Nightmare (The Shadow)

2.1.0 — Balance & Polish

Minecraft 1.21.11 + NeoForge 21.11.42 · Requires Java 21

Balance & Fairness

• Pure Darkness can no longer eat the world. It now only spreads within a configurable radius of a player (default 64 blocks), and the per-tick spread chance is configurable. Distant/unloaded areas are left untouched.
• Cave banishment is now safe. The Shadow only drops a player into a verified pocket — two air blocks for the body, a solid non-lava floor, and no lava touching it — and grants Slow Falling on arrival. If no safe spot is found, the banishment is cancelled instead of suffocating or burning the player.
• Shadow Water no longer chain-kills. Wither is reduced to level I (configurable) and applied at most once per contact-delay window (default ~1 second) instead of every tick. Darkness still applies continuously (harmless).
• Escalating Shadow HP is now capped (default +500 bonus) so the Shadow can't become unkillable. All in-game messages show the real capped value.

Configuration

A full config file (nightmare-server.toml) now exposes:

• shadow — respawn time, teleport range, heartbeat range, players-per-shadow ratio
• difficulty — HP per kill and HP bonus cap
• theft — steal interval (min/max) and search radius
• cave_banishment — cooldown (min/max)
• pure_darkness — spread chance and player-proximity radius
• shadow_water — Wither level and contact delay

Content & Polish

• Loot tables added — Pure Darkness drops itself; Shadow Water drops nothing (removes missing-table warnings).
• Container theft tied to players — the Shadow only loots when a player is nearby; radius/interval configurable.
• Ambient dread — faint smoke particles and occasional sculk-charge whispers from spreading Pure Darkness.
• Better block textures — subtle noise/ripple instead of flat black.

Fixes

• Advancements now actually load — shadow_slain was in the pre-1.21 plural advancements/ folder (ignored by 1.21.11); moved to singular advancement/, re-parented under the Adventure tab.
• Added a new "Touch of Darkness" advancement (granted when the Shadow's darkness first reaches you).

Technical

• New NightmareData.getShadowHpBonus() centralises the capped HP-bonus calculation.
• Cave-banishment, spread, theft, water, and HP values all read from NightmareConfig instead of hardcoded constants.