Ancient Manuscripts title logo

Ancient Manuscripts is a mod that adds long, forgotten pages torn from mystical tomes that have since been lost to time. These pages can be found in chests that scatter the landscape, and can be glued back together to create enchanted books. The glue isn't any old glue. It must be carefully crafted and applied in order to preserve the magical properties of the ancient texts. The more pages that are added to the book, the more powerful the enchantments become.

Experienced librarian villagers may have ancient manuscripts in their possession, and could be persuaded to part with them for the right price. Wandering traders may have also picked up a page or two on their travels, but don't expect them to part with the pages without appropriate compensation as they know their value. Witches have been known to use the magical texts for spell casting, so who knows what they will drop when dispatched?

Features:

Ancient manuscript pages waiting to be discovered in chests through adventure.
More control over the content of enchanted books.
Configuration options to customize the mod.

Recipes:

Binding Table

Spoiler

Binding table recipe

In order to create enchanted books, you will need to make a binding table. The binding table can be crafted out of three logs, two wooden fences, and a book. Different wood types (oak, dark oak, spruce, birch, acacia, jungle, mangrove, warped stem, crimson, stem, cherry (1.20.1), and bamboo (1.20.1)) result in different table appearances to match your specific decor, but the resulting table behaves the same regardless. Once crafted and placed, simply right click on the table to use it.

Empty Glue Bottle

Spoiler

Empty glue bottle recipe

An empty glue bottle is required when crafting enchanted book glue. You'll need a stick, a feather, and an empty bottle. The bottle can be used many times and is returned when the glue is used up.

Enchanted Book Glue

Spoiler

Enchanted book glue recipe

Enchanted book glue is an essential ingredient when creating enchanted books. You'll need a bucket of water, a honeycomb, bone meal, glowstone dust, a slime ball, and an empty glue bottle. A glue bottle that still has 50% or less glue remaining can also be used instead of an empty glue bottle. One bottle can glue 20 manuscript pages (configurable). As glue is used, the bottle will visually empty. You can hover of the bottle to see a tooltip indicating the remaining uses once some glue is used.

Binding Random Enchanted Books

Spoiler

Binding table being used to create enchanted books

The process of binding enchanted books is quite simple. Use the Binding Table and add as many manuscript pages to the table as you want. The more pages you add, the more powerful the enchantment you'll receive as a result. 1 page = Common, 2 pages = Uncommon, 3 pages = Rare, 4 pages = Very Rare. The level of the enchantment is randomly assigned - assuming an enchantment has levels (infinity, for example, does not). Add the book glue in the top left slot. Once you add a book (or enchanted book if enabled in the config) to the book slot, the binding process will begin. Binding an enchanted book takes 15 seconds (configurable) and a progress arrow indicates how long until the book is complete. During the binding process, you are free to add or remove pages from the table. The binding process will stop if you take all of the pages, remove all books, or take the book glue off of the table. Enchanted book glue is consumed during the crafting process. If there is less glue remaining than pages to be glued, the binding process will not work. Once the glue is used up, you'll have to craft more. Don't worry... you do get the empty glue bottle back.

Binding table being used to create enchanted books with a diamond

Binding table being used to add more enchantments to an enchanted book

If you want to guarantee that you'll receive a top tier enchantment, you can add a diamond to the diamond slot on the table. The resulting enchantment will have the highest level available - providing again that the enchantment has levels. If it does have levels, a diamond will be consumed. You can configure the binding table to only give top tier enchantments if you like. This is disabled by default. Adding or removing a diamond from the table while binding is in progress does not stop the binding process. Starting in version 1.1.8, it is now possible to disable the use of a diamond in the config. If diamond use is disabled, the diamond slot is removed from the binding table.

If an enchanted book cannot be created, the progress arrow will have a red X over it. There are a number or reasons why this might happen:

There are no enchantments available at the current level either due to blacklisting, or the input book has existing enchantments that have limited the available enchantment pool.
There are no books in the book slot.
There is no glue in the glue slot, or the glue bottle in the glue slot is empty.
There is less glue in the bottle than there are manuscript pages on the table.

Curse enchantments are not applied to the resulting books by default. You can enable them in the config if you want them.

If you only want vanilla Minecraft enchantments to be picked at random for the enchanted books, you can enable that option in the config. It is disabled by default. Otherwise, it is possible to receive the enchantments from all other available mods.

There is also a config option to disable treasure enchantments from appearing on the resulting enchanted books. It is enabled by default. Treasure enchantments are those that cannot be gained by using a normal enchanting table. Mending is an example of a treasure enchantment.

Enchantment Blacklisting:

Using a JSON file in the config directory, you can now block specific enchantments from being available to the enchanted book recipe. Simply add the mod id and the name(s) of the enchantment(s) (or use * for all) to the file and restart the game. The JSON file (ancient_manuscripts_blacklist.json) will automatically be generated in the config directory if it is absent when the mod is loaded by the game. For servers, the server config file will take priority over the client one, so no need to worry about players re-enabling blacklisted enchantments. Note: the blacklist system only applies to Ancient Manuscripts enchanted book recipe. It does not provide a way to globally block enchantments from being accessible in other ways.

Here is an example of the JSON file format:

In this example, all vanilla Minecraft enchantments are blocked, and a second mod called "another_mod" has been added that blocks three specific enchantments.

If you are unsure of the exact name of the enchantment that you want to block (and the mod id for that matter), the easy way to find it is to use the /enchant command. You will see a list of all currently loaded enchantments and will be able to find the mod id and enchantment name from the list.

Data packs:

Starting with Ancient Manuscripts version 1.1.6, it is possible to add substitute manuscript pages from other mods. Create a data pack and add a JSON file at the following location: /data/ancient_manuscripts/tags/items/manuscripts.json. Set the "replace" value to "false". Add the items you want to use in the "values" section.

Language Support:

US English
Simplified Chinese (provided by junshengxie)
Traditional Chinese (provided by junshengxie)

Check out my other mods:

Adds a strong, mystical crystalline material to Minecraft.

More Diamethyst Arrow upgrades.

Adds a golem made of diamethyst.

Adds a selection of medieval weapons.

Adds support for Diamethysts in the Treasure2 mod (1.20.1 only).

This mod is for Forge only. I do not have plans to port to Fabric at this time.

Modpack developers: You are welcome to include Ancient Manuscripts in your modpack. If you are making it public, please give me appropriate credit for my mod.

Love this mod? Feel like donating? You can buy me a coffee!

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Fresh Animations: Player Extension

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Minecraft: Java Edition

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