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@TheRealWormbo TheRealWormbo commented Aug 24, 2025

The goal of this change is to open up most runes without having to not just visit the nether, but actually obtain nether wart (or blaze rods) from a nether fortress or housing units bastion remnant. Instead of randomly fortress-gating some of the tier 2 and 3 runes though the fire rune, this change makes a trip to the nether mandatory only for the tier 3 runes. Interestingly, this only seems to make two new items nether-gated, compared to 1.20.1: the damage lens and the entropic lens.

However, if those were the only changes, terrasteel and most of the Alfheim content would be available without going to the nether first. Only the Gaia fight arena setup would require going to a nether fortress as part of obtaining a beacon.

Overview of changes:

  • Tier 1 (elemental) runes: recipes were generally simplified to reasonably obtainable overworld ingredients
    • Rune of Water: replaced fishing rod with lily pad (unstackable ingredient is awkward)
    • Rune of Fire: replaced nether wart with a choice between coal and charcoal (technically removes nether-gating because netherrack for nether brick is available in the overworld at ruined portals)
    • Rune of Earth: replaced coal block with mud block (since coal is used in the fire rune recipe now)
  • Tier 2 (season) runes: reduced repeated ingredients to single instances and each of them required three different non-rune ingredients now
    • Rune of Spring: added dandelion as third ingredient (maybe the wheat should be replaced with a crop that is actually available in spring, like carrot)
    • Rune of Autumn: added beetroot as third ingredient (it's an autumn crop and has no uses otherwise)
    • Rune of Winter: replaced cake with sweet berries (a cold climate crop, also cake is much more complicated to make than any other season rune ingredient)
  • Tier 3 (sin) runes: added Mana Quartz item as additional ingredient (nearly no change in minimum mana requirement, but gates these runes behind a visit to the nether and increases complexity of automated material production)
  • Terrestrial Agglomeration Plate: replaced Block of Manasteel in recipe with Block of Manaquartz (gates the recipe behind a nether visit, though less difficult than the nether wart gating through the old fire rune recipe)

- water rune: replace fishing rod with lily pad (tools as ingredients feel weird)
- fire rune: replace nether wart with coal or charcoal (i.e. all ingredients obtainable before going to the nether)
- earth rune: replace coal block with mud block (because coal is for fire now; mud is renewable via the Rod of the Lands)
- remove multiple instances of ingredients from season runes and consistently have 3 non-rune ingredients
- spring rune: replace wheat (not a spring crop) with dandelion and carrot
- autumn rune: add beetroot (an autumn crop)
- winter rune: replace cake with sweet berries (a cold crop biome; cake feels too complex and somewhat unrelated)

The change to the fire rune recipe means that the spring and autumn runes, as well as the gluttony, greed, sloth, and pride runes are no longer nether-gated either, unlocking a lot of flowers. The "sin runes" should probably receive nether gating in some other way. Also, this means terrasteel and Alfheim are no longer nether-gated either, which needs to be rectified later.
By replacing the manasteel block in the terra plate with a mana quartz block, you spend a less mana on the ingredients, but require nether quartz. This gates the plate itself (and thus the availability of terrasteel and the Alfheim portal) behind a nether visit, but does not require a constant supply of quartz to make terrasteel.
Only two items that were not nether-gated in 1.20.1 are affected by this change: the damage lens and the entropic lens.
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Note: While the Runes of Envy, Lust, and Wrath were not nether-gated before, it seems all items that use them, except the two mentioned mana lenses, depended on one of the other nether-gated runes (Fire, Spring, or Autumn) instead. As a result the nether gating for such items doesn't change.

On the other hand, many interesting items become available before having made a nether portal. Some examples:

  • various rods (fire, cobble)
  • some baubles (e.g. Tectonic Girdle, Benevolent Goddess's Charm, Cirrus Amulet, Pyroclast Pendant)
  • potency lens
  • various special flowers (e.g. Thermalily, Gourmaryllis, Exoflame, Marimorphosis, Agricarnation, Jaded Amaranthus)

@TheRealWormbo TheRealWormbo marked this pull request as draft August 30, 2025 20:35
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