank, villagers by profession), and you can set any individual's school with the /magicnpcs school command or the School Tome item (right-click to cycle, sneak to clear).
Real Iron's casting. Spells fire through Iron's own cast path, so you get the genuine projectiles, particles, and sounds. Mobs have a real mana pool that regenerates and gates how often they cast.
Smart and safe. Casters check line of sight, range, mana, and cooldowns; they won't cast while sleeping, dead, or on Peaceful, and mana scales with difficulty. Friendly-fire protection keeps villagers, iron golems, players, pets, owners, and teammates out of the blast — and Recruits cast only at enemies using their own diplomacy, respect their command state, and scale mana with rank.
Works with your NPC mods. Beyond Recruits, optional config-gated support covers Guard Villagers, MCA Reborn, MineColonies, Easy NPC, Human Companions, More Villagers, and VillagersPlus — each behind a toggle that defaults off, so nothing changes until you opt in. Owned/teamed NPCs (e.g. Human Companions) get friendly-fire safety automatically.
Deeply tunable. A server config controls global on/off, mana/cooldown/regen balance, decision interval, difficulty scaling, line-of-sight and friendly-fire rules, a spell allow/deny list, equipment requirements, per-mod compat toggles, and the full magic-school system. Optionally, recruits can use Iron's own combat AI.

Make any mob a spellcaster (datapacks)

Magic NPCs is datapack-driven: drop a small JSON naming an entity type and a list of Iron's spells, and that mob casts them. A complete, minimal pack is two files under <world>/datapacks/my_magic/:

pack.mcmeta — for 1.20.1, pack_format is 15:

{ "pack": { "pack_format": 15, "description": "My Magic NPCs loadouts" } }

data/my_magic/spellcasters/skeleton.json:

{
  "entity_type": "minecraft:skeleton",
  "max_mana": 100,
  "mana_regen": 10,
  "spells": [
    { "spell": "irons_spellbooks:magic_missile", "level": 1, "weight": 3, "max_range": 16.0, "role": "attack" },
    { "spell": "irons_spellbooks:heal", "level": 1, "role": "support" }
  ]
}

Run /reload and skeletons now sling Magic Missiles (and heal when hurt). Each spell also accepts min_range/max_range, safety_radius (friendly-fire clearance — larger for AoE spells), and role (attack or support). Add "profession": "minecraft:cleric" to scope a villager loadout to a single profession. The full guide — annotated multi-spell examples, modded mobs, the spell-focus tag, and explicit-loadouts vs. magic-schools — is in the README and docs/loadouts/.

Requirements

Forge 47.4.0+ for Minecraft 1.20.1
Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks (1.20.1-3.15.x) + its dependencies GeckoLib, Curios API, PlayerAnimator — required for any spellcasting
Villager Recruits (1.15.0+) — optional, enables the recruit features

Magic NPCs does not include these mods; install them separately. Every NPC-mod integration is optional and loads safely whether or not that mod is present.

Notes

Server-side config; settings sync to clients automatically.
Villagers given a school only actually cast when they have a target (raids, guard mods) — their normal, peaceful behavior is preserved.
Open source under GPL-3.0. Iron's Spells and Villager Recruits are compile-only dependencies — neither is bundled or redistributed.

Magic NPCs

Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks

Minecraft Comes Alive (MCA)

Villager Recruits: Claim and Siege Update!