Malum

Malum is a magic mod centered around the elemental and mental aspects of souls, harnessing these traits to create a wide array of arcane effects on yourself and the world around you! To get started in this mod, find or form Soulstone to create the two keystone features of the mod: the Spirit Altar, and the Crude Scythe. There are rumors of a structure somewhere out in the void, emitting whispers and tugging on certain materials. Perhaps you could seek it out and make a trade for some...

Asks for: Raw Soulstone, Refined Soulstone

With soulstone embedded in the blade, a Crude Scythe is able to tear through both body and soul when slaying creatures, causing Spirit to form and be drawn to the slayer. The shape is a bit of a stereotype, but its innate sweeping power on multiple targets and effectiveness in obtaining Spirit is hard to ignore. Scythes also can accept unique enchantments that may drastically improve or alter its uses, such as collecting more spirits or providing a small aerial boost.

Asks for: Crude Scythe

Spirit is collected from creatures slain by a Crude Scythe or any other appropriately attuned tool. While Arcane is the most essential and fundamental of spirit aspects, and a reliable supply of this is all but mandatory for further creations, access to all the different types is an important goal to progress towards. Slay all manner of creatures to discover what aspects they may hold! Jars can be crafted soon that can hold a vast amount of any one type of these spirits, and with a Lamplighter's Tongs in one hand they can be placed as a mesmerizing block of light.

Runewood is a sturdy tree with beautiful amber or azure leaves and rich brown bark. You might find some growing on floating chunks of land, or trade for a sapling in the Market. Its wood hums with latent magical energy and serves nicely as a base material for arcane utility. This magical energy sometimes causes sap to seep through the wood and pool beneath the bark. Scraping away the bark in these areas allows you to collect the sap in bottles. When consumed, it provides minor healing, or it can be used as a substitute for slimeballs.

Asks for: Azure Runewood Sapling, Runewood Log, Runewood Sapling, Runic Sap

With a base and up to five logs on top to form a pole, totems can be attuned to a particular spirit symbol by using the spirit on the logs. Once an appropriate set of symbols is made, right-clicking the base will activate the totem pole to invoke a Spirit Rite. Doing so again will deactivate the Rite. These Rites have a wide variety of effects either on the world or those who stand in its area. While multiple Rites can be invoked on an area, two or more of the same Rite will cancel each other out. A Totemic Staff will let you see what this area is, and can be used on an attuned log to make it glow without activation.

Asks for: Runewood Totem Base

Applying five arcane spirits at the totem pole and activating it will invoke The Unchained Rite. Pure archaic potential bursts through a wide local area, focusing through the organic totem to corrupt all sorts of natural material into blighted forms, including the totem pole itself as the original form cannot handle the raw energies. The process becomes stable afterwards, an activated Soulwood Totem now more steadily channeling the energy to transmute materials placed on Blighted Earth in an extremely useful process. The same cannot be said of resulting Soulwood Saplings however, which reproduce this rush of blight whenever they mature. Controlled cultivation is advised, if any.

Asks for: Soulwood Log, Soulwood Sapling

This weird byproduct of blight has few uses.

Asks for: Large Strange Crystal

Knowledge is part of the soul, but not an aspect of spirit. Instead it takes form as Brilliance when released, and like Soulstone can sometimes be found sunken into rock throughout the void. This material and its smelted form can be used to create a few pieces of magical equipment, or the smelted form can be consumed to reclaim the knowledge for your own experience. It also seems to be a fairly key ingredient for something, but not in its current form...

Asks for: Raw Brilliance, Refined Brilliance

By condensing knowledge into miniature totems, just three of these Brilliant Obelisks will give the same increase to an Enchanting Table as 5 bookshelves!

Asks for: Brilliant Obelisk

The Spirit Altar is a place to channel spirit aspects and other infusion resources into a focal item. The Altar itself serves to hold this focus and anchor the spirits used on it, while any other focus materials must be placed on pedestals within 4 blocks of the Altar. Once all materials and spirits are in place, the crafting begins automatically. While the crafting process can be slow, up to four Runewood Obelisks placed in this range will speed it up.

Asks for: Runewood Obelisk, Spirit Altar

While Hex Ash is a fairly entry level bit of magic stuff, it has many uses in Malum. Having a sizable handful prepared for crafting is recommended.

Asks for: Hex Ash

These spirit-infused stones are mostly just decoration on their own, but harnessing the combined magical properties allows the creation of new devices and machines.

Asks for: Tainted Rock, Twisted Rock

With an Alchemical Impetus as a focus, Spirit Crucibles are able to channel spirits into a physical form such as dusts or gems that align with their aspects. This slowly uses up the Impetus's material, but it can be repaired or made anew. Of note is 'blazing quartz' which cannot otherwise be found in the void. Other types of Impetus also can be crafted, allowing the conversion of spirits into a wider variety of resources.

Asks for: Alchemical Impetus, Spirit Crucible

Anvils are all well and good for repairing mundane gear, but magical goods can be much more expensive or even impossible to repair in this manner. With a Repair Pylon, the Spirit Crucible is able to focus spirits and a repair material into a piece of gear, so long as it already has ties to certain magics or is totally mundane. This is also the only way to repair a Fractured Impetus.

Asks for: Repair Pylon

Metalworking is just as important in magic as it is with the mundane, even if the methods are far different. Ingots that have been infused with spiritual properties will be instrumental in progressing deeper into this craft.

Asks for: Hallowed Gold Ingot, Soulstained Steel Ingot

By combining magical spools with different materials and applying them to arcane armor in the Weaver's Workbench, the armor changes in appearance while keeping all of its defense and other benefits. The Ancient Weave converts the armor to an alternate version of itself, but all other weaves change the armor to one set look. Ex. a Soulhunter Robe and a Soulstained Chestplate will seem identical after a Cornered Weave is applied.

Asks for: Weaver's Workbench

While equipping yourself with all sorts of curios and baubles is a common enough practice, certain choices are shunned. Brooches allow a few tweaks to this, exchanging one option for another. Among these options are the allowance for new Rune slots. Runes are made by inserting the base material into a Runic Workbench, then applying the amount and type of spirits required. Runes provide a wide variety of potent effects: some applying a personal form of Spirit Rites as performed by Totems, others providing noticeable stat buffs, and still more that have their own unique traits. As typical, consult your Encyclopedia for more information.

Asks for: Runic Workbench

While it's an ordinary use, soulstained and hallowed ingots can be used to make rings and other equipment. These trinkets provide small defense boosts on their own, but mainly serve as a base for more powerful odds and ends. Consult the notes of the Encyclopedia for more information. Suggestion: look into the Ring of Esoteric Spoils in particular for easier Spirit collection.

Soulstained tools and weapons can be used to collect Spirit in the same manner as a Scythe while having all the same traits as their mundane counterparts, though an upgrade from the Crude version is available as is an improved sword with Tyrving. Splitting a metal across both spirit and physical however means that this damage is similarly split, about half of it being converted into magic damage for better or worse.

Asks for: Soulstained Steel Axe, Soulstained Steel Hoe, Soulstained Steel Pickaxe, Soulstained Steel Scythe, Soulstained Steel Shovel, Soulstained Steel Sword

With the right combination of ingredients placed into a Soulbinding Brazier, semi-permanent Oaths (also known as Geasa, singular: Geas) can be sworn on one's soul that change your experience in ways from minor to drastic. Some examples are providing innate armor at the cost of never wearing any, or making you a titan of the sea, but only when in water... Check Malum's Encyclopedia to see the conditions of these various Oaths. Check the next page for details on the Oath-making process. To use the Brazier, the central item outlined in the Encyclopedia must be inserted first. From there, the spirits and additional materials can be applied. Once the Oath is prepared, use Ether on the brazier to light it and begin the Oath. The Oath process will take a few dozen seconds, and any willing player may interact with the Brazier to accept the Oath at this time at the cost of a little damage, with each player able to take on two Oaths at once. Unwilling, or unwitting, players and creatures can be included into Oaths by applying weakness to them before lighting the Brazier. To end the effects of an Oath, this process can be repeated with a Paracausal Flame lighting the Brazier instead.

Asks for: Paracausal Flame, Soulbinding Brazier

One obvious use of Spirit is to make equipment from it. Infusing it into cloth provides a fine base to use the Spirit's properties.

Asks for: Soulwoven Silk

Armor made from soulwoven silk doesn't provide much defense, but it's better than typical clothing and much better than nothing at all. On the plus side, the infused Spirit helps to enhance a wearer's magic prowess.

Asks for: Soulhunter Boots, Soulhunter Cloak, Soulhunter Leggings, Soulhunter Robe

Collecting spirits is important work for an aspiring spirit mage, but an evening spent slaying the hostile creatures of the night can be a hassle with all the resources to sort and manage, especially when Spirit is involved. A Soulwoven Pouch helps ease this burden by funneling Spirit and certain other drops into itself before they'd touch its holder’s inventory, up to 8 stacks worth. The pouch can be used to dump its contents into the world, or used in the inventory to pull out sets of items at a time.

Asks for: Soulwoven Pouch

When collecting spirits from slain creatures, there is a chance that the spirit infuses the creature's normal resource with its essence, causing a new item to form. Rotting Essence drops from fleshy undead Grim Talc drops from skeletal undead Warp Flux drops from teleporting eldritch creatures Astral Weave drops from ghostly flying foes

A Spirit Catalyzer consumes inserted furnace fuels to accelerate the processing speed of a nearby Crucible, up to eight are able to function on a single Crucible. This speed can sometimes cause more damage to the focal Impetus than usual, decreasing the total amount of material it can create before needing to be fixed or replaced.

Asks for: Spirit Catalyzer

Soulstained Armor provides more than just adequate physical protection, having a second property of absorbing a large portion of magic-based damage. This property needs to recover over time, but does so at no other noticeable cost to the wearer.

Asks for: Soulstained Steel Boots, Soulstained Steel Chestplate, Soulstained Steel Helmet, Soulstained Steel Leggings

This mysterious precious substance cannot be created through any crude means, and must be found scattered on various landmasses and structures throughout the void to obtain it, barring a deep dive into technological or arcane resource generation. Small deposits can be regularly seen scattered throughout floating villages, especially in their work centers.

Asks for: Cthonic Gold

This structure out in the void leaks whispers and heartbeats and weeping and tugs on certain items with its dark pull. It ... wants something. Try offering it your arcane knowledge, or raw resources, see what you might get in return. What is spat back out resembles the original, but is altered in some way that cannot be undone. Perhaps what this place wants is simply to change things, as we often do. That said, while any item that does not show signs of a dark pull is simply rejected, living offerings do not give anything back at all after they fall silent. Surely they were just weak...

Asks for: Encyclopedia Esoterica

A darker set of items for a darker sort of craft.

Asks for: Malignant Lead, Mnemonic Fragment, Null Slate, Void Salts

Where Malignant Weapons seemed to have some will, weapons made with Fused Consciousness leave no room for doubt. The Sundering Anchor continues to attack after you swing, not yet finished with your foe. Using the blade unleashes it, sending it out to gleefully attack anything it can in a large area repeatedly before returning, striking deep into their souls. Aside from you, of course. Who else would wield it? The Unwinding Chaos sears every foe it affects with magical fervor, the staff sapping energy from the flames it caused to regain the hexing charges used to create them. You don't want it to be over after all do you? Not yet, at least.

Asks for: Sundering Anchor, Unwinding Chaos

Malignant Pewter is a material made of magic that is inherently counter to the world of magic and creation. Weapons and armor made from the stuff seem to seek to undo, to end, if not outright destroy. The greatest tales all told, end with silence.

Asks for: Malignant Pewter Ingot, Malignant Pewter Plating

The Edge of Deliverance: A strike to weaken, a strike to fell The Weight of Worlds: The random blows of life, each end aiding the downfall of another The Erosion Scepter: Struggle made manifest, every smite further and further smothering the soul

Asks for: Edge of Deliverance, Erosion Scepter, Weight of Worlds

The rejection of magic, when properly isolated from the mage wearing it, provides a powerful defense. Magic attacks and boons alike are partially absorbed by the Malignant Stronghold, used to further fuel the armor's integrity and warding capabilities. The more they fight, the closer their end approaches.

Asks for: Malignant Stronghold Boots, Malignant Stronghold Chestplate, Malignant Stronghold Helmet, Malignant Stronghold Leggings

Umbral Spirits can be acquired from sacrificing souls of the living. This may be done by throwing yourself into the Weeping Well. It can also be dropped rarely by slaying villagers with the Veil's Edge.

Asks for: Veil's Edge, Umbral Spirit

Using the Umbral Spirit, you can craft several powerful weapons and artifacts. Among those are: The Splintered World's special ability summons flying swords that home in towards your enemies. The Replica Artifact Wheel provides mixed damage reduction to physical, magical, and any other damage sources.

Asks for: Replica Dharmachakra, Splintered World

These are powerful Runes that can provide powerful and unique effects to enhance your effects.

Asks for: Rune of Mimir, Rune of Hodr, Rune of Eir, Rune of Fafnir, Rune of Gymir, Rune of Svalinn

You have opened your eyes to all knowledge known to It's recommended to craft yourself the Encyclopedia Unveiled to unlock all available content for Malum and Gaze.

Asks for: Encyclopedia Unveiled

This Hex Staff holds formidable power in melee combat and is capable of collecting Spirit, but what makes it stand out is its ability to fire off potent charges of spirit energy from your soul. These charges replenish over time (seen on the hotbar), and can be increased or regained through various enchantments or trinkets.

Asks for: Mnemonic Hex Staff

While at first it seems that collecting Spirit can only be done manually, a closer inspection into Wicked-aligned runewood spirit rites shows a special synergy. The lesser rite will slowly damage nearby hostile mobs down to low health, and the greater rite will cull mobs in both body and soul when they are at low health, generating Spirit alongside their standard drops! A similar synergy exists for passive animals among the various rites...

Although the Catalyzer can increase the speed of the Spirit Crucible, many more aspects of its function can be tweaked with various Augments. Some of these affect different Crucible stats, while others will add entirely new mechanics to the system. Consult the Malum book for details! A Tuning Fork will show these stats and features above the Crucible when held, and can tweak some minor aspects when used on it. Up to four can be applied to the Crucible itself, and linked Catalyzers can accept one augment each to apply to their Crucible.