Description
I should note first and foremost that if you are planning any specific compats with TTA for your own mod and care about your mod's lore being fully consistent as well, I'd recommend you ask me through Discord about it. A lot of mods are just made for fun and I respect that, but some are taken somewhat seriously and I respect that just as much, so don't be afraid to ask questions.
Millennia past, a sentient plague came not in a flash of light or fire, but as a drop of blood, viscous like pitch and black as tar, from an infected deity. The tarnish consumed the nations, the animals, the ghouls, and the demi-gods. It ate the parasites, the plagues, the beasts, and the dragons. But eventually, when all was gone and extinct, the tarnished army went back to their realm.
All that was left of the tarnish were some infected but dormant eggs implanted in the venom of cave spiders, contracted due to their close relationship with the mineshafts of the assimilated populous.
Basically, to start the infection, you get bitten by a cave spider. That's all. That means you'll hopefully be prepared considering you usually go to mineshaft during mid-game or later. Afterwards, quantities of tarnished spiders will become active in your world. Their interactions and continuation of the tarnished lifecycle while you're oblivious is only one of the challenges, although definitely the main one. This is meant to add a more unique infestation than "there's several hundreds of infectious parasites and some infected underground".
After the Tarnished Army has been awakened, entities will sometimes reveal themselves as infected when you hit them. This means they will be right in your face and prevent you from being very carnivorous.
There are several types of tarnished.
The Parasitic forms, which are tarnished underlings, pure forms, and tarnished parasites. As could be expected from a mod of infection and flesh-grading, underlings are larva that run from you, eventually growing into Tarnished Parasites. Parasites are actually tarnished and modified forms of the classic Rupter made stronger, being just another species infected and weaponized by the tarnish in its plan of multiversal assimilation. These infect mobs, but not blindly. All land animals are targeted, but a select few monsters aren't targeted. This means they will exploit the aim of skeletons and their spider-duets against you.
The Tarnished effect induced by parasites causes several interesting things if you manage to survive an encounter, such as a lower max health. If a mob is infected with tarnish but survives, it won't last long. In time, any infected that are not yet hostile will eventually succumb naturally even without other influences. This means your pets, your animals, and your villagers are a liability once the tarnish reaches them, and should be disposed of in some manner, preferably in an isolated area.
Tarnished mobs with a vanilla variant are not infectious, although will indeed commit genocide if given free roam. Their violence has a good reason, however. Based on a kill-evolution system based on RNG instead of conventual kill counting, the tarnished can mutate into the Crawling Corpses or several evolved forms.
Evolved tarnished are somewhat stronger forms created by a base tarnished entity succeeding the kill-evolution RNG and becoming something stronger. Entities generally immune to tarnish can be converted by evolved tarnished, and they are for the most part ranged combatants.
False mobs are very important when it comes to the lifecycle of the tarnished. They are mainly vectors for flesh-grading (flesh upgrading), aka merging, into stronger beings. However, they also fulfill roles of infection for entities without a specific variant. Crawling Hearts burrow into golems and skeletons to form entities of the Taken tier, and also fuse with False Quadrupeds to create humanoid tarnished forms.
Amalgamations are colonizer forms, being neutral yet extremely formitable if f*cked with. Formed by Crawling Corpses that consumed enough biomass, Amalgamations help create nests around themselves. Mobile Amalgams are titan-sized yet gentle, using their aura to infect entities around them, unlike the aggressive chomping of the more violent tarnished, although getting too close and personal will offend them deeply. Immobile Amalgams spawn entities and infest the ground beneath them, acting similar to beacons.
The Nullified are the bosses of the mod, functioning as the true end of the tarnished lifecycle. When an Amalgamation dies, it has a chance of turning into the Nullified. The Nullified are ancient tarnished forms from their last invasion of this realm, hyper-evolved and dripping with tarnish. They are near unstoppable, and if you see one, pray you have good shelter.
The infection system is quite interesting, as entities without tarnished variants will become something based on their max health. This keeps the overall strength intact. Along with this, specific compats with other mods, like Atlatitans becoming Behemoths and Infector-types from chosen infection mods becoming tarnished parasites, have been made and will be growing. This will eventually extend to special tarnished variants for modded entities.
A very recent addition is the shared memory, the thing that binds all tarnished. Basically if one of them is battling a mob, the others will be alerted across vast distances. This means hordes will single in on single targets.
Extra notes: If you want to activate the infection early, there's a gamerule related to the spawning of the tarnished spiders. Turn it on and you're good to go.
There's a lore accurate gamerule that makes the tarnished effectively immortal, since they have the same kind of "all parts are living and independent" property that The Thing has.
Textures were created by slasher_wolf, models created by a DJ (ROTK developer), Lem (rustyclever), Wizzy the Wiz Kid, and Dr. Wiki. Props to Aarokend, Monbox, and Tacoboy (I shouldn't need to link these names, you probably know them from infection mod battles) for some coding help, among other things.
After all, what's a hivemind with only a single host?
Entity models and gameplay features based on Scape And Run: Parasites, From Another World, Phayriosis, Sculk Horde, and Mutationcraft. Go play with those, they actually have good models, and textures that aren't just merely monochrome with a sprinkle of extra detail.
https://discord.gg/93Zpq3ShCV is my discord server's link.