☙ Lavender & Black Roses ❧

My Modded Play Diary

Welcome to my new playthrough!

I'm playing on minecraft 1.18.2. This modpack is a bit smaller than my 1.12.2 series, currently coming in at 245 mods loaded. It's also more focused. While that was my version of a "kitchen-sink" pack, this one centers around adventure, fantasy, and magic. You can find the full list of mods here, if you're curious.

I hope you enjoy my journey. :)

Day 1

a birch forest in the foreground sits before a lake, in the background is a forested cliff

Here's to new beginnings! I found this seed while testing, and thought that cliff in the background looked perfect for my grand ambitions of an underground base! We'll see how grand the reality turns out.

Just like in my first series, I started with a set of stone tools, a Sleeping Bag, and an Eccentric Tome full of various mod guidebooks. Unlike in the last series, I also start with the Ring of Seven Curses, a powerful and dangerous item from the Enigmatic Legacy mod. Wearing it bestows some cool buffs, and will allow me to wear some very strong endgame gear. Yet just like the name suggests, it also comes with serious drawbacks, like not being able to sleep, decreased armor effectiveness, and worst of all, neutral mobs like bees, wolves and endermen are hostile!

I really wanted to do more with pets and animals this series, so that last one is a doozy. Yeah, that's going in a chest. Maybe I'll put it on eventually (probably not).

Day 2

a path leading to a Minecraft village in the plains

I found a village, close enough to spawn to be convenient, but hopefully far enough away to not get depopulated. I got some easy food and loot, from iron, to armor, to a couple Ender Pearls.

the player hangs beneath a glider, behind her is a spiralling tower

I also found a Tower of the Wild. These guys are tricky to climb, but they have a loot chest at the top. This one had a Paraglider, which works just like you'd expect, with a stamina system like Breath of the Wild!

Day 9

a wood and stone doorway into a mountainside

I've started tunnelling into the mountain. The room off to the right is what I'm calling the Gatekeeper's room--y'know, for when there's actually a gate to keep. For now, it's my early-game storage and living quarters.

Day 12

the player character, with a backpack on her back, stands in front of a staircased tunnel leading down

I'm sinking a mineshaft! I really want to make a nice one for once, rather than just a ladder into the earth. I will totally get around to setting up a minecart system this time! For now, I've just got staircases leading to offshoots at optimal mining levels for various ores, following this handy chart I found.

I also made a Sophisticated Backpack. Right now it's just a chest on my back, but it's upgradable in lots of neat ways, from more storage, to a portable crafting interface, to being able to automatically feed me!

I've got all sorts of tasks to get this hole in the wall into a proper base. A staircase to the top of the mountain would be nice, not to mention a farm. Or a dock at the lake... so much to do! #justearlygamethings

Day 15

a terraced field of farmland hugs the cliff face, supported by wooden beams

I've made a farm on a terrace along the cliff. The main crop-adding mods this time are Farmer's Delight and Neapolitan. Just like last time, I've got Spice of Life: Carrot Edition encouraging me to sample as many different eatables as possible to gain more hearts. I've got over 400 different foods to monch, with new ways to prepare meals! More on that later.

Day 22

a golden-yellow tree sits in a small patch of dirt and grass, surrounded by stone

I've been working on the entryway to the base! The pretty tree is a Sunny Blossom tree from Quark. There's a skylight far above. It took a while to dig it out, but that just means I have room to expand vertically! Not quite sure yet how I want to lay out the place, it might end up a mess (it will definitely end up a mess).

Day 24

in a farm field stands a diminutive golem made of straw, with a Christmas sweater on

I've hired on a helper. This Straw Golem is an early-game way to automate farming. He'll harvest and replant crops, and deposit them to a nearby container. He has a short lifespan, and gets hungry after a while, so while he's not the most efficient farmer, he sure makes up for it in cuteness. He's even got a little Christmas sweater on!

Day 30

A narrow walkway in an underground dungeon structure

My mineshaft tunnelled into a huge dungeon! There's lots of spawners here I can put to good use. Among the loot I found was an Inscrutable Eye from Enigmatic Legacy. When right-clicked, it opened, and a foreboding voice from beyond the veil told me it wanted to bear witness to my accomplishments. Well, delving into the Eldritch was a great time in my last series, so I'm sure only good things will come of this. Plus, the Eye is a handy Curios accessory that extends my reach.

Day 32

a deep underground mineshaft, framed with wooden logs, a sign on the beam says 'Diamond & Redstone'

My mineshaft has hit bottom. Normally, this would be where I take a chunk of days to do my first big mining haul. However, there's some early-game tools from various mods that will make mining easier. With the new 1.18 ore distribution, I'll take all the help I can get.

Day 36

the player character, wielding a spellbook, stands in a room in front of a scribe's table and a gold-trimmed chest

I have two "custom magic spell" mods in this pack. They're actually both based on an older mod, Ars Magica. The first mod I'll discuss is called Ars Nouveau. It's easy to get into, just requiring a book and some iron tools to make a novice spellbook, and it has some really good early-game utility. By learning new glyphs and crafting spells, I can break blocks at a distance, place magical lights, and more! This will definitely help my mining expeditions.

Day 45

items connected by beams of light float over a rune-marked floor

The other custom spell mod I have is called Mana and Artifice. It takes a bit more setup to start spellcasting, requiring the start of several tiers of progression built into the mod. It'll be interesting to compare the systems as I play.

Okay, now I'm ready to do some serious mining. I like to do my spelunking in big hauls that give me plenty of resources to play around with mods. Be prepared for a big timeskip! I'll see you on the other side.

Day 50

the player character, wielding a spell, stands in front of several magical worktables

I took a short break from mining to advance my tier in Mana and Artifice! Going up in tier unlocks new spells, rituals, and thresholds of power. Higher tiers can unlock new dangers as well... For now, though, back to mining!

Day 72

paths through a birch forest lead to pens with sheep, cows, chickens, and pigs

I'm back from a lot of resource gathering. This should be enough to at least get me going with various mods.

I also started some animal farms, as I'll want leather for enchanting with all that experience I earned mining. While I work on breeding cows, I also want to start expanding the base with new rooms.

Day 75

a small kitchen, with smokers, a cutting board, and a stove with a large cooking pot on top

I made myself a kitchen! Farmer's Delight expands on Minecraft's cooking systems with new blocks for preparing meals, so I wanted a nice place to serve myself up some eatums. Also featured in the above image are Supplementaries, Fantasy's Furniture, and Another Furniture.

Day 79

a small room, an enchanting table sits in the center, surrounded by books and bookshelves

I made myself an enchanting room. This is just the beginning of my enchanting journey, as with Apotheosis in the pack, enchanting is overhauled with new mechanics, bookshelves, and heights of enchanting power to reach!

Day 84

a small room with a waterlogged contraption, the player is fishing in the water

I've gone fishin'. There's a small island in the lake by my base; I built a dock and fishing shack on it, complete with an auto-fisher (which actually works in this series). The Aquaculture 2 mod adds lots of new fish and treasures for me to catch!

a fenced-in enclosure with a watering hole, sugar canes, and a small turtle

Next to the house is an enclosure for my new pet, a Terrapin from the Alex's Mobs mod. I've named him Mikey.

Day 86

a runeforge flanked by pedestals on which set red crystals

Let's talk ore processing. There are several routes in this pack by which I can stretch my mineral supplies. The Runeforge from Mana and Artifice is one. It requires no fuel, but takes twice as long as a furnace to process ore. If I upgrade it by flanking it with crystals on pedestals, it can double the ores it smelts!

This is very handy. But I have other, even stronger methods of ore duplication available...

Day 95

three demons stand around a summoning circle drawn in chalk, one demon has a piece of ore in its hand

The Occultism mod adds a magic system based on the Bartimaeus series of books (which were pretty good YA fiction, from what I recall). In it, magicians summon demons to do their bidding. There's a lot that demons can do for me, and one of those things is ore duplication! The foliot crusher in the image above crushes one ore into two dusts, which can be smelted into ingots. I've also summoned a transporter to automate handing him the ores to crush, and a janitor to pick up the dusts.

Foliots are the lowest tier of spirit I can summon. Higher tiers are faster, last longer in this world, and multiply ores at higher rates.

Day 97

a demon stands on a summoning circle surrounded by skulls

I've upgraded to a djinni crusher! This guy can crush an ore into three dusts. This is as far as I can go for now, as higher-tier demons are dangerous to summon and require extradimensional materials.

Day 100

I think I'm off to a good start in this pack. I've got the basics going, and I've made a start into several mods. In the next hundred days, I want to focus on getting some farms going, and, of course, getting to the Nether. There's lots for me to do!

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