rivencraft/README.md

Rivencraft

Rivencraft is a clean, incremental port of the ideas and gameplay of Mystcraft Legacy to Minecraft 1.21.1 on NeoForge.

The bootstrap and books/linking milestones are complete. The project currently provides functional Linking Books and randomly seeded, persistent vanilla-like Ages created from page-free Descriptive Books. Symbols, instability, and the full writing mechanics have not been ported yet.

Linking Book

Craft a Linking Book from a vanilla book and an ender pearl, then use it in the air. An unbound book opens a screen where it can be named and bound to the current location. A bound book opens its destination screen and travels when its preview panel is clicked. The destination is stored on the item and survives inventory and world saves. Travel only succeeds if the target dimension is loaded and a non-fluid, passable landing position can be found nearby.

Successful book travel plays Mystcraft Legacy's original linking sound at both the departure and arrival locations.

Right-click an empty vanilla lectern with a Rivencraft book to convert it into a Book Stand and place the book on it. Use a Linking Book on the stand by right-clicking with an empty hand. Sneak-right-click with an empty hand to take the book back and restore the vanilla lectern. Breaking a Book Stand drops both the stored book and a vanilla lectern.

Bound Linking Books request a server-validated 32-by-32-by-32 snapshot around their destination. The book keeps its target-centered close-up framing as a rotating Ponder scene on the left page, backed by the destination biome's sky color. The snapshot is visual only; the server independently validates every link.

Descriptive Book

Open a page-free Descriptive Book, name its Age, and press Create. Rivencraft assigns the book a permanent Age UUID, creates a dedicated vanilla-like runtime dimension, and prepares a five-by-five cobblestone arrival platform at the highest suitable nearby terrain. Solid blocks and tree leaves are valid footing. Candidate columns are scanned from the top down so cave floors are not selected, and fluid-covered columns are excluded. If no suitable surface is available, the platform is generated at Y=63. Reopen the book and click its preview to travel. Copies of the written book continue to resolve to the same persistent Age across server restarts.

Linking creates a bound Return Link to the exact source position and orientation according to the configured Return Link policy.

Server owners can set descriptive_books.return_link_mode in Rivencraft's server config to ON_CREATION (default), ALWAYS, or DISABLED.

Requirements

• A Java 21 JDK
• Minecraft 1.21.1
• NeoForge 21.1.251 or newer in the 21.1 line
• Ponder 1.0.82 for Minecraft 1.21.1 (client)
• Dynamic Dimensions AR Edition 0.9.1 and Bad Packets 0.8.2 (client and server)

Build and run

./gradlew build
./gradlew runClient

The built mod is written to build/libs/.

Versioning

Rivencraft versions use x.y.z.b:

• x changes for a major public release.
• y changes when a development milestone is completed.
• z changes for each release slice within the current milestone.
• b changes for bug fixes and additional work within that release slice.

The build component resets to zero when a new release slice begins. Completing a milestone increments y and resets both z and b to zero. For example, milestone 2 development can progress from 0.1.1.0 to 0.1.1.1, then 0.1.2.0; completing the milestone produces 0.2.0.0.

Porting approach

Mystcraft Legacy targets Forge for Minecraft 1.12.2. Rivencraft therefore ports one subsystem at a time onto current registries, codecs, data packs, and NeoForge APIs instead of importing the legacy source tree wholesale.

See docs/PORTING.md for the initial roadmap and provenance rules.

License

Rivencraft is licensed under LGPL-3.0-or-later. Mystcraft Legacy is also LGPL-3.0; copied or adapted upstream code must retain its copyright and license notices. See LICENSE and NOTICE.