Afterlight

BETA TESTING — NOT PRODUCTION-READY

This mod is in active beta testing. Expect bugs, breaking changes between versions, and rough edges. Do not use on a survival world you care about without backups. Reports and feedback are welcome.

When you die in Minecraft, instead of seeing the respawn screen, you become a ghost — translucent, intangible, and unable to interact with the world. You drift around the death scene as your friends scramble to revive you with a Revival Beacon.

What it does

• No respawn screen. Death converts you into a ghost in-place — you don't get teleported to spawn. Your inventory and XP drop as usual, unless the keepInventory gamerule is on, in which case you keep everything (it just stays locked away until you're revived).
• Two ghost forms (configurable):
  • Transparent — others see a translucent version of you with a [Ghost] prefix above your name.
  • Invisible — fully hidden from other players.
  • Server-wide default + per-player override. Each player can pick their preferred form via /afterlight mode <transparent|invisible>, or fall back to whatever the server admin sets as the default.
  • Revival Beacon — a craftable item another player uses on you to bring you back to life. Single-use, consumed only on a successful revive, and a real beacon is required (no free revives). Spawns a poof of cyan particle rings on the revived player.
  • Truly intangible while a ghost. You cannot:
    • Take damage — mobs ignore you, and melee/projectiles pass straight through your body to whatever's behind you.
    • Push or be pushed by other entities.
    • Break blocks, attack, or use items.
    • Open your inventory or any container — your hotbar is hidden and your items are inaccessible until you're revived.
    • Use chat or commands (the world owner / server console is exempt, so admins keep control).
    • Pick up XP or items, or leave sprint particles / stuck arrows on your body.
  • Clear "Dead" UI. A red Dead banner shows on screen, your health bar reads empty hearts, and on-screen notices explain blocked actions (e.g. "You don't have an Inventory anymore.").
  • Death broadcast. When a player dies, everyone sees a red <name> has been killed!; on revival, a green <name> has been revived!.
  • 240-block kill sound. A wither-spawn alert plays for every player within 240 blocks of a death — even outside normal sound range.
  • Persistent. Ghost state survives relogs and server restarts. Quit and rejoin while a ghost? You're still a ghost.
  • Totem of Undying compatible. Holding a totem still saves you from fatal damage — vanilla totem behavior is preserved.

Revival Beacon recipe

Crafted in a 3×3 grid:

The recipe unlocks in your recipe book once you have a Beacon.

Commands

All /afterlight subcommands are OP-only.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.11
• Fabric Loader ≥ 0.18.4
• Fabric API
• AStudioLib 1.1.0 (shared library — required on the client; install it alongside Afterlight or the game will fail to launch)
• Java 21

Multiplayer note: Afterlight runs on both the server and every player's client. Install it (plus Fabric API and AStudioLib) on each client, and Afterlight + Fabric API on the server.

Known beta-status caveats

• Tested primarily on macOS in dev environments and small multiplayer setups. Larger servers may surface issues we haven't seen.
• Behavior with other mods that hook the death pipeline (alternative totems, custom respawn systems, gravestones, etc.) has not been validated and may conflict.
• Save format for afterlight_config.json and afterlight_ghosts.dat may change between beta builds.

If you hit a bug or weird interaction, a short repro plus your logs/latest.log is the most useful thing you can send.