Sandbox/Old Symbols

##### Overview

Symbols are the building blocks of ages. When written in a items:books#Descriptive Book, they control everything from the landscape of an age, to the speed of the sun in the sky or the color of the clouds. The player can create new worlds by properly compiling the symbols they know into descriptive books.

The symbols are from the mostly-lost language of Narayan. Each symbol has four sections, which represent individual words in clockwise order from the topmost section. Many, but not all of these words can be found in ["Symbols of Narayan"]. Note that at least one additional differing translation of Narayan exists; where this alternate translation makes the poems more sensible, it is used, but the words are marked with a star. The alternate translation renders the words normally translated as "Transform" as "Modifier", "Static" as "Structure", "Survival" as "Environment", "Machine" as "Ore", and "Flow" as "Sea". There are still many words for which we simply do not know their meanings.

To completely describe a world, symbols are selected from each of many groups, specifying such things as the terrain generation, the biomes present, weather, heavenly bodies and so on. They must also be used with the correct "grammar"; improperly written books can produce unstable worlds, with various annoyances and threats creeping from between the symbols. Worlds which are written to be implausibly generous (for example, mountains of diamond ore) can also be unstable.

In general, if a book does not completely describe its world (for example, if it says nothing about a sun), then symbols will be added to the book when you create the world. In older versions of Mystcraft, this also produced instability to varying degrees. For more recent versions (0.10.0.4 or so) this will rarely cause problems (though the random selections may be strange). As of version 0.10.0, these internally-added symbols are not visible when reading the book.

From 0.10.0 and on, the writing desk is used to make symbol pages, then a book binder is used to compile these into a descriptive book. Blank pages can be added to allow adding symbols later, but once the world has been visited (the link has been established), the book cannot be changed.
From 0.10.4 and on, descriptive books need Link Panels from the ink mixer as well as symbol pages.

##### Writing a World

The grammar of descriptive books is fairly loose Some pages directly specify features or effects to insert into a world, while others are modifiers. Modifiers always need to appear before the symbol they modify. As modifiers appear, most modifiers of the same type Colors, combine and accumulate until they are "taken" by a feature or effect symbol. Thus at any given time there is at most one "current" color, direction, phase, and gradient. Biomes and materials do not combine, but they still accumulate. This leads to a overall structure of "phrases", where each feature or effect symbols is preceded by the modifiers intended for it.

#### Features and Effects

Many of the features and effects fall into "required categories"; if no symbol from the category is
written, //at least// one will be added by the grammar. (For example, Suns: If you don't specify one,
you may get more than one.) Some of these, such as Terrain, are further limited to
//exactly// one, and writing two or more from the category will cause instability.
When features are added, their modifiers may get "sensible" defaults, or completely random selections.
The grammar can also add features to make use of "dangling" modifiers which have not been used
by the end of the book (see below).

```
 * symbols#Terrain symbols represent the most basic "feature" of all, how the terrain will be shaped:  Caves, landscape, isolated islands, or nothing at all.  Every age requires one Terrain symbol: If none is given, one will be chosen randomly, but if there is more than one, instability will be added.  Most Terrain symbols accept Material and Liquid modifiers to determine what the terrain and seas respectively will be made of; if not supplied these usually default to stone and water, but they can be randomly chosen.  There is a special symbol "No Seas", which can be used in lieu of a liquid block, to avoid producing seas/oceans at all (this is the default for Skylands and Void ages).
 * symbols#Biome Controllers determine how the world is divided horizontally into biomes.  The various controllers take different numbers of biomes, from zero up to three.  If not enough biomes are supplied, biomes will be randomly chosen from all possible biome pages, including those provided by other mods.  In older versions of Mystcraft, excess biomes added instability, but in the most recent versions they instead tend to appear as floating islands.
 * symbols#Terrain Alterations and symbols#Populators alter the world in various ways.  If too few of either category are written into the book, some will be supplied.  The distinction between them is somewhat technical; essentially, the Terrain Alterations happen early in chunk generation, while the Populators happen later.  Some of these symbols take material or liquid blocks as modifiers. A couple warrant special mention:
   * The populator "Dense Ores", will produce much more of the vanilla ores, with extended range, but will also inflict dire instability upon the world.
   * The terrain alteration Floating Islands accepts a biome modifier.  In recent versions, it will be automatically added to make use of "excess" biomes.
 * symbols#Celestial Bodies are objects in the sky, consisting of Suns, Moons, and Stars.  At least one of each is required.  Sun, Moon or Stars can be "Dark", in which case they take no modifiers and are effectively absent from the world.  However, the non-Dark versions will take various modifiers (Colors, Gradients, Directions, Lengths, and/or Phases, details below) for their color and movement.  Multiple suns and moons can be written into an age.  Suns and moons can also take a Sunset Color symbol as a modifier.
 * There are several symbols that affect the age's conditions as a whole, and take no modifiers except as noted below.
   * symbols#Lighting can be Bright, Normal, or Dark, which affects visual conditions, but not mob spawning.  Exactly one of the options is required.
   * symbols#Weather can be a fixed condition, or the "usual range" at various speeds.  Exactly one of the options is required.
   * Various symbols#Effects can add or remove stability.  None are required.  Lightning, Explosions, Scorched Surface, and Meteors inflict various ongoing disasters, but add stability to the world otherwise.  (Lightning does accept a Color modifier.)  Any of these may be randomly added to an unstable age.  "Accelerated" gives the world extra block ticks, and a lot of extra instability.  This symbol will not be added randomly, and must be explicitly written into an age.
 * symbols#Visual symbols let you change various points of appearance.  The symbols for coloring the world's fog, foliage, grass, and day and night skies all take color/gradient modifiers.  In recent versions, there are also "Natural X Color" symbols for each of these, which take no modifiers but ensure the Minecraft-standard coloring.  Another couple of symbols, Boundless Sky and Rainbow, also affect the sky's appearance.  Rainbow takes a direction only, while Boundless Sky takes no modifiers.

```

#### Modifiers

Compared to the features, far more pages are modifier symbols. These symbols usually do nothing on their own, but specify the details or behavior of features found afterwards. As they are encountered, modifiers are accumulated, and in some cases combined, When a feature symbol is encountered, it checks the current pool for any modifiers which it can accept, and uses as many of these as it can. If a needed modifier is not supplied, a random choice is made. However, if any modifiers are left unclaimed at the end of the book, each "dangling" modifier will produce instability.

```
 * symbols#Biomes are considered modifiers, to be used by a later biome controller symbol.  They do not combine with each other.  In recent versions, "dangling" biomes are automatically used for Floating Islands.
 * symbols#Materials symbols specify what a world or feature is to be made of.  They do not combine.  Features have restrictions on what sorts of block they can use, for example most terrain generators require one liquid block and one solid block, suitable respectively for oceans and ground.
 * symbols#Colors, symbols#Phases, symbols#Lengths, and symbols#Directions each combine within their types, by a common rule:  There is only one "current value" for each category, which is averaged with each new symbol of that type as it is seen.  Thus, "North, West, North", first combines to Northwest, then to North-Northwest.  Similarly, "Blue, Yellow, White", will first combine to green, then to a pale green.
 * The symbols#Gradient symbol is used to build a sequence of colors, which will usually play out over the course of a day, sunset, or other period.  Each Gradient symbol takes a Color (default random) and a Length (default 1) modifier, adding them as one step to the current Gradient.
   * The Length modifier for each step controls its length relative to the others.  So "Red, Gradient, Double Length, White, Gradient, Blue, Gradient" would add three steps for red, white and blue, but the white one will last twice as long as the others.
   * Any symbol that accepts a Gradient can accept a Color instead **if** there is no current gradient.  (The color is actually treated as a single-stage gradient.)
   * Since colors merge, Blue, Gradient, Red, Gradient adds two steps (blue and red) to the current gradient, but Blue, Red, Gradient would only add one purple step.

```

```
 * The special symbol Clear Modifiers //used// to erase all dangling modifiers, preventing them from causing instability.  In current versions, the grammar will try to automatically generate symbols to use any dangling modifiers.  Clear Modifiers will not prevent this, but it //will// minimize the damage from any modifiers which are //not// thus "fixed" by the generator.

```

###### Symbol Descriptions

Alternate names for symbols represent changes over Mystcraft versions, the current name should be first.

##### Features and Effect Symbols

These symbols are not modifiers, but many of them accept modifiers, as described in their section or individual notes. Many categories require exactly one symbol to be chosen from the category. If one is not written, the game will choose one randomly (in old versions this will add instability). If more than one is supplied, that will add instability. Modifiers may have defaults, but if not explicitly specified, they may be randomly added, overriding any defaults. (Again, in old versions this added instability.)

#### Terrain

Terrain symbols determine how the terrain will be shaped. Every age requires exactly one Terrain symbol.

Most terrain symbols accept Material and Liquid modifiers to determine what the terrain and seas respectively will be made of. The "No Seas" symbol counts as a liquid modifier, effectively choosing Air for seas. If you do not specify these, they may be chosen randomly by the game engine. However, if this does not occur, the defaults will be Stone and Water wherever applicable. However, Void worlds don't take (or need) either material symbol, and Island Worlds default to No Seas.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Biome Controllers

Biome controllers dictate the layout of biomes in an age. Every age requires exactly one Biome Controller. They take varying numbers of biomes as modifiers: If not enough biomes are provided, some will be selected randomly but where "3+" is noted, there is no upper limit. In recent versions, any biome not used by a biome controller (excess or after the controller symbol) is usually supplied with a Floating Islands symbol. The Floating Islands symbol itself does not cause instability -- but, it will likely choose a terrain block, and if it picks an ore or other valuable block, //that// will cause instability.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Required Number\\ of Biomes ^ Notes ^

#### Terrain Alterations and Populators =

These symbols change the landscape in various ways, adding things such as caverns or villages to an age. Without a symbol for one of these features, an age will not contain any traces of that feature. Note that "not writing a symbol" does not mean "no symbol present"; the grammar system will fill-in incomplete books with hidden symbols.

Since the grammar system treats the two categories as separate, and wants to find both types, a well-described world will contain both types, and if not enough of either category is present (current version: "enough" is one of each), some may be added. All of these can be specified multiple times. Most of these symbols do not cause instability, but there are important exceptions: Using an ore block for a material modifier can add a fair bit of instability, and Dense Ores adds a //lot// of instability.

The difference between "terrain alterations" and "populators" is based ultimately on how they work in the code. In general, "populators" run late in chunk generation and add things, while "terrain alterations" run early in chunk generation (approximately right after biome top replacement) and generally remove stone. Ore placement, for example, runs in the populator stage. In code, the distinction is that a "terrain alteration" must be deterministic for a seed and chunk, and must be able to generate a large feature (such as a cave system) section by section without having to "draw" what it is doing into other chunks (such as how a village plops down buildings across multiple chunks).

#### Terrain Alterations

As of 0.10.6 (?), all of these can be specified multiple times. Note that there may be "chunk boundary" issues as a result where old chunks meet new chunks with new features.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

### Obsolete Populators

These symbols were removed as of version 10.5.

#### Celestial Bodies

Celestial Bodies are objects in the sky, such as Suns, Moons, and Stars. Every age requires at least one Sun, moon, and stars symbol. Any of these can be Normal or Dark, but Stars have two additional options: Ender Starfield, and Twinkling Stars. If none of a body are specified, one or more will probably be added; if you really want "no X", you need to write "Dark X". Modifiers vary among the symbols:

```
  * "Dark" bodies do not accept any modifiers, and do not display anything in the sky.  (If you do see a dark body, please report it as a bug.)  A Dark Sun also does not provide "daylight" to prevent monster spawning, burn undead, etc.
  * "Normal" Suns and Moons each accept a Direction, a Length, a Phase, and optional sunset color.  They cannot be recolored.
  *  If a sun has no Sunset Color of its own, it can still be affected by a "global" Sunset Color modifier for the world.
  * Normal and twinkling Stars accept a Gradient for color, Direction, and Length, but not Phase.  Ender Stars accept //only// a Gradient.
  * Directions determine the direction from which the given object will rise.  Lengths determine the duration of a full cycle (and thus, speed of motion).  Phases determine where in the rotation cycle the object begins.

```

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Lighting

Lighting changes the perceived light level of an age. Lighting symbols do not accept modifiers. Exactly one of the options is required. These symbols do not affect mob spawning; Bright ages still need to be lit up to prevent mob spawns. Similarly, Dark ages do not need more lighting than the Overworld to prevent mob spawns, //however//, their sunlight is not strong enough to burn undead or make spiders neutral.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Weather

Weather symbols determine how the weather in an age will occur. They do not accept modifiers. Exactly one of the options is required.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Effects

These symbols affect the world as a whole, and do not fit in the other categories. They accept no modifiers, except as noted below.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Visual

Visual symbols change nothing related to gameplay, instead tweaking the visuals of an age such as Sky Color.

Many visual symbols accept modifiers, as noted on a per symbol basis.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

##### Modifier Symbols

The previous section covered symbols that add various things to the world, but many of those symbols don't completely describe their feature. Modifiers are symbols that can modify the behavior of symbols that come afterward, providing another level of variability to the ages. (For programmers, these are "parameters" to the feature symbol.)

As the symbols of a book are read to create an age, the modifiers are accumulated in a common pool. As they are added, most types of modifiers (not materials or biomes) will combine with any previous modifier of the same type, so that there is always only one "current" modifier of each type (which need not correspond to a symbol).

When a feature symbol is read which can use modifiers, it will "accept" all modifiers which it can use, removing them from the pool. For non-combining modifiers, the earliest ones will be taken first. If there is no modifier present of a needed type, a default value may be used, or the game may supply a random choice. (In older versions, missing modifiers could add instability, but this is no longer a problem.)

Modifiers left unused will add instability. The "Clear Modifiers" symbol can be used to close books while ensuring that this does not occur, it will use all available modifiers, at a much smaller cost in instability. There are a few exceptions for dangling modifiers: First, a single "Sunset Color" symbol will not add instability, but will set the default sunset colors for any sun without its own setting. Secondly, in recent versions dangling biomes will be used for Floating Islands, without penalty.

#### Biomes

Biomes are symbols that determine the ecosystem of an age. In the Overworld players can find biomes such as deserts, forests, mountains, plains, oceans and the like, all scattered across the world. The biome symbols allow players to pick and choose those ecosystems when creating their own ages. The vanilla biomes are listed below; biome pages can also appear for biomes provided by other mods and registered with Forge.

Biomes are modifiers, and must come before the biome controller, or another symbol that uses biomes. There is one other symbol which does so, Floating Islands. Floating Islands symbols will automatically be added for any "dangling" biomes (that is, not used by the biome controller).
If a biome is needed but not supplied, a random choice will be made. (This is as of version 0.10.6, the handling of biomes changed substantially in the early 0.10.x versions.)

For all biomes, the "biome top" replacement (usually dirt and grass, biome specific) only happens if the world's base material is "stone"; see "Terrain" symbols above. Note that if this does //not// happen, trees and other vegetation will not appear regardless of biome.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Colors

Colors can be used to change the appearance of many aspects of an age.

Colors will blend with an existing color rather than replace the current color. This occurs two colors at a time. Red and Blue will become purple. Red, Blue and White will first become Purple when Red and Blue mix, and then become a lighter shade of Purple when Purple and White mix.

Important: If an object accepts a gradient, and there is NO gradient, then any existing color will be converted to a non-changing gradient. If there is a gradient farther back (earlier) in the book, then any remaining colors will be \*ignored\*. If you are writing multiple colors, be sure that each one has been converted to a gradient. See symbols#Gradient below.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Directions

Directions are the cardinal directions. These are used by some symbols to determine placement, such as celestial bodies. When used with celestial bodies the direction appears to be where the body would rise from, so a West + Setting + Normal Moon would set in the East.

Directions will blend with the existing direction rather than replace the current direction. This occurs two directions at a time. West and North will become Northwest. West and North and North will first become Northwest when West and North mix, and then become North-Northwest when Northwest and North mix.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^

#### Gradient

Gradient is a special modifier that provides changing colors, each given color lasting for a certain length of time before fading into the next color.

Each Gradient symbol accepts a Color and Length modifier for one step of the gradient, and appends it to the current gradient, The Length is used to determine the amount of time before the gradient changes to the next color. An unspecified length will usually be made random by the grammar.

Any symbol which takes a Gradient can take a Color instead. More formally, if a symbol which can accept a Gradient finds none, but there //is// a current Color, a Gradient symbol will be inserted to yield a one-step gradient. Note that attempting to write \\
color 1, gradient, color 2, object \\
will result in an object with one fixed color (color 1), and a floating (not yet used) color 2.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^

#### Lengths

Lengths determine the length of the cycle they modify. For example, when used on a sun, the length of the day and night cycle is affected; when used on a color step of a gradient, it affects how long that color will last.

Lengths will blend with the existing length rather than replace the current length. This occurs two lengths at a time. Normal Length and Half Length will become 3/4 Length. Normal Length, Half Length, and Half Length will become 3/4 Length when Normal Length and Half Length mix, and then become 5/8 Length when 3/4 and Half Length mix.

Zero Length can mix as though its value is 0, but when on its own, will instead represent a lack of cycle. A sun set to Zero Length will not move.

"Full length", or a value of 1.0, means 20 minutes of time. This means that without add-ons, vanilla Mystcraft can represent a cycle length from 40 minutes to a fraction of a second; each page basically contributes one bit of percision. Note that fractions such as "1/3rd" cannot be written exactly. A 3 to 1 ratio between two objects can be obtained with one specified as "half length", and the other as "double length, full length" -- this makes 0.5 and 1.5, or 10 minutes and 30 minutes. Additional "zero length" pages may be added (add equal amounts to both) to make it faster. Other ratios are left as an exercise for the reader.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Phases

Phases determine starting positions. For example, if four suns are written into an age, each with the same Direction and Length modifiers, but each with a different Phase modifier, there will be four suns in the given age, each at approximately ninety degree angles from each other as they chase each other through the sky.

Phases are most commonly used in conjunction with Directions and the Zero Length modifier to place Celestial Bodies at specific points in the sky.

Phases will blend with the existing phase rather than replace the current phase. This occurs two phases at a time. "Setting" and "Zenith" will end up halfway between "Setting" and "Zenith" (like 3:00 pm). "Setting", "Zenith", and "Zenith" will first be halfway between Setting and Noon (3:00 pm) when they mix, but will end up being pushed to a quarter of the way to Noon from Setting (1:30 pm) when the second Zenith is mixed.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

#### Materials

Material symbols choose blocks for other symbols to build with, but each of those symbols can only accept particular blocks. In particular, Terrain symbols can accept only a subset of solid and liquid blocks for "land" and "sea". The Crystal Formations can accept several crystalline blocks. Other "structures" -- tendrils, spheres, spikes, etc. -- can accept almost any solid block. Mods can increase the options, and mod materials will appear as symbols if the mod registers the material with Mystcraft. As a special case, "oil" is checked for by Mystcraft itself.

Each Material has an innate instability score. As of 0.10.16 (expected), the actual final result of worldgen is used to determine the actual instability from the material. In all earlier versions, including 1.6.4 and 1.7.2, it is up to the symbol using the Material to determine how to apply that instability score. (In 0.10.4 and later, things are more complicated "under the hood", but the result is close enough; the symbol tells the material how it is being used, and the material provides the appropriate instability value). In particular, symbols will generally assume that they are being used in an overworld clone, and other types of worlds -- especially void world, island world, and skylands (terrain alteration) will result in very inaccurate values.

Note that the instability score may be zero, or even "stability" instead of instability. In practice, only the ores, and some mod blocks, offer significant instability.

### Liquids/Fluids

Most of these can be used with lakes and seas. "No Seas" is the exception, it can only be used with symbols#Terrain symbols. \\
See also "Ice", below, which also counts as a liquid.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

### Solids

These blocks are solid blocks. A few are valid for terrain, that is you can make a world out of them. All of them are valid blocks for structures (tendrils, spikes, spheres, etc.) Some are also valid as "crystals" for Crystal Formations.

## Terrains

If a world's terrain is not stone, there will be no biome top replacement (dirt/grass/sand/gravel).

If the world does not provide dirt or grass (either stone material, or dirt material), there will be no plants/trees.

Note that tendrils (dirt tendril, or stone tendril) will provide trees and plants -- stone tendrils in particular will get dirt and gravel deposits during the normal chunk decoration phase, and trees and plants happen after that.

If the world has netherrack terrain, then nether quartz ore will be placed by the vanilla ore placement.

This will not affect mobs placed during chunk generation -- cows, sheep, etc, will happily spawn on netherrack. Note that you won't get new animals as they die, as there is no grass for new spawning.

The grammar has a low, but non-zero chance of providing a non-stone material if you do not specify one.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

## Crystals

The "Crystal" in several blocks' third word is an alternate translation for the "Chain" glyph. Note that Glass and Ice use a different word there.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

## Ores

Players or server admins who find some or all of the ore symbols (or any symbol for that matter) to be overpowered, can disable them in the config file.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^

##### Specials

These symbols have special behavior.

^ Symbol ^ Name ^ Words ^ Notes ^