Thaumatology (Alpha)

Note:
This mod is currently exceptionally early in development, features will be added, potentially removed, altered, re-added and so on frequently. I do not recommend using it in a game you wish to keep long term, if you do I recommend you not update your mod without backing up your save and/or the old version of the mod. Features may be unstable, incompatible with multiplayer(temporarily), they may corrupt your world. This is a highly in-progress mod in its current state. It is only released in the hope that I can get ideas, feedback and bugs found with the help of fellow Thaum fans that want to see it be the best it can be. This notice will be removed or altered as the mod progresses, signalling a more stable state. You have been warned.

Thaumatology is the study of miracles. The science of the unscientific. The pursuit of explanation for the inexplicable.
It's also a mod for Vintage Story.

Thaumatology lets you harness the essence inherent in the world around you to perform miraculous feats of magic and alchemy. Disassemble the world into its base components and reshape them into a form more to your liking.

In practice, this means that most things in the world can be broken down into whatever essences comprise them. Those essences, volatile as they may be; can with the proper expertise and equipment, be reconstituted together to create new things, old things, red things, blue things, light things and... dark things.

Be a Wizard or an alchemist, a miracle worker or a madman, a druid in peace with nature or a power crazed cultist in search of forbidden truths. The answers are all around you, as soon as you decide the question you wish to ask.

As a mod Thaumatology is an in-progress work with great potential. It will in time touch on most aspects of the game in some way, but it will always require you to make the first step. One's mind must be open to see the world for what it really is, after all. As such no vanilla content will be edited if at all possible, to maintain compatibility and to leave the player the option to close their eyes to the truth. That everything is cake multi-coloured bottles of juice under the surface.

I hope there's others here that remember ThaumCraft as fondly as I do and hope that you'll join me on this journey: Discord

Hotkeys:
Mod adds two new hotkeys, defaults are: K for starmap (Requires awakening, triggered by picking up your first crystal) and G for gesture casting.
On the topic of ThaumCraft:

To address the inevitable elephant in the room: Yes, this mod is very heavily inspired by Azanor's "ThaumCraft" for Minecraft. No, it does not use any of his intellectual property. All code and art is written or created by me (except where credited otherwise), although there will be some inevitable overlap because just as I draw inspiration from ThaumCraft I also draw my own inspiration from the things that inspired ThaumCraft originally. The symbol for the Thaumaturge from ThaumCraft, the pi symbol looking one, is featured as a nod to Azanor's work but I do not intend to just replicate ThaumCraft's functionality. Thaumatology will likely be a more light-hearted spin on the concept; though there will be some darker optional paths for the brave, foolhardy or mad to tread. I'm mainly making this mod because I fell in love with ThaumCraft many years ago, and when it was discontinued it broke my heart. I wish Azanor all the best, wherever he is, and I decided that rather than waiting for some theoretical eventual update by CoFH I would just bring my own take on the idea to a game that captured my imagination more than Minecraft ever did.

Credits:
Apache, for his invaluable help and expertise; check out his awesome map utility mod here.
Tonzag, for producing some very nice models far in excess of what I could've done myself in any reasonable length of time.
Azanor, for his work on ThaumCraft; stirring the imaginations of thousands of people.