Mnemancy — the magic of memory

A memory-magic mod for Minecraft (NeoForge, MC 26.1+) — built for ModJam 2026 (theme: "Echoes of the Past").

Recover a lost language of memory from the dead. Relearn each word, combine words into spells, and spend a scarce essence you must never overdraw — reaching un-forgetting where the ancients slipped into oblivion.

If you ever lost an evening to scanning the world and filling out a research book, Mnemancy is a love letter to that era — Thaumcraft and the older magic mods that made discovery itself the reward.

What is Mnemancy?

The old world remembered in a tongue no one speaks anymore. Its words survive as memory fragments buried in ruins and clinging to the restless dead. Dig them up, wash them legible, and draw the runes out of them, slowly rebuilding a grammar of memory you can cast — always weighing what you spend against what you can afford to forget.

It's a progression mod about discovery: nothing is handed to you named. Essences and runes read as scrambled glyphs until you have truly relearned them, and — because the runes are randomised for each world — the language you piece together is unique to your save.

Getting started

1. Find memory fragments — brush the suspicious sand & gravel at archaeology sites and in the mod's own memory deposits, or earn them by answering the quests of ghosts, the echoes of dead players and mobs.
2. Clean them. Raw fragments are illegible. Consecrate a cauldron into a Washing Basin (with Natron) to soak them clean, or a Crucible (with a fragment) to boil reagents.
3. Read them. At the Research Bench, pick out a fragment's glyphs and draw its rune words out.
4. Keep your Grimoire. Your personal book of memory: take on the ghosts' quests, and watch it fill in as you relearn runes and essences — it tracks every source you've scanned, every word you've discovered, and your progress along each path.
5. See the world differently. Craft Verdandi's Lens and hold-scan blocks, creatures, and even the sky, sun, and moon.
6. Cast. Lay one Verb and one Noun rune on your hotbar (add modifiers to taste) and speak the spell — each cast wears the runes you used.
7. Mind what comes next. Deeper casting with — wands, altar infusions, and the cost of overdrawing memory — is on the way.
   

Includes JEI integration for consecration, boiling, and washing recipes.

The Three Paths — the Norns

Three interwoven paths, named for the three fates who tend the well of memory:

🜨 Urd — the past · Runes (playable)

Collect memory fragments, wash and boil them, and draw the runes out at the Research Bench. Discover each word by using it, then inscribe your growing vocabulary into castable form — a rune set unique to your world.

👁 Verdandi — the present · Sight & Casting (playable)

The path of seeing — and of acting in the moment. Verdandi's Lens reads the ancient essences latent in the world: hold-scan blocks, mobs, and celestial bodies to gather them. These essences do double duty: they're how you relearn the lost words (their names surface as your understanding grows) and the fuel that powers the Research Bench. Once you know a few words, cast them here and now: lay a Verb and a Noun on your hotbar, add modifiers to taste, and speak the spell.

🜏 Skuld — the future · Deep Casting & Consequence (coming soon)

Where it all comes due. Beyond casting from the hotbar lies the deeper craft: crystallised runes, wands and altar contraptions that draw on essence you've extracted and refined from the world, unlocking spells no bare rune can hold. And with that power, its price — overdraw the well of memory and the debts of Skuld and the tide of Lethe come to collect. Deep casting and the consequence economy are in active development.

Roadmap

• ✅ World generation — memory deposits & archaeology dig sites
• ✅ Fragment recovery (archaeology + ghost quests)
• ✅ Crucible (data-driven boiling) & Washing Basin (cleaning)
• ✅ Rune discovery & the Research Bench, with per-world rune randomisation
• ✅ Verdandi's sight path — Lens scanning & essence-driven word relearning
• ✅ Questing grimoire to guide your progression
• ✅ Verdandi's hotbar casting from combined words
• 🔜 Essence extraction & refinement — collect the raw essence and distil it into usable casting fuel
• 🔜 Altar infusion — infuse gear at the Altar to unlock more advanced equipment
• 🔜 Skuld's deep casting — crystallised runes, wand & staff powered by refined essence
• 🔜 Consequence economy — overdraw the well and begin to forget
• 🔜 More ghost appearances — echoes of slain mobs and roaming apparitions
• 🔜 New organic & mineral materials to craft and build with

Compatibility

• Loader: NeoForge · Minecraft: 26.1+
• Recommended: JEI (recipe browsing)

Credits

• Design & code: LemADEC
• Art & textures: LemADEC
• Built for: ModJam 2026 — thanks to the organisers and the jam community
• Powered by: NeoForge
• Inspired by: the Norse Norns — Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld — keepers of the well of memory; words of power casting from Ultima Underworld; and, in spirit, the great research-and-discovery mods that came before — Thaumcraft foremost among them.

Special thanks to everyone who tested and gave feedback during the jam.

Mnemancy is a ModJam 2026 entry and under active development — feedback and bug reports are very welcome.