I have recently made a mod that adds these so-called “relics” to my family server, and I thought I’d make a proper post detailing them. After playing with them for a good 30 hours or so, I think they’re in a really good place. Note: I cannot release the mod, since all of the textures are taken from other mods – see if you can guess which mod each texture is from!
The purpose of these relics is two-fold: allow players to perform certain commands in an immersive and balanced way, and add variety to loot chests. First, as any long-term world owner (especially a server owner) will tell you, sometimes using commands is necessary! Playtime is limited, especially in a family setting, and it becomes a choice between “cheating” and just not having a good time. Maybe you’re exploring the End as a group for hours only for someone to die: sure, you could pause everything for 30 minutes while they rejoin the group.. or you could “/tp” and carry on having fun. Or maybe you’ve been searching for the stronghold for a good 20 minutes now, and people are getting bored: sure, you could keep on manually searching… or you could change your gamemode to spectator for 10 seconds and carry on having fun.
Of course, commands are very powerful, and can break the game completely if used too often, so these items are **uncraftable**. Instead, they must be found in the world, which fulfills their secondary purpose: adding some variety and spice to loot chests, some of which can get quite boring after a while. Since these relics are always useful, it’s suddenly always a good idea to check the dungeon chests, or that ruined portal, since it *might* contain a relic. They also get added very rarely to fishing loot tables and wandering villagers, adding interest to those activities as well, and making it possible to find them even when not exploring. The important part is that they are not able to be farmed: they are always rare.
Anyways, onto the relics themselves, from most common to most powerful:
– **Experience Gem** (rarity = common): grants moderate XP, simple as that. This one doesn’t replace any command, but since vanilla is rather stingy with XP, they’re always useful. This is the relic you’ll encounter the most while out exploring.
– **Sunlight Shard** (rarity = uncommon): sets time to day, and clears weather. Sometimes you want to make it daytime without sleeping in a bed, and this does that. You’ll only find these on the surface: villages, ruined portals, shipwrecks…
– **Spectral Fragment** (rarity = uncommon): highlights all mobs within range. For when you’re caving and you know there’s another cave nearby, but you just can’t find it. Or when there’s a zombie trapped in your base but you have no idea where. Mostly found in underground dungeons, mineshafts, etc.
– **Biome Seedling** (rarity = rare): sets the biome in a radius around you. Can be useful to builders to change the grass color, or to enable certain mob spawns (fish for ponds, etc). These are quite rare, but can be found in trail ruins, or occasionally villages.
– **Homing Crystal** (rarity = rare): teleport to a friend. Based on the “Telepass” mod, it’s a simple tp implementation that allows you to claim a crystal, then give it to your friend so they can teleport to you once, no GUI needed. Quite rare, but can often be found in buried treasure.
– **Storm Echo** (rarity = rare): summon a thunderstorm. Pretty niche, but sometimes you just get sick of waiting for one. Quite rare, but try ocean ruins for a higher chance.
– **Pearl of Insomnia** (rarity = rare): set time to night, and enable phantom spawning. Pairs well with disabling natural phantom spawning: you don’t get the annoying game mechanic, but you can still farm them when you want, to get the membranes. Higher chance to find them in Jungle Temples.
– **Phasing Vial** (rarity = epic): now we’re talking. Enables 10 seconds of Spectator gamemode (phase through walls), before getting teleported back to where you drank the potion. Extremely useful obviously, but exceedingly rare: try ancient cities for a higher chance.
– **Totem of Keeping** (rarity = epic): the best one. Keep your inventory on death (but the totem breaks). Only way to protect against dying in the void, or in lava. You won’t find these in the overworld: try the Nether or the End for a slight chance.
And there we have it! We’ve been using these on our server for a few months, and loving them. What do you think?
_sounak on
AI slop
The_Potato_Turtle on
honestly I don’t think sunlight shard or insomnia pearl should be kept, they’re both effects that can be gotten by just waiting a bit and they’d just crowd the loot table imo, otherwise these seem like a cool idea
4 Comments
I have recently made a mod that adds these so-called “relics” to my family server, and I thought I’d make a proper post detailing them. After playing with them for a good 30 hours or so, I think they’re in a really good place. Note: I cannot release the mod, since all of the textures are taken from other mods – see if you can guess which mod each texture is from!
The purpose of these relics is two-fold: allow players to perform certain commands in an immersive and balanced way, and add variety to loot chests. First, as any long-term world owner (especially a server owner) will tell you, sometimes using commands is necessary! Playtime is limited, especially in a family setting, and it becomes a choice between “cheating” and just not having a good time. Maybe you’re exploring the End as a group for hours only for someone to die: sure, you could pause everything for 30 minutes while they rejoin the group.. or you could “/tp” and carry on having fun. Or maybe you’ve been searching for the stronghold for a good 20 minutes now, and people are getting bored: sure, you could keep on manually searching… or you could change your gamemode to spectator for 10 seconds and carry on having fun.
Of course, commands are very powerful, and can break the game completely if used too often, so these items are **uncraftable**. Instead, they must be found in the world, which fulfills their secondary purpose: adding some variety and spice to loot chests, some of which can get quite boring after a while. Since these relics are always useful, it’s suddenly always a good idea to check the dungeon chests, or that ruined portal, since it *might* contain a relic. They also get added very rarely to fishing loot tables and wandering villagers, adding interest to those activities as well, and making it possible to find them even when not exploring. The important part is that they are not able to be farmed: they are always rare.
Anyways, onto the relics themselves, from most common to most powerful:
– **Experience Gem** (rarity = common): grants moderate XP, simple as that. This one doesn’t replace any command, but since vanilla is rather stingy with XP, they’re always useful. This is the relic you’ll encounter the most while out exploring.
– **Sunlight Shard** (rarity = uncommon): sets time to day, and clears weather. Sometimes you want to make it daytime without sleeping in a bed, and this does that. You’ll only find these on the surface: villages, ruined portals, shipwrecks…
– **Spectral Fragment** (rarity = uncommon): highlights all mobs within range. For when you’re caving and you know there’s another cave nearby, but you just can’t find it. Or when there’s a zombie trapped in your base but you have no idea where. Mostly found in underground dungeons, mineshafts, etc.
– **Biome Seedling** (rarity = rare): sets the biome in a radius around you. Can be useful to builders to change the grass color, or to enable certain mob spawns (fish for ponds, etc). These are quite rare, but can be found in trail ruins, or occasionally villages.
– **Homing Crystal** (rarity = rare): teleport to a friend. Based on the “Telepass” mod, it’s a simple tp implementation that allows you to claim a crystal, then give it to your friend so they can teleport to you once, no GUI needed. Quite rare, but can often be found in buried treasure.
– **Storm Echo** (rarity = rare): summon a thunderstorm. Pretty niche, but sometimes you just get sick of waiting for one. Quite rare, but try ocean ruins for a higher chance.
– **Pearl of Insomnia** (rarity = rare): set time to night, and enable phantom spawning. Pairs well with disabling natural phantom spawning: you don’t get the annoying game mechanic, but you can still farm them when you want, to get the membranes. Higher chance to find them in Jungle Temples.
– **Phasing Vial** (rarity = epic): now we’re talking. Enables 10 seconds of Spectator gamemode (phase through walls), before getting teleported back to where you drank the potion. Extremely useful obviously, but exceedingly rare: try ancient cities for a higher chance.
– **Totem of Keeping** (rarity = epic): the best one. Keep your inventory on death (but the totem breaks). Only way to protect against dying in the void, or in lava. You won’t find these in the overworld: try the Nether or the End for a slight chance.
And there we have it! We’ve been using these on our server for a few months, and loving them. What do you think?
AI slop
honestly I don’t think sunlight shard or insomnia pearl should be kept, they’re both effects that can be gotten by just waiting a bit and they’d just crowd the loot table imo, otherwise these seem like a cool idea
Awesome idea