Matriochka

Every block can hold a world. Plant one, walk into it, beat what lives at the bottom, and go one doll deeper.

Matriochka is a progression mod for Minecraft 26.1.2, 26.2 and 26.3 on Fabric. Ten worlds are nested inside blocks, one inside the other, like the dolls it is named after.

You craft a Seed, plant it on tilled World Soil next to water, and the block that hatches holds a whole world: its own rule, its own creatures and people, its own crafting station, and a boss waiting at the end. Beat the boss, take its core, and the way into the next world opens. Every world after the first has its own key object and its own rite to open it.

It all starts in your normal world. A few hundred blocks from spawn, a ring of stone pillars guards an altar and the Block Guardian. Its core is your first Seed.

Ten worlds, ten rules

Each world changes one thing about how you survive. Learn the rule, build the answer at that world's station, then go after its boss.

World 1, Toxic Jungle (Toxin). Toxin builds every second you spend out of water or rain. Standing in water or rain, a Filter Mask and antidotes keep you on your feet.

World 2, Giant Veins (Heat). Lava and depth cook you. Cold water, Ice Bread and thermal armour hold it back.

World 3, Endless Dungeon (Locks). Sealed doors want keys or lockpicks, and every five minutes the halls rearrange themselves around you. The falling dust tells you which ones.

World 4, Storm Archipelago (Wind). A gust every 30 seconds throws you off the islands, and sparks mark where lightning lands three seconds before it does. Elytra do not work here.

World 5, Lightless Deep (Noise). Sprint and every creature within 28 blocks comes for you. Any light you place burns out after one minute.

World 6, Upside Realm (Gravity). About a third of the land has its gravity flipped, and the pattern changes every 90 seconds. You will walk on ceilings.

World 7, Pressure Ocean (Oxygen). No dry land at all. Your breath lasts about 33 seconds, and the deep water crushes you. Snorkel helmets, air vents and diving gear decide how far down you get.

World 8, Hastened Seasons (Season). A day lasts eight minutes and a season two. Summer makes you hungry, winter slows you down.

World 9, Restless Ground (Tremor). Every 60 seconds the ground heaves: whole 16 by 16 zones rise, sink, slide sideways or close their chasms.

World 10, The Giant Workshop (Synthesis). The final exam. The world is a patchwork of the nine rules before it, one per zone.

And after World 10, ten hidden dolls open World 0, the smallest doll of all.

Bosses you can read

Eleven bosses, from the Block Guardian on the Surface to the Unfinished at the heart of the Giant Workshop, and one more waiting in World 0.

• Every attack is announced, executed, then leaves an opening. With attack subtitles on, its name appears on screen while the boss winds up.
• Phases at 66% and 33% of health. The Unfinished breaks every 10%.
• Each boss has its own model and animations, its own boss bar drawn in pixel art, and its own music theme.
• Your Double copies your weapon and your play style. The Pressure Leviathan fights you under water. The Heart of the Terrain takes the floor away in sections.
• Health scales with the number of players near the fight, so a group of eight gets a real fight too.

The Artisan's Journal

The Scroll you wake up with becomes the Journal once the Block Guardian falls. It is the whole mod in one book:

• Objective: what to do next, your Doll of Life, your group and the endings you have seen.
• Quests: 70 optional quests, some with karma choices.
• Worlds: a card for every world listing each of its items and how to get it: made at which station, dropped by which creature, mined, or found in which chests.
• Map: every world inked in its colour as you walk it, with the places you found marked by role.
• Pages: 50 Journal pages to find, five per world, and the story they tell.

There are also 100 achievements, with an advancement tab for each world.

Wonders and relics

Every world hides one wonder, rarer than any structure and visible from far away: the Mother Tree, the Molten Heart, the Hall of Keys, the Eye of the Storm, the Last Candle, the Upside Spire, the Sunken Bell, the Stopped Clock, the Sleeping Giant and the Artisan's Desk.

At its heart stands a sealed reliquary. Next to it is a cross key, and that key always opens another world's reliquary, never its own. You will travel back and forth between the worlds to open all ten.

• The locals tell you which way their wonder lies and how far, and the Journal remembers what they said.
• Each relic gives one heart for good, plus a gift from its world: toxin, heat or noise building a quarter slower, breath that lasts longer, faster attacks, safer falls, faster mining.
• All ten together add 4 armour.
• When one member of a group opens a reliquary, every member within 24 blocks gets the relic too.

New in 0.9.0: Nesting

This update gives every world an ore of its own, and a reason to collect all ten.

Ten world ores, each obtained its own way:

• Spore Crystal (World 1): grows on Spore Blooms. Break a bloom with water within 4 blocks.
• Living Ember (World 2): only stays lit in a burning hand. Mine it with your Heat at 70 or more, or it goes out.
• Golden Ward (World 3): never mined. It is only in the Endless Dungeon's vault chests.
• Fulgurite (World 4): lightning fuses cloudstone or sand into a crust. Mine the crust.
• Silent Stone (World 5): shatters at the slightest sound. Mine it sneaking, with your Noise at 0.
• Inverted Ore (World 6): grows under overhangs and falls upwards when mined. Catch it before it is gone.
• Brine Crystal (World 7): any creature of the Pressure Ocean may drop one.
• Chrono Shard (World 8): plant a Time Seed in World 8 and it ripens in two minutes.
• Heartstone (World 9): two or three from the Heart of the Terrain.
• Artisan's Thread (World 10): mined from the Thread Spools.

The Nesting Cradle. A carved red-and-gold matryoshka about two blocks tall, made at the Final Loom. Set one ore from each world in its ring: each one lights its socket and plays its note of the lullaby. The tenth starts an eight-second ritual. Ten painted dolls rise out of the cradle, fan out, and close one over the next, smallest first. The cradle slams shut and flashes, then opens on a Matriochkite Ingot.

Matriochkite. The ingot, a nugget and a Block of Matriochkite, a red lacquer block painted with a rosette of the ten worlds. It works as a beacon base.

The Matriarch Armour. The best set in the mod, made from Matriochkite over the Artisan's own armour at the Final Loom. It has its own 3D model: a lacquered crown with a kokoshnik crest, nested-doll pauldrons, a khokhloma breastplate with a gem at its heart.

• 32 armour (Minecraft counts at most 30), 18 toughness, and one extra heart per piece.
• The Nested Shell, for the full set: every world's gauge builds half as fast (Toxin, Heat, Noise, lost breath). Once every five minutes, a blow that would kill you leaves you at three hearts instead, and your Doll of Life is not spent.
• A small doll next to your hearts shows when the shell is ready and fills back up as it mends.

Also in 0.9.0:

• The corner plaque is gone. Souls now have their own bar above the experience bar, so the mod no longer fights other mods for the top-left corner.
• Entering a world shows its name and rule as a title. F3 shows which world you are in.
• The comfort settings moved to Options > Matriochka…
• Talent bonus hits land again on 26.3.
• Matriochka is now in beta.

And the rest of it

• 50 creatures with their own mechanics: ambushers, mimics, sound hunters, nesting mobs that split when they die. Plus a trading people in every world and a travelling Doll Peddler.
• 13 crafting stations, each with one mechanic: fermentation, temperature, lock patterns, lightning, darkness, depth, time of day.
• Equipment classes. Gear rolls a class when crafted (Guardian, Berserker, Prowler, Reaper, Survivor or Prospector) and levels up to 5. 72 talents across their trees.
• Souls and karma. Every item holds a soul. Purify it or devour it at the Soul Altar. Your karma changes prices, quests, the people you meet, and your ending.
• The Doll of Life. Each of its layers saves you from one death. Soul Cradles let you respawn inside a world, and a death chest keeps your items.
• 110 structures, eleven per world, with Journal pages and one hidden doll in each world.
• Three endings and a New Cycle, where every boss comes back mutated.
• The Trials: boss rushes against the clock once you have seen an ending, with a server leaderboard.

Comfort and accessibility

Everything on screen can be softened or turned off. Open Options > Matriochka… from the title screen or the pause menu, or use the configure button in Mod Menu. Settings are saved per player.

• Screen shake from 0% to 100%.
• Flashes off, replaced by a soft darkening at the edges.
• Soft effects: no Nausea or Darkness from any source, shown as a gentle tint instead.
• Cinematics, attack subtitles and fewer particles, each on their own toggle.
• Gauge patterns, so every gauge reads without colour, and boss health in numbers.
• HUD size, the souls bar, and an optional world label in any corner.
• Separate volumes for the world themes, danger music, boss themes, heartbeat and stings.

Server operators pick the difficulty for everyone: story, normal, nightmare or hardcore. The mod is translated into English, French, Spanish, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Polish and Simplified Chinese.

Multiplayer and groups

Matriochka plays the same in singleplayer and on servers.

• Progression belongs to a group of up to 8 players (configurable). A world opened by one member is open for all, and a boss beaten together stays beaten for everyone.
• Each player keeps their own souls, karma, quests, achievements and Journal.
• Boss health scales with the players near the fight; boss attack speed follows them too.
• A reliquary opened by one member gives its relic to every member within 24 blocks.
• Commands for groups, karma and difficulty, plus operator tools: see the wiki.

Versions and requirements

• Minecraft Java Edition 26.3, 26.2 or 26.1.2. There is one file for each; take the one ending in your version (+26.3, +26.2, +26.1.2).
• Fabric Loader 0.20.0 or newer.
• Fabric API.
• GeckoLib for your Minecraft version: 5.5.7+ on 26.3, 5.5.5+ on 26.2, 5.5.2+ on 26.1.2.
• Java 25.
• Install it on the server and on every client. It also runs on Lunar Client through its Fabric profile.

Optional, all supported but none required:

• Just Enough Items or Roughly Enough Items: a recipe page for every station.
• Mod Menu: the mod's info screen, links and comfort settings.
• Jade: a World Block names the world inside it, and a planted Seed names the world it will open.
• Xaero's Minimap works, with its cave view and radar turned off in World 5 so the dark stays dark.

The modpack

Want it set up in one click? Matriochka Pack is the mod, its libraries, recipe pages and a set of client performance mods (Sodium, Lithium, FerriteCore and others). No other content. It comes in a normal and a hard version.

• Matriochka Pack on CurseForge
• Matriochka Pack on Modrinth

Links

• Website: achedon12.github.io/matriochka
• Wiki, with every world, boss and station: github.com/achedon12/matriochka/wiki
• Discord: discord.gg/SPVCf5hRuh
• Source, issues and releases: github.com/achedon12/matriochka

Matriochka is in beta. Every world, boss and ending is playable, and the polish keeps coming. Found a bug or have balance feedback? Open an issue or say it on Discord.

Open source under the MIT License. Made by achedon12.