The World Root - Infection

The World Root - Infection

The roots are waking up. And they are hungry.

The World Root - Infection is a survival-horror mod for Minecraft 1.20.1 (Forge). The world is slowly being consumed by a living, rooted infection. Infected Trees spread across the land, turning soil, stone, forests and even buildings into twisted, root-choked versions of themselves, and every creature they kill rises again as part of the infection.

There are no progress bars and no numbers. You learn what is happening by watching, listening and reading your journal. Stop it early, or watch it grow into something much worse.

⚠️ This is a BETA (0.2.0 – "The Horror of the Roots"). Expect bugs and balance changes. Please report problems in the comments. Make backups of your worlds!

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🌱 How the infection works

• Tree Larvae appear in the wild at night. They hunt other mobs, and anything they kill rises again as an infected version.
• Infected zombies sometimes turn into a Purified Zombie, a creature made entirely of wood. It plants itself, surrounded by defenders, and grows into a Tree Cocoon that hatches into an Infected Tree.
• Infected Trees spread the infection to everything around them: dirt, stone, sand, logs, leaves, planks, stairs, slabs, walls, fences, trapdoors, even water, which rots into Rotten Water. Glowing blooms, root sprouts, thorn bushes and hanging roots grow on infected ground.
• A mob only turns infected after it is killed by the infection. Hits alone just hurt. Infected mobs burst out of their armour and drop their weapons.
• Infected mobs travel in packs with a hierarchy. Some guard the infected land, others go on raids: to villages, to the player, or into healthy land.

🌑 The infection grows

The infection grows in four phases, but the game never tells you the numbers. You only get an unsettling thought in the chat and a distant heartbeat. The trees grow taller, new creatures crawl out of the ground, and at some point something enormous starts to form…

The last phase, The Ancient Era of the Roots, never ends.

🌕 Hostile Nights

Once the infection is strong enough, some nights turn hostile. The sky takes on an amber tint, a horn sounds from somewhere far away, and hordes of the infected march towards you in waves while larvae crawl out of the ground around you. You cannot sleep through it. Survive until dawn.

👹 Creatures

Infected animals: Infected Pig, Cow, Chicken, Sheep (spits Tree Larvae out of its neck stump) and Goat.

Infected monsters and villagers:

• Rotted Zombie: a living heart beating in an open wound. Also as Rotted Husk in deserts and Rotted Drowned in water.
• Rotted Runner: a starved, hunched corpse covered in roots. It stands perfectly still in the dark… then screams and sprints at you.
• Overgrown Skeleton: overgrown bones with an acid heart beating in the ribcage. Walks like a puppet on roots and throws acid.
• Root Lasher: an acid-eaten skeleton with a root whip for an arm. It leaps at you and lashes from above, and the acid eats your armour.
• Rooted Villager, Infected Creeper (spreads the infection instead of destroying blocks), Infected Pillager (lashes with vines), Infected Vindicator (infects whole trees with his axe), Infected Spider and Infected Cave Spider, Rooted Witch, Infected Enderman and Infected Iron Golem.

Unique creatures:

• Gardener: a wooden gardener who summons shooting Thorn Sprouts from the ground.
• Tree Guardian: rises from the earth to defend its tree.
• Thorn Warrior: armoured in thorns that hurt whoever hits it. Guards Ancient Trees and leads hordes.
• Heart Priest: a rare robed creature whose staff makes the infected stronger.
• Bloom Strangler: a rare flowering horror that roots everything around it in place.
• Carrier: a flying spore bomber that drops spore pods on you and on healthy animals.
• Wendigo: an Infected Goat that has eaten enough flesh. It gallops on all fours and screams as it hunts you.
• Rotted Mutant and Bone Basher: rare evolutions of zombies and skeletons.
• Golem of the Ancient: a giant statue of mossy stone bound by roots that crushes everything uninfected.
• The Stalker: something that pretends to be a villager. Do not get close.

🌳 The boss: Ancient Tree Warrior

A chosen Purified Zombie walks towards an Infected Tree and becomes a Cocoon of Life, a pulsing yolk sac with the embryo of the boss inside. Every minute it grows. Then it opens its eye. Then its heart stops. You will only know which direction to look.

The Ancient Tree Warrior is a 13-block bark giant with a single vertical eye. It throws torn-out blocks, slams the ground, and below half health its chest cracks and bleeds resin. Then it plunges its hands into the earth: the ground shakes, wooden pillars and armies of the infected rise, and a Giant Tree of Wrath crashes down on you.

When it dies, a Flower of Rebirth grows from its body.

🛡️ Fighting back

• Forest Purifier: cleanses infected land around it and protects it from the roots and the hordes.
• Amber armour and Amber Blade: crafted from Pure Resin, made to fight the infected.
• Thorn Spear and Thorn Shield.
• Bone Club and Root Scythe: made from the Basher Arm.
• Totem, Seeds and Elixir of Rebirth: made from the Flower of Rebirth.
• Forest Charm: keeps the creeping roots off your screen.
• Living Water: found in springs. It heals you, damages the infected and cleanses the ground.
• Infection Journal: a bestiary that records the creatures, items and places you discover.

🏚️ Structures

Overgrown Camps, Overgrown Ruins, Root Nests (with a larva spawner), Purification Shrines and Living Water Springs. Some are generated with the world, and some are uncovered by the spreading infection.

🏆 Advancements

A full advancement tab that rewards experience, from your first infected kill to defeating the boss in full amber armour, plus a few hidden ones.

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⚙️ Requirements

• Minecraft 1.20.1
• Forge 47.x
• GeckoLib 4 (required)

Works in singleplayer and on servers (install on both the server and the client).

🔧 Config

config/rootinfection-common.toml lets you turn Hostile Nights on or off and change their chance, change how often infected mobs spawn, and disable Carriers, natural Stalker spawns or Golems of the Ancient.

❗ Good to know

• No screen darkness, no blindness: the horror comes from what you see and hear.
• The infection can spread into player-made structures. Full blocks next to an Infected Tree or an Infected Creeper's blast can turn into Root Mass. Chests, furnaces and other blocks with inventories, ores, bedrock and barriers are never touched. Protect your base with a Forest Purifier!
• Respects the mobGriefing and doMobSpawning game rules. On Peaceful the infection does not spread.
• /rootinf (status and test commands) is for operators only.

📦 Modpacks

You are free to use this mod in any modpack. A link back to this page is appreciated.

Commands /rootinf… Points (shows the points and the stage infection is in) Boss (just spawns a boss) sprout (spawns a infected tree) spawn (spawns small group of zombies)

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Made by Mundo.