☙ Lavender & Black Roses ❧

My Modded Play Diary

Day 402

I got a dozen wither skulls. It wasn't as bad as it could have been thanks to a Vorpal axe I got in a loot chest, which has a greater chance to behead mobs. Still, that's definitely something I'll want to set up a farm for later. Eight skulls went to boosting the stability of my infusion altar. One was to keep. And the final three, I took with me to the End.

in the End, beneath a layer of bedrock a small hole has been dug, lain is obsidian in a cross shape

Here's the thing. I've never fought the Wither before, and to be honest I'd rather not start now. Call me a coward, because it's true, but I do need a Nether Star. I decided to follow this tutorial for cheesing the fight with the bedrock portal in the End. If it fails, well, guess I'm fighting the Wither after all. Wish me luck!

on the cross of obsidian sits a star-shaped object

It worked! Hooray. Maybe one day I'll give the Wither a fair fight, but for now, I've got bigger fish to fry...

Day 406

in a field a beacon sits, flanked by four floating pink pylons

I cheesed one boss to fight another. Botania has a ritual to summon a Guardian of Gaia, a powerful foe to say the least. I've only fought it once before, and while I'm nervous, the rewards should be worth it.

...

I did it! Sorry I couldn't grab screenshots, the fight was rather intense, lol. The Gaia Guardian deliberately echoes MMO boss fights, from creating damage zones to summoning adds. Through the power of my potions (and some helpful flowers), I was victorious! My rewards are Gaia Spirits, which can be used to make powerful Botania items. There's an even harder version of the Gaia Guardian, which I may do eventually, but I may want to rematch the first for more Spirits, too.

Day 407

my character floats in the air above my livingrock Botania pavilion

With my Gaia Spirits, I made a Flügel Tiara. This accessory allows me to fly! It can only do so for up to 30 seconds at a time before needing to recharge, but this is still a big upgrade to my mobility.

Day 408

first-person view of my character in front of my house holding a Building Gadget

Today I did something I should probably have done a while ago--I made a Building Gadget! This handy tool and its companions will be great for building or clearing blocks.

Day 413

I tamed a wolf from Animania!

Totally random, but he was hanging out around the area where I do my Astral Sorcery business. I think I'll call him Winter, for his white coat. Animania has other canids, like domestic dogs, but I'll need to purchase them from a pet merchant villager.

Day 416

on a rocky outcropping, two hideous sirens attack the player

I've been out searching for an ocean monument. Along the way, I fought sirens, sea serpents, and even an ice dragon! After searching for thousands of blocks, I never did find one, but killed enough sirens that I got the prismarine I needed.

Day 422

a iridescent altar in the center of a marble pavilion, with blue crystals floating overhead

I've upgraded my Astral Sorcery altar to an Iridescent, the highest tier available. This will allow me to craft the most powerful items in the mod, including another flight option in the form of an attuned Mantle of the Stars.

Day 423

a round reddish object sits on a dark stone pedestal beneath a floating stone cube

Thaumcraft's Causality Collapser is an expensive, highly unstable infusion crafting recipe; the resulting item is able to close flux rifts. Collapsing them this way creates Void Seeds, items that will help me to progress further into the mod--so it's back to the wilderness to open another one.

Day 428

a group of crimson-robed humanoids wielding fire attack the player

The Crimson Cult are a group of Thaumcraft baddies whose sacred book, the Crimson Rites, is one of the keys to unlocking the Eldritch branch of the mod. They pop out of portals that appear in the barren areas of the world. I've been scouring deserts, hunting out portals and killing the cultists in hope that their book will drop, so I can gain its forbidden knowledge.

Day 432

an open Thaumanomicon tab, showing access to Eldritch research

I've done it! I read the Crimson Rites and opened new vistas of Thaumic research, at the cost of my ever-dwindling sanity. Hopefully my delving into the forbidden at least grants me some nifty magical stuff.

Day 433

my character standing in the center of a circular room, holding a orb-like object

One of the cool things I can now make is this Entity Cell! If you're familiar with modded Minecraft, it functions like the Golden Lasso or Safari Net from other mods. That is to say, it can capture mobs in an item. This is much more convienient than using leads or minecarts! The Thermal series in this pack has a similar item, but I really wanted to go the Thaumcraft route in this playthrough.

Day 436

a brick-and-glass contraption with lava, stone and water in the middle

This Botania setup generates ores from smooth stone! I learned how to make it from this tutorial. An Orechid flower turns the stone into ore using Mana, and the Pulse Mana Spreader with a Weight lens causes it to drop and be collected by the hopper for future processing or Fortune-mining. Right now, I have to manually supply the Mana to make it work, but creating an automatic Mana generation system is my next big goal.

Day 449

two floating crystals, one blue and one white, sit above a marble structure and shine down on three pumpkins next to three flowers

Here's the mana generation setup, using a neat mod interaction between Botania and Astral Sorcery:

The floating crystals can change certain blocks, one such transformation being pumpkins into cake. Cake happens to be the fuel for the Kekimurus, the brown-and-white flowers in the image. The green lens is a growth prism; it makes sure the pumpkins are almost instantly regrown once the cake is consumed, and the process starts again.

Now, three Kekimurus are not going to make a lot of mana very fast in the grand scheme of things. The starlight tranformation takes a while too, so this setup, while automatic, is quite slow. I have plans to scale it up, but that requires a lot more growing of Astral Sorcery crystals.

Day 450

a brick and stone dungeon, in the center of the room is a hole leading down, on the left is a pedestal with a crowned skull on top

I'm headed back to the Twilight Forest. Today's adventure took me to the Dark Forest, a menacing biome with a thick tree canopy blocking out the sky, the stronghold concealed at its center. To venture beyond the first level of the stronghold, I had to prove my worth by placing a trophy of a previous boss on a pedestal.

a brick room lined with tombs, in the center is a floating armored apparition

I explored the dungeon until I found the knight's tombs, where I was attacked by six Knight Phantoms. Defeating them rewarded me with a treasure chest of their gear, and unlocked the way to the mysterious heart of the Dark Forest.

Day 451

a glass-covered contraption of lava, liquid starlight, and sand leading to a storage drawer

Today I made a simple sand generator using Astral Sorcery, based on this design. Liquid Starlight turns to sand when it meets lava, which falls and is conveyored to a storage drawer.

Truth be told, infinite sand is nice, but not the main reason I built this. The generator also produces Aquamarine Shale occasionally, aquamarine being one of the resources for Astral Sorcery, which I've run low on. The drawer has an upgrade that voids excess items, so it should be safe to let the generator keep running while I do other things.

Day 462

colorful lasers shoot across a pumpkin farm and marble structure

I finished outfitting the mana generator. Even twelve Kekimurus aren't enough to keep the setup running constantly, but it should get me a steady trickle of ore, all in a self-sustaining way.

Day 464

a huge wooden tower stretches into a twilight sky

At the heart of the Dark Forest, the woods turn to a sickly autumn hue. In the very center, the Dark Tower looms. At the top is the terrible Ur-Ghast, my next foe.

through a thick curtain of rain can just be seen a giant crimson-stained Ghast

After a long trek up the tower, winding through mazes and jumping puzzles, I was face-to-face with the beast. A fierce battle in the rain ensued; I fired shot after shot as the Ur-Ghast dried to drown me in his tears. Finally, I proved victorious, and my trophies were the Fiery Tears of the Ur-Ghast itself.

Day 466

a half-bird half-horse creature sits in the treetops

After a long time of breeding and culling my rabbits, I have enough rabbit's feet to tame a Hippogryph from Ice and Fire! These guys are neat flying mounts; while no match for a dragon, they're pretty strong in an of themselves. I've named my new friend Kestrel, for his coloration. Now to make a home for him!

Day 468

a wooden stable with a leaning roof, with a Hippogryph inside

I went with a more open design than my chocobo stable, not sure if I really like it. But at least it's a roof over his head. The saddle rack is from the Placeable Items mod.

Day 477

an austere white building with large square glass windows

I built a laboratory! This is where I'll finally get into Fossils and Archaeology. I wanted it to look more modern than my other builds, so I used the Laboratory and Bubble glass blocks from Chisel to give it that austere look.

Day 479

the interior of a white room, rows of machines line the back wall while in front stands a blond maid

I've kitted out the lab with Fossils and Archaeology's machines. As you can see I've hired on another maid as a lab assistant, named Dee Dee. The ones on the bottom are Analyzers, used to process the various fossils I find in hopes of obtaining DNA. The green ones at top are the Culture Vats, which will create the eggs and embryos of creatures. On the second floor I have sifters, which will search sand, dirt, etc for artifacts and fossils, and archaeology benches, which will restore artifacts.

Day 485

the interior of a flooded lab, with a green slime trail across the floor

Disaster! One of my cultivation attempts failed, and instead of creating a dinosaur egg it spawned a monstrous Failuresaurus. Thankfully, my lab assistant wasn't harmed.

Day 486

a small aquarium lined with brick, a sign proclaims the creature inside to be a Nautilus, Nautilus pompilius to be exact

I wanted to start off small with my prehistoric creatures, so I made an aquarium. The Nautilus inside doesn't have needs or moods, unlike most Fossils and Archaeology creatures, because they can naturally spawn. I named him Noodles. The fancy sign is from Bibliocraft!

Day 493

inside a glass-and-brick enclosure, a tiny baby dinosaur looks up at the player

Citipati was an oviraptorid from the Late Cretaceous. It was also an omnivore, which is good for me since I don't yet have the infrastructure to take care of carnivores.

I set down my cultured egg and stayed close so as to imprint on the baby dino. Look how cute she is! I'll call her Cindy.

Cindy should be well-fed, since I have an Immersive Engineering cloche pumping out melons connected to the feeder in her enclosure via modded Ender Chest.

Day 498

in a brick-and-glass enclosure, dark green ferns spread under a spruce tree as a feathered dinosaur looks out through the glass

The good news is that Cindy is growing up nicely; she'll be three blocks long once she's fully mature. The bad news is that she doesn't seems to want to eat through her feeder. Dinos in Fossils & Archaeology have hunger, which affects their mood. If their mood gets low, even normally docile ones will attack you, and if their hunger totally depletes, they can starve to death! So I planted a tree in Cindy's enclosure, and spread some prehistoric ferns under the leaves for her to eat. Hopefully they can grow fast enough to keep pace with her appetite.

Day 500

wide view of a developed area, with several buildings and crop fields

I thought it was about time I give an overview of the base. Here's the view from the roof of my starter house:

Directly in front of the house is the Waystone I use to teleport to the End Portal, as well as several villages I've found. Above that is my bee area, with apiaries and bee houses. The bees still don't produce a lot of useful resources, but oh well. It's more a hobby than anything.

Going counterclockwise, to the east are my manual farms and animal pens; you can just see the one vanilla cow I found, which I keep because the Animania cows are much harder to get milk from. Winter guards the chocobo stable. Above that is my Botania area, with the Orechid setup at the back, and beyond that is my Citipati enclosure.

At twelve o'clock is my Forestry farm, and beyond that my laboratory and aquarium. At eleven o'clock is my Hippogryph stable, and next to that my Immersive Engineering building and tech buildings. Behind them are my Nether and Twilight Forest portals. To the far left you can see my Thaumcraft tower, and the path leading to my brewery. You can also just see the path leading to my Astral Sorcery area.

It's not the prettiest base, or the most advanced or organized. Still, I feel like I've accomplished a lot in these past 500 days. This is certainly one of, if not my longest-lived Minecraft world. Yet there's so much more to do, and plenty of mods I haven't even touched. Here's to many more days ahead!

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