Quintessence: Elemental Spellcraft & Runes

Quintessence

Draw your spells. Grow your power. Make magic your own.

Quintessence is a standalone elemental magic mod for Minecraft 1.21.1 (NeoForge). You don't pick spells from a list. You draw them on a Pentagram in your Grimoire.

Early development: Quintessence is in an early stage of development. Expect rough edges, unbalanced numbers and the occasional bug. I plan to keep updating it regularly with new content, fixes and balance changes. Back up your worlds before updating, since some changes may affect existing saves.

Core mechanics

• Pentagram spell crafting. Five elements sit on the five vertices: Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Aether. Lines between them form the spell. Combining elements gives hybrid elements, and some spells are secret formulas you discover by experimenting.
• Runes and cores. Runes change a spell's shape, path, timing and power. Cores (attack, protection, support, control, transport, utility) set its purpose.
• Three paths of mana power. You start with no mana. Awaken at an Altar or Wellspring and choose a path: Natural, Blood (stronger spells, but you pay a debt) or Technical. Hybrid paths come later.
• Skill tree and builds. A large skill tree, 16 ready-made builds and a Library for managing spells, with fusion and sharing.
• Modular staffs. Build them at the Artificer's Table. Heads carry runes, and staffs can be named and holstered. Add wings, robes, plate and steampunk armour.
• Mana infrastructure. Mana cells, a condenser, manalite, manasteel, astralite and starsteel.
• Travel. Blink, rift steps, recall, portals and permanent astralite gates, a pocket dimension home with windows, flight and a far gate.
• Necromancy. Souls, thralls, grave altars and nemesis thralls, with a Dread mechanic.
• Dig spells. Tunnels, area digging and beams, with Silk and Vein runes.
• Bestiary rifts and nemeses. Rifts are built from the mobs you have killed. Magical weather includes rare fog, meteors and a Blood Moon.
• Familiars and pets. Several companions to choose from, and a rift merchant.
• Cozy extras. Lanterns, fireflies, a lab furniture set and a calm ambience.
• Visuals. Glowing pixel-art spell effects, emissive textures, animated magic circles and a book-style in-game Codex with guide, statistics and settings. It is fully translated into English and Polish.
• Multiplayer-ready. Duels, ally protection and server-side balance config.

Required mods

• GeckoLib 4.9.3
• SmartBrainLib 1.16.11

Optional mod support

• Lodestone: extra particles and screen shake
• Curios: staff holster and charm slots
• JEI / EMI: recipe pages
• Jade: tooltips
• FTB Chunks and FTB Teams: claim protection and teams
• Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks: compat for casting and elements
• KubeJS / CraftTweaker: scripting and datapack recipes
• Sodium Dynamic Lights: light from held items and spells
• Twilight Forest, Aether, Undergarden, Deeper and Darker: dimension and world integration (see below)

Spells and effects are also exposed through an element-hit API, so other mods can interact with them.

Dimension and world mod integration

Quintessence plays nicely with other dimension mods:

• Twilight Forest: the Dimensional Scroll and permanent Gate Keys can lead to the Twilight Forest. The key is crafted with a Naga Scale, so you need to defeat the first boss first. Manalite also generates in its biomes and in mazestone.
• Aether, Undergarden, Deeper and Darker: manalite ore also generates in their biomes (holystone included). Gate destinations for them are planned.
• All of this is optional and only activates when the other mod is installed.

Planned integrations

• More gate destinations: the Aether, Undergarden, Deeper and Darker and other dimension mods, each unlocked by a progression item from that mod, like the Twilight Forest key.
• FTB Quests: task types for spells, paths and rifts, plus rewards.
• Bountiful: magic bounties.
• EMI: full recipe and spell-info support, matching what JEI has now.
• WTHIT / The One Probe: tooltips for Mana Cells, Wellsprings and owned blocks.
• Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks: their spells shown inside the Codex.
• Neat / ToroHealth: the mod's health bars hide automatically when these are installed.
• More modpack tools: extra config, tags and loot-modifier hooks for pack makers.

Planned content

• Bosses: elemental Titans with phases, personal loot and group scaling, plus a crypt elite.
• New mobs: hostile and resource-fauna mobs, and a sky mount.
• Floating Aether Isles: rare sky islands to reward flight.
• More spells: a bigger Fire and Water batch, size spells, spells with conditions and fused chains, and further secret spells.
• Progression: mastery ranks, more attributes, advancements, challenges and titles.
• Exploration and travel: an Atlas, defence structures and social features.
• Cozy extras: outfits, plushies, seats and hammocks, curtains, rugs, books and lore.
• Polish: continued visual and sound improvements.

Feedback and ideas

I'm open to feedback, bug reports and ideas. If something feels off, unbalanced or missing, or you have a spell, mechanic or integration you'd like to see, tell me in the comments or on the issue tracker. The roadmap is shaped by what players want, so every suggestion is read.

AI disclosure

Quintessence was created with the help of AI.

Found a bug or have a suggestion? Report it on [GitHub](https://github.com/SolJodowana/mods-issues-and-suggestions/issues)