Getting Started (Mystcraft)

Mystcraft is a mod that provides you with the ability to create new dimensions to play in, known as Ages. At first the Ages you visit will be random, but as you continue you'll gain the ability to shape these new worlds to your desires.

Ages can vary wildly in appearance. They can be similar or near-identical to the Overworld, or somewhat similar to the Nether, or sky islands similar in style to the End; or they can be completely alien, with strange crystals or tendrils, brightly coloured skies and too many suns.

Safely using Mystcraft requires knowing how to make Linking Books and Descriptive Books, as well as what to keep in your hotbar. It is possible to get stuck in an age, and be unable to return to the Overworld, or any other dimension, without cheating. This is both known, and intentional; this mimics the source material the mod is based on.

Necessities
In order to start creating new ages you will need:
 * A steady supply of sugarcane for paper
 * A large supply of cows or leather for books
 * A nearby water source capable of spawning squids for ink sacs
 * A couple of glass bottles for Ink Vials

Safety
Linking Books allow you to teleport from anywhere in any dimension to the location where that Linking Book was linked. This is the first type of Mystcraft book that you will want to create. The other type are Descriptive Books, sometimes called Age books, which allow you to create and travel to a new Age. Linking Books are how you get back out of an Age, and are often the only way to return: If you die in an Age, you will respawn in that Age.

To make a Linking Book, you need an Ink Mixer, in which you can use Paper and Ink Vials to create Link Panels. Combine a Link Panel with a piece of Leather to make an Unlinked Link Book. Take it to the location you wish to link to, and face in the direction you want to come out facing in, then right click with the book to create the link.

"Warning to server operators: Linking books permit extremely cheap and almost unrestricted teleportation between any place your players have been to. If you want to restrict the free teleportation, look into Linking Tweaks."

Bookstands and Lecterns
Bookstands and Lecterns serve to hold books in safety. Both are identical in function, differing only in their aesthetic appearance.

When you travel through a book, the book you use will stay behind. If you use a book from your inventory, you will drop it as you teleport. Dropped books appear as an entity, not as an item, and can take damage; a book that gets wet, including on the ground when it rains, will take damage, and will eventually be destroyed. A book that is placed in a Lectern or Bookstand will never take damage.

New Ages
Once you have Linking Books which link back to your home, you can begin to consider going to new Ages. A random Age can be made by putting a linking panel and leather into a Book Binder. Additional pages can be added if you want to influence the resultant world, but are not needed.

For safety, you want to bring at least the following items with you to the new Age:
 * 1) Three return linking books home. Two in the hotbar, one in inventory.
 * 2) Two bookstands or lecterns, in hotbar.
 * 3) A chest, in hotbar.
 * 4) Some light sources (such as torches, glowstone, etc.), in hotbar.
 * 5) Recommended: A Potion of Night Vision. Your new age may be a Cave World, which have a similar terrain generation to the Nether, but lacking the natural background lighting and glowstone.
 * 6) Recommended: Backup weapons, tools and armor. If you die, these might come in handy.

On arrival, plan to do the following:
 * 1) Immediately place one bookstand/lectern, and place one of the books from your hotbar into it. This is your primary way home. Place down some lighting around it.
 * 2) Look around. Assess the immediate area, and see what's in the distance. If the world appears to be highly unstable, you can use the book you just placed down to escape.
 * 3) If you plan to stay for any length of time, then move a short distance away, place down the chest, and into it put the spare linkbook and spare bookstand/lectern from your inventory.
 * 4) If you brought any backup weapons/tools/armor, leave those in the chest as well. If you die, you'll respawn where you entered, close to this chest.
 * 5) The third linking book remains in your hotbar at all times. This is your emergency exit, so keep it available!

If you die in this new Age, you will respawn in the Age at the location where you first entered. Upon respawning, the very first thing you should do before anything else is retrieve the backup book from the chest, and place it on your hotbar. Don't forget to replace the book in the chest once you're able to! Alternatively, you may wish to immediately leave the Age using the primary book on the stand/lectern, and retrieve tools/weapons/armor and a new linking book from your home base before returning.

'''Never remove the last return home linkbook from your hotbar. Keep it available at all times. Regard this as the number one rule of Mystcraft in all cases.'''

Getting Home Without Linking Books
If you get into trouble, this is what you want to know.

Without Cheats
Every Age has a roughly one in ten chance of containing a Star Fissure, which appears as an irregular-shaped hole located close to the Age's spawn point which passes all the way down through the bedrock into the void. Jumping into a Star Fissure will return you to the Overworld, near spawn - this is the in-game mechanism for getting home, without cheating. You may also be able to find a page for a Star Fissure in a library; if so, you can use that in a book binder to create an Age that is guaranteed to have one.

If you are playing in multiplayer, you may be able to get a friend to enter the Age you are in and bring linking books for you both to leave again.

Using Cheats
If you need to cheat to get home (for example, if you are trapped in a rapidly decaying or otherwise deadly Age), the command to use is "/tpx 0". If you are in single player, and cannot normally use cheats, you can "Open to LAN", and enable cheats there.

If a server op needs to get someone else home, then "/tpx playername 0" will work.

Instabilities
Instability affects some Ages and manifests itself in various ways; the effects of instability can range from non-stop lightning and detrimental potion effects, to sunlight so intense that it will light you on fire. At its most extreme, the terrain of the Age can be torn apart and consumed by the spread of Decay.

There are two main sources of instability which a player will typically encounter.

Worlds whose symbols cause them to generate extra resources will be unstable. This is often the result of the Dense Ores symbol being used, or a result of a particular terrain feature being made out of a valuable block or liquid. The more valuable the resource, as well as how abundant it is, will determine the amount of instability. The most frequent source of instability tends to be oceans of some mod-added liquid -- Ages with these will generally be so unstable that the Age will need to be abandoned.

The second, usually lesser source of instability is badly written worlds (if you are using the book binder to make customized worlds). If symbols are included in the wrong order or conflict with other symbols, this can cause instability. Randomly-generated Ages seem to often contain low to moderate amounts of instability, probably as a result of conflicts between their randomly generated symbols.

There are symbols which directly add the effects of instability to a world, reducing instability in the process. These are very useful if you want to deliberately include a feature in a world that you know will make it unstable: You can't avoid having instability, but at least you can choose what form it takes, and avoid the most harmful effects.