Vespers is a multi-dimensional mod, encompassing 3 dimensions, and over 40 unique biomes, telling the story of a fallen heaven, redemption, fate, and ultimately life. Choose to know Christ, or choose to hate him. The choice is yours, and ultimately, your fate and the world's is in your hands. In this mod, explore three dimensions: Heaven, Hell, and the Vespers, the original heaven. The story that takes place, is that once upon a time Satan and his army found a way into heaven. Christ, in his over-abounding love, because even he loves the demons, left heaven, and made a new one; however, a few brave saints and priests stayed back to fend off a total takeover, in the hopes one day someone would come to help them restore it. In this mod, you travel to the Vespers dimension, meet with Orthodox saints, find scripture fragments, visit churches, and ultimately, find Satan, where you choose your master. Heaven or hell, the choice is yours. Built for Minecraft 1.20.1 Forge, Iron's Spellbooks is fully optional, meaning every regalia piece grants spell stats when installed, but nothing in the mod requires it.

The Vespers. This is the original heaven, still standing, and still occupied by those who stayed. It is always evening here, because the light left with Christ. Explore over 40 unique biomes above and below ground, cut cleanly on shared erosion knots so the terrain and the biome always agree, complete with its own custom cave system, unique carvers, and surface entrances.

Hell. Located directly underneath the Vespers dimension, this is a dark realm with no sky, no light, and ash stretching all the way to the horizon. Here, you will find their massive labyrinth built into the deep catacombs, and their grand city standing at the very bottom, built entirely out of what they remembered of home.

Heaven. This is the new heaven that Christ made afterwards, and it is not randomly generated at all. It is a completely hand-built land shipped as 66 region files, featuring a grand lake, a magnificent castle, five Orthodox saints to meet, and Christ himself standing upon the water.

77 Unique Creatures. Encounter 77 creatures throughout your journey, where 7 are powerful bosses to defeat, 28 are passive creatures, and 6 of those can even be herded by the player.

26 Structures. Explore 26 massive structures, built from over 167 custom templates. Discover looming towers, a sprawling citadel, a frozen rimehold, a dark nether mansion, an ancient labyrinth tucked under the overworld, and a sacred living city filled with people who will gladly trade with you.

Nine Regalia Sets. Collect nine full regalia sets, one for each school of magic, with each granting a unique power that only activates once you are wearing the complete set. You can also obtain seven orisons and six holy prayer books; not one of these prayer books is a simple spell, but rather, each does what the practice itself does, and two of them simply cannot be hurried.

79 Books of Scripture. Discover 79 unique books of holy scripture, containing one verse each, all held by a single modular item. When heaven was taken, the scripture went with the building, leaving it torn apart and scattered across the entire realm. Thirteen of these books cannot be found in any normal chest, requiring you to seek out a priest, track down a hermit, and more to earn them.

Upon your first login, you will receive two guide books, which you can choose to read or ignore.

1. Build the gate. To start your journey, craft Chancelstone by placing amethyst shards on the corners, obsidian on the edges, and a gold block in the middle to yield four blocks. Build a standard frame just like a Nether portal, ranging anywhere from 2x3 up to 21x21, where the corners do not matter. Next, craft the Censer Key using amethyst shards, an echo shard, and a blaze rod, meaning you will need to conquer an ancient city and a nether fortress first. Strike the frame itself rather than the portal air by clicking the top face of any block in the bottom row, and then step inside the sheet for eight full seconds without leaving to cross over.

2. Survive a night. Once you arrive, nothing in the Vespers is waiting for you, and no immediate events trigger upon your arrival. Gather wood, place a solid door, and find something to eat to keep your strength up. Sleeping in a bed will not pass the dark night here, so always carry your own light.

3. Find a church. Seek out the Gloam Folk, who are the brave people that stayed behind to defend the realm. They are still actively keeping their villages and churches alive, and they will trade with you, even selling you precious scripture fragments for emeralds, showing just how long they have been waiting for help.

4. Pick up leaves. Whenever you pick up a blank fragment while exploring, it instantly transforms into a book of scripture you have not read yet, ensuring you never roll a duplicate. Simply right-click to read it, or sneak-right-click to print the holy text directly into your chat if you prefer not to lose your screen view.

5. Take the three strongholds. Follow the ancient Typikon, which places three major strongholds directly between the humble villages and the hardest books to obtain. Conquer each one, braving the depths to face whatever deadly enemy waits inside carrying a boss bar.

6. Walk the three hard roads. Thirteen holy books are guarded and held by specific figures in the world. Craft the Holy Censer and channel it steadily on a Deluded Elder until his corruption is fully cleansed, freeing a suffering priest who was worn down rather than killed, who will never fight back and cannot die. Craft the Tuning Fork to track down and hunt a silent Hesychast, who has been praying in total isolation for so long that you cannot normally see him. Finally, build a Light Well, a Light Altar, and Chancel Prisms, carefully walking the focused beam of light from one point all the way to the other.

7. Lay them all on a Scriptorium Desk. Bring your collected fragments to a Scriptorium Desk, which functions as a sacred pedestal rather than an ordinary chest. Placing a book down on the desk is permanent, and because the desk is shared, a whole group of players can fill one together. You can right-click the desk with an empty hand at any time, and it will tell you exactly which scriptures are still missing.

8. Bind the book at a Chancel Lectern. Construct a Chancel Lectern using parquet over a bookshelf over palestone bricks, while keeping a standard book in your inventory. The lectern directly checks your personal spiritual journey rather than your items, asking if you have truly read all sixty-six primary scriptures, meaning simply carrying a book someone else completed will not work.

9. Follow the compass. Binding the complete book automatically raises a fully lit, functioning gate somewhere out in the world, while placing a Heaven Compass in your hands pointing straight toward it. You do not have to build your own gate, but if you want to craft one anyway, build a frame four blocks wide and five blocks tall using palestone masonry, striking it directly with your bound book.

10. Be baptised. Step through into Heaven, where Christ is waiting for you at the edge of the great lake. Engage in five solemn exchanges, after which he gently leads you out into the water and holds you. The holy rite takes roughly half a minute, during which you will have no movement controls, leaving you with a permanent Chrism blessing that survives death.

11. Go down. The dark realm of Hell waits directly beneath the Vespers, and entering it requires you to have read no scripture at all. Find a dark Altar, ignite it using a flint and steel, and offer a pure Essence of Faith upon it to make the entire floor collapse beneath your feet.

12. Call him up. Summon Satan by placing a Blackstone Socle directly in the middle, gold blocks on the four cardinal sides, and ancient debris on the four diagonal corners. Always place the center socle down first, and finish the ring by placing one of the outer blocks by hand. He will refuse to appear in the overworld or the Vespers, making this dark ritual your only way to reach him.

13. Meet him. When you summon him for the very first time, he will be remarkably civil, and he will genuinely mean what he says. He will speak with you, agree with your views on the Fallen, and be entirely right about most of it before offering you a dark book. Take that book, lay it upon the scriptorium desk, and watch what it does to your hard-earned work.

14. Build the altar again. Construct the summon altar a second time, and the figure that answers your call will be fully armed for war. You cannot kill this masked form; instead, once you push him down to his very last heart, he will slice off his own mask, leaving it behind in your hands as he retreats.

15. Build it a third time, and choose your master. Rebuild the altar a third time to face him once more, where he demands his mask back. If you hand the mask over, he sets his dark crown directly in your hands, six monstrous creatures in his house will permanently stop trying to kill you, and Heaven will shut its gates to you forever. If you refuse, the being that rises will shed all pretenses, entering a battle to the death where defeating him yields Book 65 directly from his body, which drops nowhere else in the game. Choose your path once, because neither answer can ever be chosen twice, and your decision can never be undone.

During the final confrontation, Satan surrenders once he drops down to 5% health. The final killing blow is refused, and he will instead take an iron, diamond, or netherite sword or axe directly out of your hand, peacefully ending the fight without a death. The mod binds your ultimate choice directly to your player data rather than the entity, meaning your allegiance survives dying, and two different players in the same world can choose completely different masters.

If you align with darkness, the cult will gladly give you work across six strict quotas; completing the sixth quota allows you to bypass the mask trial entirely, meaning you can end up choosing your master without ever being directly asked. However, if you let a single quota expire, you will immediately lose three hearts of maximum health for twenty full minutes, all of your magic scrolls will burn to ash, and a hostile presence will suddenly be standing right next to you.

Inside the sprawling mansion, the floor will constantly open up right beneath your feet. Pushing on the walls causes them to shrink away before growing back five seconds later, while hidden jump pads will violently launch you back the way you came, showing that none of the architecture is mere decoration. Ultimately, nothing in this mod is strictly forced upon you except the gathering of the scripture itself, leaving the rest of the world entirely in your hands to explore or leave alone.