Runeborn | Soulslike RPG progression

Soulslike RPG progression for Minecraft

Slay foes for runes, rest at Ember Shrines to level up, and grow eight attributes that scale 74 armaments. Reinforce and infuse your weapon, fight leveled champions, and summon seven Sovereigns for their relics and crown shards. Clean menus, a readable HUD and an in-game Codex explain it all as you play.

3.0 "Rise of the Runeborn" is available for Fabric and Forge on 1.20.1 and Fabric and NeoForge on 1.21.1, 26.2 and 26.3. Pair it with RPG Attribute System for shared leveling.

• Every kill pays runes: more for higher-level foes, far more for champions and Sovereigns.
• Spend them at an Ember Shrine on Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith and Arcane. Your rune level is the sum of your attributes, and each level costs more than the last.
• Every stat previews current → after before you confirm: HP, FP, stamina, poise, discovery, warding, healing and status potency, plus your weapon's attack power.
• Fall and your runes stay where you died, marked by a green glow. Walk back to reclaim them. Die on the way and they are gone.
• Begin as one of 10 origins, from the balanced Knight-Errant to the Ashborn, who rises with nothing.

• 74 armaments in 19 classes: daggers, straight, thrusting and curved swords, katanas, twinblades, greatswords, colossal swords, axes, greataxes, hammers, great hammers, spears, halberds, reapers, fists, whips, staves and sacred seals.
• Physical, magic, fire, lightning and holy damage, with S–E scaling grades and attribute requirements. Wield a weapon you can't handle and its damage drops hard.
• Bleed, frost, poison and blight build up with every hit and burst when full.
• 23 weapon arts on <kbd>R</kbd>, paid with FP: Unsheathe, Crimson Flurry, Stormcall, Lunar Wave, Shadowstep, Voidstar Fall and more.
• 12 spells. Staves cast sorceries that scale with Intelligence; sacred seals cast incantations that scale with Faith.
• Vanilla and modded swords, axes and tridents scale with your attributes too.

• Tempering stones take standard armaments to +25, and lustrous stones take legendary ones to +10. Foes drop them, with higher tiers deeper in the world.
• 13 affinities (Heavy, Keen, Quality, Magic, Fire, Flame Art, Lightning, Sacred, Cold, Blood, Poison, Occult) reshape a weapon's damage and scaling. Craft a blank whetstone, then add reagents.
• Every change shows the attack power and scaling grades it gives before you pay.

Craft an Ember Shrine (a campfire with gold ingots, blaze powder and polished deepslate) and kindle it. Each shrine takes a name from the land around it.

• Rest to restore HP and FP, refill your flasks and bind your respawn.
• Level Up, Reinforce, Infuse and divide your Flasks between Ember (HP) and Azure (FP).
• Travel to any shrine you have kindled.
• Trade at the Merchant, exchange Relics for legendary armaments, equip a Crown Shard, or use a Tear of Rebirth to reshape your build.

Combine six Sovereign Fragments, carried by champions, with a token to craft a sigil. Use the sigil to call its Sovereign. Each one has its own abilities, a second phase and a boss bar.

Sovereign	Level	Token	Crown shard
The Dusk Rider	15	Clock	— (also rides at night)
Varghast the Grafted	20	Iron Block	+5 to every attribute
Sylvara, Frost Matron	25	Blue Ice	+15% max health, immune to frostbite
Kaelthar the Stormcaller	30	Lightning Rod	+20% lightning damage, +30% stamina recovery
Ysolde, the Crimson Bloom	35	Redstone Block	Kills restore 3% health, bleed procs 2%
Morgrath, Ash Sovereign	50	Netherite Scrap	+15% physical damage, immune to fire
Vaelorn, the Wyrm-Ravager	70	Dragon's Breath	Spells cost 20% less FP, FP recovers twice as fast

• A felled Sovereign drops a relic, which you exchange at a shrine for one of its legendary armaments, and its crown shard.
• The Ender Dragon (crown shard: +10% to all damage dealt), Wither, Warden and Elder Guardian drop relics of their own.
• Fair multiplayer rewards: everyone who fought gets runes and loot.

Runeborn shares its progression with RPG Attribute System.

• Shrine level-ups need RPG Attribute System installed.
• Every rune level you buy at a shrine also grants RPG levels, through its own level-up pipeline: points, rewards and its banner. Spend those points in its Level Up screen (<kbd>K</kbd>).
• The two HUDs stack cleanly: Runeborn's bars move below its level display, wherever you anchor it.
• Without RPG Attribute System, Runeborn still runs. Your origin's attributes carry you while you reinforce, infuse and hunt, and the shrine explains how to unlock leveling.
• rpgLevelsPerRuneLevel sets how many RPG levels each rune level grants, and levelUpRequiresRpgAttributeSystem: false lets Runeborn level on its own.

• The Codex (status screen, <kbd>I</kbd>) has chapters on runes, shrines, attributes, flasks, armaments, arts, combat, the world, Sovereigns and controls.
• It shows the crafting grids for the shrine, flasks, stones, every whetstone and every sigil. The same recipes are added to your recipe book.
• Feats: a Runeborn advancement tab with 22 milestones, from kindling your first shrine to claiming every crown shard.

• HP, FP and stamina bars that grow with your stats, a rune counter, flask charges, your weapon art, the target's level and status buildup, and Sovereign boss bars. Vanilla hearts and armor are hidden.
• Stamina for attacks and dodges, and a dodge roll with brief invulnerability on <kbd>Left Alt</kbd>.
• Foes gain levels with distance from spawn, and the Nether and the End are deadlier still. Champions roll affixes such as Ironclad, Frenzied, Stormtouched, Warded or Phasing.
• Cinematic banners for the moments that matter: shrine kindled, champion slain, Sovereign felled, runes recovered, and YOU DIED.

• config/runeborn-server.json: rune gain, level, smithing and merchant cost multipliers, rune loss on death, stamina, PvP damage, mob level curves per dimension, champion chance, Dusk Rider spawns, shrine travel and the RPG Attribute System link.
• config/runeborn-client.json: HUD toggles, scale and offset, bar numbers, banners, target and boss bars.
• Operator commands: /runeborn runes, /runeborn attribute, /runeborn origin reset, /runeborn summon, /runeborn reload, /runeborn info.

Minecraft	Loaders	Java
26.3	NeoForge, Fabric	25
26.2	NeoForge, Fabric	25
1.21.1	NeoForge, Fabric	21
1.20.1	Forge, Fabric	17

• Fabric builds need Fabric API. Forge and NeoForge builds need nothing else.
• RPG Attribute System is optional, but shrine leveling stays locked without it.
• Install Runeborn on both the server and every client.
• Runeborn 3.0 is a new mod (id runeborn). Worlds and items from Fine Tuned Weaponry 2.x do not carry over.

Why can't I level up at the shrine? Install RPG Attribute System alongside Runeborn, or set levelUpRequiresRpgAttributeSystem to false in config/runeborn-server.json.

How do I craft the Ember Shrine? Open the Codex (<kbd>I</kbd>, then Codex) or your recipe book. It is a campfire with gold ingots, blaze powder and polished deepslate.

Where do I get Sovereign Fragments? From champions: about one hostile mob in 25 spawns with a gold title such as "Ironclad Zombie" and carries them (eliteChance).

Does it work with other weapon mods? Yes. Swords, axes and tridents from other mods get scaling from your attributes. Turn it off with vanillaWeaponsScale.

Can I use it on a server? Yes. Player data is saved per world, and every value is server-authoritative.