Quintessence: Elemental Spellcraft & Runes
Draw your own spells in a pentagram of five elements. Forge runes and staffs, raise the dead, open gates between worlds, and rise from apprentice to archmage.
Curse Maven Snippet
What's new
Quintessence - changelog from 0.115.0 to 0.140.0
## 0.140.0 - 2026-10-07
### Fixed
- Tooltips in the Codex wrap long lines instead of running across the whole window, and the Rune Tray's rune icons no longer show through them.
## 0.139.0 - 2026-10-07
### Changed
- Homing projectiles look for their target every fourth tick instead of every tick, and keep it between looks. Spells with a homing rune cost the server a little less when many fly at once.
### Fixed
- The game no longer keeps a few small records (the pause between two spell sounds, the text of the last refused cast) of players who have left the server.
## 0.138.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Light Bridge** (aether, epic, held): while you hold it, a bridge of light grows under your feet and a step ahead, over a chasm or a lake. Each block costs 1 mana and fades after 8 seconds; you have at most 64 at once (the oldest goes first). It fills only empty air, never in claimed land, and the whole bridge vanishes when you log out, die or change dimension.
- **Tether** (air, epic, held): aim at a creature and it is tied to the nearest other creature beside it. While you hold the spell, 40 percent of every hit one of them takes is dealt to the other too. The tie never holds a boss or a friend, and it breaks when the two are more than 24 blocks apart, when one dies, or a moment after you let go.
- **Hearthfire** (fire, rare): a small calm fire at your feet for 90 seconds. Friends in it, you too, heal one health every four seconds, raw food lying in it is cooked as on a campfire, hostile creatures are pushed out and none spawns by itself inside. One at a time, five minutes to rest.
- New settings in the server config (`uniqueSpells`): the seconds, mana and block limit of the bridge, the share, break distance and partner distance of the tether, and the seconds, healing and healing pace of the hearth.
## 0.137.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Hunger of the Earth** (earth, legendary, a mythic spell): aim at a block and the earth eats every block joined to it, ores, stone, dirt and gravel alike, for one mana a block however hard it is, until your mana is gone. It spreads like a virus and runs mostly downward, a deep funnel into the ground. Chests, spawners, bedrock and claimed land are never touched, and a protection mod can still stop any block. It costs 30 mana to start and needs a minute to rest. Draw it with the Utility core.
- It also eats the blocks players placed. The server config (`dig`) can spare them (`hungerPlayerBlocks`); the game now remembers which blocks players place (`trackPlacedBlocks`), blocks placed before this version count as natural.
- Settings for the spell in the server config: mana per block, the most blocks one cast eats (5000), blocks per second (100) and how strongly it goes down.
## 0.136.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **New spell sounds, made for each element.** Every element has its own rise while you charge a spell, its own sound at the moment of the cast and its own sound where the spell lands: fire roars and crackles, water splashes and bubbles, earth thumps and cracks, air rushes and gusts, aether rings in crystal. A hybrid element plays the sounds of its two parents.
- **A shield that rises, a shield that breaks, a soft chime when a spell heals you or a friend, and a quiet hum under your permanent auras.** The hum plays only while an aura is on and follows the Ambience slider of the Codex Settings; the other sounds follow the Spells slider.
### Changed
- A shield that has taken its last point of absorption is now taken off and breaks with a sound, instead of lingering as an empty effect.
- The recordings of the game under the old element sounds are quieter, so that the new sounds lead.
## 0.135.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Seedburst** (nature, charged): tends the plants round you; the longer you charge, the wider it reaches. Ripe crops are harvested with their normal drops and replanted, unripe ones ripen at once, saplings grow into trees, and stems, berry bushes, cocoa and nether wart grow. It works only where you may break blocks.
- **Resonance Bell** (crystal, charged, rare): a ring of sound round you. Foes in it are slowed, weakened and thrown back; you and your friends get a short rush of speed and a layer of absorption. The longer you charge, the wider the ring.
- Both are found like any formula: a scroll, the Scriptorium, loot, the rift merchant or drawing their glyph. New settings in the server config (`uniqueSpells`): the most plants and trees one Seedburst may change and the seconds of the Bell's bonus.
## 0.134.0 - 2026-10-07
### Changed
- **`/quintessence perf` shows where the mod spends its time.** Every system that works each tick is now measured, and the command lists the twelve dearest with the total of all of them. On a test machine ten casters casting without pause cost the mod about a tenth of a millisecond a tick.
## 0.133.0 - 2026-10-07
### Fixed
- **The chandelier items show again.** The six Orb Chandelier items (orb, hanging, dayglow, dayglow hanging, grand hanging and dayglow grand hanging) failed to load their item model and showed as missing models in the inventory and in the hand.
- The Candle no longer makes the game warn about its wick texture.
### Changed
- The models of the Orb Chandeliers are half the size on disk (the same shape), so the mod loads a little less data.
## 0.132.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Morph.** A new rare spell turns you into a creature you have killed, or into a player you have killed in survival. You get the size of the creature and the way it moves (bats and ghasts let you fly, fish let you swim and breathe under water, spiders climb walls, rabbits and slimes jump high), you keep your own spells, strength and health, and creatures of the kind you wear leave you alone. It costs a little mana every second and ends when you cast it again, die, log out or run out of mana. It is found like any formula: a scroll, the Scriptorium, loot, the rift merchant, or by drawing its glyph.
- **Forms tab in the Codex.** It lists every kind of creature you have killed, with the number, and the players you have killed. A click picks the form, then you cast Morph.
- **Server options** (section `morph` of the server config): switch morph off, switch the shapes of players off, and the mana cost a second.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.132.0.
## 0.131.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Four new elements made of four and of all five base elements:** **Tempest** (fire, water, air, aether: chains and knocks back), **Solstice** (fire, earth, air, aether: ignites and glows), **Genesis** (fire, water, earth, aether: heals and cleanses) and the **Quintessence** (all five). Now every link of two elements makes an element, so a drawing is never refused for its mix. They have power and resistance attributes, icons and names for drawn spells.
- **Six new spells for the elements that had none:** **Prism Shard** (crystal, a shard that splits in three), **Frostbind** (ice, a frozen field that slows hard), **Slag Pool** (magma, a burning pool), **Dawnlight** (radiance, a wash of light that heals you and your friends and cleanses), **Dust Veil** (sand, a sandstorm that blinds and slows) and **Scald Cloud** (steam, a cone of scalding vapour). Each is found by drawing its glyph.
### Changed
- A new player starts with the five basic spells in the first five slots (Searing Orb, Mending Tide, Stoneskin, Tailwind and Arcane Seeker) instead of the plain bolt, beam and nova. The sketch forms are still known and can be picked in the spell wizard.
- The guide page "Elements: how to get them" says that every mix makes something.
## 0.130.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Basic spells.** Put one element on one point of the pentagram, draw no links, and the drawing casts a fixed basic spell of that element: **Searing Orb** (fire, a heavy orb that bursts and burns), **Mending Tide** (water, a small heal for you and your friends nearby, puts out flames), **Stoneskin** (earth, absorbs blows for 20 seconds), **Tailwind** (air, speed and a soft fall for 10 seconds) and **Arcane Seeker** (aether, a pulse that bends towards the nearest foe). They are known from the start and each costs at most 10 mana.
- **Guide page "Basic spells"** in the Start chapter.
### Changed
- A drawing with exactly one filled point never costs more than 10 mana (a lone hybrid element is still a procedural spell, held to the same limit). The limit is `lonePointMaxMana` in the server config.
- In the spell wizard the Form step is greyed out for a lone element and names its basic spell.
### Upgrade notes
- Drawings of one element with no links used to cast a tinted sketch form (bolt, beam and so on); from this version they cast the basic spell of fire, water, earth, air or aether. Drawings with two or more filled points or any link are unchanged.
## 0.129.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Your spells and other people's.** The effects of your own spells are drawn in full; those of other players and creatures are drawn at 60 percent (a slider in the Codex Settings, "Others' spells strength"), a little fainter, and thin out with distance: full up to 16 blocks, a fifth of the particles at 72.
- **Friend and foe rims.** The rings, cast circles and seals of the spells of others get a thin rim: blue for allies, other players and your pets, red for hostile creatures and players of another team. A switch in the Codex Settings ("Friend and foe rims") turns it off.
- **An effect budget.** One caster can make only so many particles a second (1500 at the highest quality) and all the casters you see together only 4000, so a crowd of casters no longer stalls the game. Both numbers are in the client config (`effects`), and the lower effect qualities take a share of them.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.129.0.
## 0.128.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Title cards for milestones.** A card like the one of a strong spell rises on the screen when a spell reaches a new mastery rank, when you finish a stage of your path at an Altar and when you bathe in the Liquid Mana of a Wellspring for the first time.
- **Shapes on elements.** A new setting in the Codex Settings draws a small shape beside the colour of each element in the Grimoire (Fire a triangle, Water a disc, Earth a square, Air a diamond, Aether a cross; a hybrid shows two), for players who tell colours apart badly.
### Changed
- The empty places of the Codex (no spells, no runes, no cores, an empty category, no perks waiting) now say what to do next.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.128.0.
## 0.127.0 - 2026-10-07
### Added
- **Cooldowns you can see.** A cooldown is now a clock sweep over the spell icon with a bright hand at its edge, the seconds left and a short flash in the spell's colour when it is ready again. It is the same on the spell slot, on the spell wheel and in the Grimoire list.
- **Spell strip.** With two or more spells inscribed, a row of small icons of all the spells of your wheel sits next to the selected spell: ready ones are ringed in their colour, recovering ones show their clock, the selected one has a gold frame. It can be switched off in the Codex Settings.
- **Reaction names.** When two elements react because of your spell, or against you, the name of the reaction (for example Steam Burst) floats over the creature in the colour of the reaction.
- **Welcome card.** A new player with no mana sees a card on the first join: what the magic of the game is, that nobody can cast before choosing a path, and the three paths in plain words. A button opens the First steps page.
### Changed
- The old pie on the spell wheel is replaced by the new clock.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.127.0.
## 0.126.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Words of the game.** A grey line in the tooltips of elements, hybrid elements, the points of the star, runes and the core says in one sentence what the thing is. A new Guide page, "Words of the game", lists 22 terms (mana, element, hybrid, rune kinds, core, form, formula, tier, mastery, path, Arcane Points and more).
- **A simpler spell wizard for a beginner.** Until your first cast the wizard shows Form, Elements, Links and Finish only; a plus on the strip (or the Every wizard step setting) shows the steps for runes and the core, and they come by themselves after your first cast. The Kits button waits until you have learned two runes of your own.
## 0.125.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **What next?** The top bar of the Codex shows one suggestion of what to do next, in order: choose a path, draw and inscribe a spell, cast it, join two elements to find a new one, find a rune scroll, spend your Arcane Points. A click on it opens the tab that helps. It can be switched off in the Codex Settings.
- **Key hints.** After you inscribe your first spell, a small bar at the top of the screen shows the keys to cast, to open the spell wheel and to open the Codex, with the names of your own key settings. It fades away after six casts.
- **Cooldown clock.** The spell slot next to the hotbar shows the cooldown as a clock sweep with the seconds left, and a short gold flash when the spell is ready again.
- **Refusals that say what to do.** The first three times you are refused for a reason a newcomer meets (an empty slot, something not learned yet, a drawing that does not work, no mana, a cooldown, and so on), the message also says what to do.
### Fixed
- The first cast of a strong spell raised a column of light right on the caster that filled their view; it is four columns round the caster now.
## 0.124.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Discovery toasts.** When you discover a spell, a formula, an element, a rune or a core, or find a secret, a card slides in from the top right with its icon, its name and what it is ("New spell!", "New element!", "A secret revealed!"), framed in its colour and the colour of its rarity. A band of light sweeps over it and sparks circle the icon, and a chime rises with the rarity (a rare discovery also gets a fanfare). Toasts queue and stack with the others. The Discovery toasts switch in the Codex Settings turns them off; the master switch against flashing keeps the card still.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.124.0.
## 0.123.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Your own look for a spell.** In the last step of the spell wizard (Finish) a "Look of the spell" panel lets you choose the shape of the projectile (orb, shard, ring, star, comet, helix), what its wake is made of (glow, sparks, glyphs, embers) and how it lands (ring, petals, spikes, glyph). Auto is what the drawing gives; change any part to make the spell your own. The choice is kept with the spell and also changes its finale.
### Upgrade notes
- Saved spells are untouched. The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.123.0.
## 0.122.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **A moment for a strong spell.** When you write a mighty spell (effect tier 3 or 4) into the Grimoire, a title card rises on the screen with its name and its rank ("A new spell is forged", then the name in the spell's colour and "Mighty" or "Legendary power"), with a short flash and a sound; it shows over the Codex too.
- **First cast.** The first time you cast such a spell, a bigger wave and a tall column of light go out from you, a second wave follows, a deep sound plays and the card shows again ("First cast"). Later casts are the usual size.
- **Finales.** The strongest spells (tier 4) end with a finale of their own at the landing: a rain of petals, spikes of light that shoot up, a glyph that glows on the ground, or falling stars, depending on the look of the spell.
- **Mastery shows.** A ring of light rises round you for every mastery rank the spell has reached, up to four, so a spell you have used a lot is seen to have grown.
- The flash is silenced by the master switch against flashing; the Spell looks switch also turns the finale off.
## 0.121.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Every spell looks like itself.** What you draw decides how a spell looks: the shape of the projectile (an orb, a crystal shard, a turning ring, a star, a comet with a long tail, or a bright heart with two lights circling it), what its wake is made of (a soft glow, sparks, glyphs or rising embers), how it lands (the usual ring, a fan of petals, spikes or a glyph on the ground) and a second colour that its trail fades into. The same drawing always looks the same, so you know your own spell at a glance; a shape rune, a path rune or a time rune that works in the spell picks the core, the wake or the landing for it.
- **The seal.** When you cast a spell you drew, the star you drew shows as a seal of light on the ground under you, and again where the spell lands: the outer ring, a line for every link you drew (star lines brighter than the sides) and a bright point for every element.
- A **Spell looks** switch in the Codex Settings (Effects) and a **Spell wizard** switch (Interface); with the looks off every spell looks as before.
### Changed
- The particle motion of the elements is stored with three bits per trait instead of four, to make room for the look; the difference is not visible.
## 0.120.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Rune Tray.** Click a rune socket on the canvas of the Grimoire tab and a tray opens with every rune of the game: a row of categories (Shape, Path, Time, Power, Trade, Hex), a search line that finds a name as you type (it ignores capitals and accents), the runes you have learned first, and the others dimmed with a note on where to learn them. A number on a rune says in how many of your spells it already sits. Click a rune to set it, Esc clears the search and then closes the tray.
- **Rune kits.** The new Kits button saves the five runes and the core of the spell on the canvas under a name (up to 16 kits) and puts them on another spell with one click. A rune or core you have not learned yet is left out with a message.
- **Spell wizard.** A strip of six steps over the canvas (Form, Elements, Links, Runes, Core, Finish) with a short hint for each, Back and Next arrows and a glow on the part of the drawing the step is about. The first step lists the forms you know, the last shows the generated name of the spell. The Free button hides the strip and the Wizard button brings it back; the free canvas works exactly as before.
### Changed
- **Runes and cores are knowledge now, not items.** Learn a rune from its scroll or a core from its crystal once, then write it into as many spells and sockets as you like: no rune stone or core crystal is put in or taken out, and nothing is lost when you replace one. Only a rune that works on a staff head still needs a rune stone.
- A core crystal is used up when it teaches you the core. A rune stone teaches you its rune when you right click it and do not know the rune yet, and is used up; if you know the rune the stone stays for a staff head.
- Carving rune stones moved to the Artificer's Table: click a rune without a stone in the staff head picker and a blank stone and the levels carve one.
- Apply in the Builds tab no longer counts stones and crystals: it writes every rune and core you have learned.
### Removed
- The refusal "you do not carry the rune stones or core crystals this spell needs", since nothing is carried any more.
### Upgrade notes
- Saved spells, kits and sets are untouched; stones and crystals still in your inventory keep working as described above. New client option `grimoireWizard` (default on). The network protocol changed, so client and server must both have 0.120.0.
## 0.119.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Elemental motes.** Small, cute flying creatures of the five base elements, in the manner of the Allay: a big head with a glowing pixel face (a different mood for each element), a small body with tiny arms, and ears, fins or wings that tell the element (flame ears, droplet and fins, stone horns with moss, wings, a crystal crown). Cubes fly round each one on their own path: fire embers that spiral up, water bubbles in a ring, two heavy earth pebbles, air puffs that weave in fast loops, five twinkling aether stars. They blink and squeeze their eyes when hurt.
- **Where they live.** Mostly within 48 blocks of a Wellspring and near ley lines, rarely elsewhere by the biome, the height, the weather and the time (fire in the hot and at noon, water in the wet, rain and at dusk, earth in caves, air high up, in thunder and at dawn, aether only at a ley crossing or a Wellspring at night). Far from the ley lines they fade away in the daylight. Overworld only.
- **How they behave.** Totally neutral: they drift, come to look at you and circle you when you cast a spell of their element. They answer a blow with a little bolt (1 to 3 damage). A bolt of their own element heals them and makes them large for a minute (12 health); the opposite element (fire and water, earth and air) hurts them twice as much; two opposite motes close together set off a reaction. At low health they flee and come back later.
- **Drops.** One or two essences of their element, and rarely (8 percent) a **Mote Core**, a new material kept for what comes next.
- Guide page "Elemental motes". Server config section `mobs.motes` (`enabled`, `perPlayer` 6, `global` 60, `spawnSeconds`, `chanceLeyLine`, `chanceWellspring`, `chanceElsewhere`, health, bolt damage, core chance, opposite bonus, grow time). Operators can put one in front of them with `/quintessence summon mote <fire|water|earth|air|aether>`.
## 0.118.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Tame spell.** A rare spell of the Nature element, learned from a scroll. Look at a creature (up to 16 blocks) and cast it: the creature becomes your companion. It follows you, defends you and takes the targets you fight, and the modes of the command key (Follow, Attack, Guard, Stay) work on it. It is kept: no timer, saved with the world, and when you are far away or offline it stays where it stands and comes back to you when you return. It has a name plate (the owner's name and its kind).
- **Limits.** You may keep 3 tamed creatures (one more for every two points of command limit above 2, at most 8). Each holds back a share of your maximum mana: 5 percent plus 0.1 percent for every point of its power, together with your thralls never above 80 percent. Bosses, nemeses, other players, other players' pets and creatures of the mod cannot be tamed.
- **Bond.** A tamed creature's bond with you grows while it is near you, with its kills and when you feed it (use food on it). At full bond it has 30 percent more health and damage and holds back 30 percent less mana.
- **Tamed tab in the Codex.** Lists your tamed creatures with their bond, the mana they hold back and where they are, and frees one (the first click asks, the second frees it, even if it is far away or in an unloaded chunk). A freed creature is wild again and gives your mana back.
- **Summon power** now also raises the health and damage of tamed creatures and of your familiars (Michael, Furras, Dante and the crystal spirit's bolts).
- A creature steered with the Mana Saddle now has small lights of mana drifting round its back.
- Guide page "Taming". Server config section `taming`.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed (50): update the client and the server together.
## 0.117.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Grand Hanging Orb Chandelier** and **Dayglow Grand Hanging Orb Chandelier.** A hanging chandelier three blocks wide: eight arms joined by a brass ring, a bigger glowing cube and nine little cubes circling it. It lights the whole 3 by 3 under it and needs that space free when you place it. Craft it from clockbrass ingots, arcane glass and a Hanging Orb Chandelier (a clock turns it into the Dayglow one).
- **Light under hanging chandeliers.** A hanging Orb Chandelier now puts invisible blocks of light in the cells under it (15, then 14), so the room below is brighter; they go away with the chandelier. Server config `cozy.chandelierLightCells` (2 by default, 0 turns it off).
### Fixed
- **Orb chandeliers showed a pink and black missing-model cube.** Their model went 0.2 over the limit the game accepts; it is within it now.
## 0.116.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Mana Saddle.** Craft it from a saddle, four manasteel ingots and an aether essence, then use it on a creature: you sit on its back, its own mind is switched off and it moves with its own movement (a zombie walks, a blaze or a ghast flies, a fish swims). Move with the usual keys, look where you want to go, and swing your arm to make the creature use its basic attack on what you look at. Steering costs mana every second: 0.5 plus 0.05 for each point of the creature's power (health + 3 x attack + 2 x armour), so a zombie costs about 2 a second and an iron golem about 8. The mana bar blinks under 20 percent. At zero the creature is stunned for 4 seconds, you are thrown off, and it goes back to its own behaviour. A standard saddle holds creatures up to a power of 150; it does not fit another player's pet or a creature someone else steers, and it is never used up. Sneak to get off, or use the saddle in the air. A creature is always given back if you log out, die or change dimension, or if it dies. Guide page "The Mana Saddle". Server config section `control`: `enabled`, `costBase`, `costSlope`, `standardThreshold`, `stunSeconds`, `warnShare`.
### Upgrade notes
- The network protocol changed (49): update the client and the server together.
## 0.115.0 - 2026-10-06
### Added
- **Continuity Keystone.** A hollow cube of dark astralite with a glowing core that keeps the chunk it stands in loaded, for free (no mana, no fuel). Craft it from an astralite block, a clock, a dimensional scroll and four ley dust. Each player can have 4 awake keystones in all dimensions together (the pocket dimension counts); a fifth stays dark with a message above the hotbar, and use wakes a dark one once a slot is free. Breaking a keystone, or anything that removes it, frees its slot and its chunk at once. Hold a keystone, or the Codex while sneaking, to see the borders of your chunk. Server config: `keystoneMaxPerPlayer` (4, 0 turns the block off) and `keystoneGlobalCap` (0 means no cap). Guide page "Continuity Keystone".
- **JEI page "How to draw a spell".** Shows the Pentagram of every formula you have learned: the links, the element on each vertex, the core and the rune stones it needs. A formula you have not learned yet only says so, so discoveries stay secret.
- **Carry a spell to the Grimoire.** In the Spells tab, drag a known spell onto the Grimoire entry of the contents list, then click a row to inscribe it there (Esc or a right click drops it).
### Changed
- **Grimoire buttons.** Inscribe is now one large gold bar along the bottom, Reset and Clear sit above it, and Share, Copy code and Import are three small icon buttons at the top right of the preview.
- **Unsaved drawing.** Opening another row while the drawing is not inscribed asks once (click the row again to leave it).
- **The Blood road starts easier.** Stage 0 now has 20 mana and 0.5 a second (was 10 and 0.25), and the blood pact takes 0.15 health per missing point of mana (was 0.3), so a new Blood caster gets about twice as many casts before resting. The old values still work in the config if you prefer them.
This mod has no additional files