The Ritual

The Ritual

The Ritual is a Fabric horror mod built around summoning and surviving the Moder, a tall watching entity, and its many aspects. You build rune circles around a ritual altar, offer sacrifices, and complete timed rituals to call forth stalkers, watchers, roarers, and ambushers. The mod runs fully on both singleplayer worlds and dedicated Fabric servers.

Created by TOP_G2026.

What the mod adds

Summoned entities (11 variants)

All variants share the Moder's core behavior: high health, strong melee attacks, immunity to arrows, fall damage, cactus, drowning, lightning, wither, and suffocation, plus an aura that shreds leaves, grass, ferns, and snow around them and freezes nearby water into frosted ice.

Entity · Behavior
moder · The main aspect. Strong, relentless, 120 health.
moderstalk · Stalks players from about 35 blocks away in darkness.
moderstaring · Stands and stares. Prevents sleep while it watches you.
modersneakupon · Fast ambusher with high attack damage.
moderattackwatching · Watches from afar, then commits to a heavy attack.
moderfakeattack · A short-lived scare that vanishes after a minute.
moderflee · Weak and fast. Flees instead of fighting.
moderroar · Tank variant with the highest health and damage. Announces rituals with its roar.
modergrab_1 / modergrab_2 · Grabbers that lunge at players, then vanish.
moderpindown · Pins players down, then vanishes.

Killing a Moder bursts soul flame at the victim. Spook variants despawn on their own. Every variant has a spawn egg in the creative inventory.

Rune blocks and the ritual altar

Seven rune blocks (oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, dark oak, mangrove) that glow and can be mined with an axe, plus the Ritual Altar, a blast-resistant block with a synced timer. Right-clicking the altar with a sacrifice starts a ritual if a valid rune circle of at least 8 same-wood runes surrounds it. During the ritual clock you get omen particles, chanting sounds, and a lightning strike at the halfway mark. On completion the altar summons the variant tied to the recipe and drops an Omen Shard.

Sounds and particles

Four custom sounds: ambient chanting (two variants), a chase sting, and the Moder roar. A custom ritual_omen particle marks active altars and ritual progress. The Moder model is re-authored with vanilla rendering, including a glowing-eyes layer.

Ambient horror systems

Random chanting plays when a Moder is near you. Sleeping is blocked with blindness and an "i cant sleep" warning while a staring, stalking, sneaking, or watching aspect is within 80 blocks. Rare natural spawns place stalkers, sneak-ups, staring ones, or watchers about 35 blocks from players in darkness.

Installation

1. Install Fabric Loader for your Minecraft version (0.19.5 recommended).
2. Download Fabric API for your Minecraft version and put it in the mods folder.
3. Download the Ritual file that matches your Minecraft version (see the version list below) and put it in the mods folder.
4. The mod must be installed on both the client and the server for multiplayer. For singleplayer, just installing it once is enough.

File · Minecraft
the-ritual-1.0.0.jar (1.21 build) · 1.21 through 1.21.11
the-ritual-1.0.0.jar (26.1 build) · 26.1 through 26.1.2
the-ritual-1.0.0.jar (26.2 build) · 26.2
the-ritual-1.0.0.jar (26.3 build) · 26.3

Ritual setup guide

1. Place a Ritual Altar on the ground.
2. Surround it with at least 8 rune blocks of one wood type (a 3x3 ring works; the search radius is configurable).
3. Hold a sacrifice (rotten flesh or bone by default; gunpowder and feathers unlock special recipes) and right-click the altar.
4. Survive the clock (about 30 seconds by default) until the roar, the summon, and the item drop.
5. Different woods summon different aspects: oak calls the Moder, spruce calls a stalker, dark oak calls a roarer, birch calls a fleer.

Configuration

The file config/the-ritual.json is created on first launch. Use /theritual reload after editing.

Option · Default · Description
disableRunes · false · When true, no new rituals can be started.
damageModifier · 0.0 · Scales Moder attack damage: -1 gives 6 damage, 0 gives 9 damage, 1 gives 12 damage. Applied live.
spawnRate · 38000.0 · Controls how often natural stalker spawns are attempted. Higher values mean rarer spawns. Set to 0 to disable.
ritualDurationTicks · 600 · Length of the altar ritual clock in ticks (20 ticks = 1 second).
ritualSpeedMultiplier · 1.0 · Speeds up or slows down the ritual clock.
particleIntensity · 1.0 · Scales how many omen particles altars and rituals emit.
maxAltarSearchRadius · 8 · How far from the altar the mod scans for the rune circle (clamped to 1-8).
sacrificeRequirements · ["minecraft:rotten_flesh", "minecraft:bone"] · Items accepted as fallback sacrifices when right-clicking the altar.
ambientChantingEnabled · true · When true, eerie chanting randomly plays near stalkers.

Commands

All commands need operator permission level 2.

Command · Description
/theritual reload · Reloads the config file from disk without restarting.
/theritual trigger · Summons a Moder aspect at your position. Tab-completes all 11 variant names.
/theritual status · Shows the current config values and, when standing on an altar, its ritual progress.