đ Hey there,
Great to see you. Whether you're new here or a returning friend - grab your mug and let's dive into this week's topics. âď¸
đ Single Bean - Magia Daemonica
I keep an eye on the 1.12 Modding Coalition ModJam entries after the fact to see which ones stuck around. Magia Daemonica by smileycorp was one of my personal favorites from the 2025 contenders - so much so that I decided to give it this week's spotlight. Some may say we're starting the spooky season early in the newsletter, but I think it deserves exposure as it tries to balance meaningful power-gains against ever-increasing costs (and I really wanna see where this mod may go in the future). And hey, if the mood holds, expect more seasonal spotlights as we edge toward Halloween.
In this mod you create rituals to summon demons who trade for items and more strength, but be warned - all deals come with a price, and for demons, emeralds might not quite be enough. The more contracts you sign, the more they ask for. It's less about traditional progression trees and more about consequences that scale with ambition.
To summon your first demon and get a taste of the powers that lie ahead, start by hunting for Lavender and Chalk scattered across various biomes. Once gathered, craft Suet from raw beef to render into Tallow. Next, draw a summoning circle out of Chalk and place Scented Candles within. When night falls, kill passive mobs in the center and watch the circle bleed red with ritual power - at least a Sheep's worth is needed to start. Finally, light the candles and invoke the incantation "te infernale invoco pacisci volo" to complete the ritual. I wonât spoil what powers come next - you're encouraged to discover the benefits yourself, knowing the price rises with every deal.
Links:
Tl;dr:Â Ritual magic and demon trading - power scales, but so does the cost.
đ Roaster's Notes: Meet
Today's guest is a proper multi-talent. Foreck is the lead developer of Rebirth of the Night, one of the most ambitious packs 1.12 has to offer - directed and decorated largely by his own hand. If you've seen his art online, you know the man can draw; if you've played the pack, you know he can orchestrate an entire modding ecosystem around a vision. Oh, and he also won the 2025 1.12 Modding Coalition ModJam with Traces of the Fallen, but that story gets its own stage in part two. Yep, things went on for so long that I decided to split it into two parts to stay closer to the usual coffee-break length.
Morning Brew
Enderman: As always, we kick things off with the essential question: What is your favorite kind of coffee?
Foreck: Latte, can be hot or cold, so long as it is sweet. It makes life better.
The Artist Behind the Sneak-Peaks
Enderman: While prepping this interview I spent way too long scrolling through your sneak-peaks, your DeviantArt, and your Instagram - there's a proper portfolio hiding behind this modpack project, and the quality genuinely caught me off guard. How long have you been practicing? This stuff looks stunning. Also, was it a conscious decision to share progress art alongside RotN development, or did the posting habit just grow with the project?
Foreck: Oh, I owe all my art development to RotN for sure. I had never considered myself an artist in any capacity, I didnât even doodle much in school. But I always found pixels alluring, perhaps because of my love for GBA games like Final Fantasy VI or Zelda Minish Cap with their gorgeous sprites. One of my first attempts I remember was a silly project12 I did for the game Starbound back in 2016, with character portraits from Re:Zero. But the true kickstarter was when I first got into Rebirth of the Night; back then I remember there were all these supposedly epic swords that looked rather boring to me for their implied status, so I tried making some retextures:
Which, mind you, this is what got me working on the project for the first time as well.
At some point, what I considered barely passable textures became decent pixel art, particularly when I began making in-game paintings from scratch. With increasing support, I figured out I could as well share my work outside of the RotN sphere.
Making paintings is really therapeutic for me and is what has helped me improve on pixel-art the most. That all started with this little guy here on the left called The Harbinger, in a Paint.net file I called âdemon_aa.pdnâ.
Fast forward many canvas increases and additions and it has become my comfort file you can see on the right that I have been constantly working on since, uh, [checks file properties], May 15th of 2023. Pardon the black squares, I take RotN lore very seriously.
Gallery of Favorites
Enderman: Every artist has that one piece they're quietly proud of, so let's drag it into the spotlight - what is your favorite "art piece" created by you until now? What made this one special - the technique, the subject, or the story behind it?
Foreck: A very difficult question, as I like wildly different pieces for wildly different reasons. However, if I had to choose one that is particularly significant and I can share, it would be âUmberia - Capital of Magicâ, as it was the first large painting I made that I was really satisfied with, but, more importantly, that allowed me to start clearly envisioning these worlds I had in my mind.
Taking Over the Kitchen
Enderman: When and why did you take over the lead-dev role for RotN? What state was the pack in when you took charge, and what was the first big thing you changed?
Foreck: A bit of a spicy topic. At some point after we agreed we had to restructure the dev team, we appointed Sandwich Horror to succeed . Sandwich was a very level-headed person that was part of the project since its early days in 2019 alongside Kilo and myself, and pretty much a few days after he took over we all decided that we could as well have another lead-dev, since we were, alongside Mari, the three main creative forces behind the pack, with her more focused on gameplay and fun, and Sandwich and I on internal logic, verisimilitude, and immersion. For various reasons, Sandwich ceased his online presence and I became the de-facto leader. At this point, with Covid but a memory, and time and initial hype a fraction of what they were, it was a soft transition with few significant changes. Our initial vision has mutated and reshaped a lot over the years, but I like to think that we maintain the soul of the pack the same.
Financing the Portfolio
Enderman: RotN commissions a lot of mods. How does the financing work? How do you decide which mods are worth commissioning versus building in-house or finding workarounds?
Foreck: All the backing for our projects comes from our supporters, to whom Iâm deeply grateful. With slower updates, the amount of backing has understandably gone down, but we saved enough to do targeted commissions. Now, hereâs a funny detail, for most of RotNâs history there has been no in-house modder available for big projects, so whenever we needed anything we would try to exhaust every possibility with the existing tools and our own ability. Although ProvidenceDaemon has started getting deeper into modding lately and Ozymandias has been cracking the code to native method class scripts, when we run into a hard wall, I decide whether we should try commissioning a mod to break new ground or just downscale the original idea to a sufficient approximate. Lately, I have been focusing our resources into mods that, while simple in nature and scope, can be as flexible as possible in order to create larger features with them.
My own Commission
Enderman: Speaking of commissions - this one's a bit of a family affair, since readers might recognize my own name on at least one of them. You commissioned me for Simpler Wooden Pipes. How was it implemented in the pack in the end?
Foreck: In RotN, while we have ceramic channels from Zen Foundry and other fluid transport mechanics from Better With Mods and Pyrotech, we needed some extra flexibility. So, using appropriate recipes to justify their mechanics, we added a few tiers of liquid pipes made from materials such as copper, galvanized steel, refractory material, and the âUnnecessarily Expensive and Evil Fluid Pipeâ made of Soul Forged Steel, which I hope someone will ever use in their evil lair, even if it is not at all worth it.
The Impossible Feature
Enderman: Time for the classic dream-big question: if you could add one feature - budget, engine limitations, and java exceptions be damned - what would it be?
Foreck: Fully functional vertically unlimited worlds for us to connect all the planned and existing RotN dimensions seamlessly, with progression gating and vertical biomes included. Shout out to Vertically Stacked Dimensions for being good enough.
Website or Wiki?
Enderman: Documentation is the quiet hero of every big modpack, and during my research I noticed the GitHub repo links to a website that looks very much work-in-progress. Is that still being worked on, or is the wiki the new "go to" place?
Foreck: Oh, the official website. It was an ambitious project spearheaded by ex-developer Kompreya who also worked on the iconic main menu of the pack, and with whom we parted ways due to irreconcilable views on development. We are most likely to drop the website altogether, as the main faces of the pack are the CurseForge page and, as you pointed out, the wiki.
Paintings on the Wall
Enderman: Before we wrap up part one, the aesthetics question: RotN ships with an impressive number of custom paintings, all of them made by you. What was the inspiration behind them? Are they tied to the pack's world-building, or standalone pieces of atmosphere?
Foreck: RotN has an expansive behind-the-curtains universe, which has both been dictated by changes we make to the pack, and dictates what direction development follows in certain areas. Although most of this universe has not been integrated in a way that makes people aware of it, paintings are one of the most effective ways to give players a feeling that there is something more there, and they are extremely gratifying to make. The vast majority of original paintings are lore-significant, depicting locations, characters, items, and events from the world that the pack is meant to represent. While there are more âgenericâ paintings here and there, and quite a few joke ones, some are meant to depict pivotal aspects of this world, and I plan to eventually implement a curating method to differentiate and learn more about what is depicted in them.
What Else?
Enderman: Anything else you want to mention or plug? And for readers who want to follow the progress of your projects, where can they find you?
Foreck: I tend to work rather silently on projects until I know they will become reality. The best places to follow my progress are definitely the 1.12 coalition and just following me on Curseforge or Modrinth to see if I have anything new. I could go on and on about the past, present, and future, but I have already overstayed my welcome. Cheers!
đŹ Counter Talk
The Barista's Special - Coming Soon
Housekeeping from last week: I promised the first proper Barista's Special would be served this week. Turns out there were too many community things happening that need to be talked about and the interview already adds enough extra-length. No worries though - the special is still simmering in the pot, and it'll spill over in a calmer week. Also, the extended version of last week's monologue on the modpack dev paradox goes up on my personal blog tomorrow, once I give it one final editor pass.
Non-OptiFine Shaders in 1.12?!
I mentioned back in issue #2 that two devs had posted screenshots of independent shader implementations for 1.12 - one of which turned out to be AI slop shortly after the newsletter went live.
Seven weeks later, ăšăă ăăłăťă¸ăźăťăšăă ăăł followed up with fresh screenshots and a progress update on Impetus, their Celeritas fork. They've implemented a raft of new features and fixed a ridiculous amount of bugs since the initial showcase. No ETA yet - they want the project extremely polished before anyone gets their hands on it. If Impetus clears the finish line, 1.12 might finally break free from a decade-long OptiFine dependency.
No Coalition Jam 2026
announced this week that she won't host a 1.12 ModJam or PackJam this year - too busy with other things. Instead, she pointed folks toward the Big Autumn Pack Jam, endorsed by and . It's version/loader/platform agnostic, so 1.12 packs can still be submitted - a chance to show the broader modded community how alive 1.12 remains. If you're itching for a creative sprint, the door's still open. Theme announcement was today.
𧽠Cleaning the Tables
Alright folks, that's the brew for this week. Thanks for sipping along. âď¸
Got a mod you think should get the Single Bean spotlight?
Hit reply or DM me on the Atmosphere.
Stay caffeinated,
~ Enderman