Araz (The Anomaly)

# Araz (The Anomaly)

> *There was a world before this one. It was never finished. It was never
> deleted either — just left in the dark. Something stayed inside it.*

**It doesn't just stalk you. It studies you.**

Araz is a horror mod for Fabric where the creature learns its abilities by
**watching what you do**, keeps a record of you, and remembers all of it after
you quit.

Available for **Minecraft 26.1.2** and **1.20.1**.

> **New in beta.2 — "It keeps records":** it appears far less often and hunts like
> a real night creature, `/araz help` tells you your next step, it leaves you signs
> and an Observation Log of what it knows about you, you can hide from it, and it
> scales to modded, overpowered players. Full changelog on the versions page.

---

## It learns from you

Every ability it gains, it gains because you showed it how:

| You did this | It learned this |
|---|---|
| Opened and closed your door | Doors no longer stop it |
| Walked past your animals unharmed | Your animals matter to you — now they have the wrong eyes |
| Walked among villagers | How to stand among them. One villager too many. |
| Slept | A body can be left behind. It takes yours. |

Everything is saved with the world. It is faster every time you meet it.
Sometimes it takes the animal you are looking at and carries it into the dark
— no teleporting, you watch it happen. And if you have
**Simple Voice Chat** installed, sometimes the voice calling from the dark
is your own.

## It keeps records

Its task was to watch the things that walk and write down how they walk.
It never stopped — and now you get to read it.

- **Signs near your bed.** Some nights you wake up to a line from its notes:
  *"14 TIMES / YOU OPENED IT"*.
- **The Observation Log.** Found in the abandoned camp. It tells you, in its own
  words, how many nights it watched you, what it learned and what that unlocked.
- **Where someone dies,** it leaves a skull and a sign:
  *"ONE WHO WALKED / STOPPED HERE"*. On a server, your friends will find it.
- **It waited.** Stay away for a few real days and it greets you when you return.

## A creature of the night

It shows itself **once**, a few minutes into a new world. After that it only
comes **at night** or deep underground — and every night you survive is counted.
After a few nights it starts appearing **in daylight**, rarely at first, then
more often. At first it only watches. Then it stops waiting for the dark.

You'll know it is close before you see it: **the world goes quiet.** Animals,
ambience and music fade out.

When it hunts you there are three choices: run, stare it down, or **hide** —
crouch, stay still in the dark and it may lose you. Once it knows you well,
hiding stops working. On Blood Moon nights nothing works.

## The totem will not save you

At the killing blow, it pulls the Totem of Undying out of your hand, blackens
it in its palm, shatters it mid-air — and brings both arms down on you.
A full cinematic. Your camera is locked. Nothing blocks it.

There is exactly one totem in the world it cannot touch. The people who came
before you enchanted it. They still died — but the totem survived. Find it.

## "You are not normal."

Playing a modpack with hero mods, modded armor or a sword that hits for hundreds?
It notices, and it tells you. From then on every encounter **scales to you**:
more health, harder hits, armor-piercing strikes and no single blow can take
more than a fifth of its health. It will not die in one hit, and it will push you.
Vanilla gear, even full netherite, is not affected.

## Part I — the story

A first sighting. An abandoned camp with four bedrolls and zero people.
Five recovered notes in five different handwritings, all dead. A portal ruin
deep underground — the door it came through, broken and cold. Some nights it
still flickers. The ruin is guarded: reaching it starts a 30-second countdown,
then a chase down a corridor built for running.

An unfinished thing cannot be killed. It can only be **finished**. Read all
five records, forge **The Last Line** at the altar — while you hold it, Araz
cannot flee. Kill it and it stays dead... until you summon it back.

*Part II — what lies on the other side of that door — is coming.*

## Getting started — and if you're stuck

Type **`/araz help`** at any time: it tells you your next step based on your
progress. **`/araz altar`** shows the altar layout.

1. **First sighting.** A few minutes into a new world it shows itself once. Look at it.
2. **The abandoned camp.** Its coordinates appear in chat right after. The camp chest
   holds three Corrupted Records and the Observation Log.
3. **Read the records** (right-click). After the third one you learn where the
   **portal ruin** is.
4. **The portal ruin** lies deep underground. Its chest holds the last two records,
   an **Essence of Araz** and the only totem it cannot touch. Reaching it starts a
   30-second countdown — then run.
5. **The Altar of Araz.** With all five records read, right-click it holding the
   Essence to forge **The Last Line**.
6. **Finish it.** Hold The Last Line when it comes — it cannot flee while you do.

### The Altar of Araz

```
 A . A      A = amethyst block
 . S .      S = soul sand, with a soul torch on top
 A . A      . = empty
```

The four amethyst blocks sit on the diagonals, level with the soul sand.
Right-click the soul sand or the torch with your main hand:

| In your hand | What happens |
|---|---|
| Empty hand / anything else | You invite it: it comes more often and hunts harder |
| Essence of Araz *(all 5 records read)* | You forge The Last Line |
| Soul lantern *(3 diamonds in your inventory)* | Three days of silence |

## Features

- Observational learning AI with **persistent memory** across sessions
- **Night creature progression:** introduction → nights → slowly, daylight
- **Record signs, Observation Log and death markers**
- **Hiding**, and a world that goes silent when it is near
- **Totem execution cinematic** (custom GeckoLib animation)
- Possession: it enters your body — inventory shuffling, movement lock,
  forced sprinting at your own iron golem. Friends can see something is inside you.
- **Blood Moon** nights: sky bleeds, music dies, every ability unlocked
- Village infiltration: it murders a villager, then walks among them
- Iron golem grab-and-slam with a creeper-sized explosion
- Guarded portal ruin with countdown, chase and throat-grab exile scene
- **Power awareness** for modpacks and overpowered gear
- Voice mimicry via Simple Voice Chat *(optional — fully in-memory, never
  written to disk, cleared on disconnect)*
- **Light mode** and **photosensitivity mode**
- In-game settings screen · 12 languages · 11 advancements · 10 custom sounds
- **World-gen safe**: structures are placed on approach, nothing touches
  chunk generation — safe for existing worlds

## Requirements

| Mod | |
|---|---|
| **Fabric API** | required |
| **GeckoLib** | required |
| Simple Voice Chat | optional — voice mimicry |
| Mod Menu + Cloth Config | optional — in-game settings screen |

Without Mod Menu, every option is still in `config/araz.json`.

## Settings

Too much? Not enough? Everything can be tuned from the settings screen or
`config/araz.json`:

| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| `gorunmeBeklemesiSaniye` | `240` | Minimum seconds of silence between appearances |
| `karsilasmaAraligiCarpani` | `100` | Encounter interval in percent — `200` = half as often |
| `fesatlikAraligiCarpani` | `100` | Same for mischief (sounds, lights, footprints…) |
| `dogalKarsilasmalar` | `true` | `false` keeps only the story moments |
| `gunduzeKacGeceSonra` | `3` | Nights before it may appear in daylight — `-1` = never |
| `ogrenmeHiziCarpani` | `100` | How fast it learns from you — `200` = twice as fast |
| `gucOlcekleme` | `true` | Power awareness for overpowered players |
| `hafifMod` | `false` | Light mode: it only watches and makes sounds. The story still plays. |
| `isikHassasiyeti` | `false` | Photosensitivity: no flashes, glitch bars or pulsing overlays |

There are also switches for possession, disguises, block breaking and sleep denial.

## FAQ

**How does voice mimicry work? Is it recording me?**
Only if Simple Voice Chat is installed. The last ~3 seconds of speech are kept
in server memory only — never written to disk, never sent anywhere, deleted
when you disconnect. Remove Simple Voice Chat and the feature is gone; the mod
works fine without it.

**I'm stuck in the story.**
Type `/araz help`. It reads your progress and tells you exactly what's next.

**Can I add it to an existing world?**
Yes. Nothing is added to world generation; the camp and the ruin are built when
you get close. Worlds from beta.1 keep working — ruins get the Essence added once.

**Does it work in multiplayer?**
Yes, it gets tougher with more players nearby. Single player is tested the most —
multiplayer reports are very welcome.

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*Model base: Mutationcraft (MIT). Sounds: JerrySFX + original recordings.*