Magic NPCs

Give your NPCs real spells. Magic NPCs makes mobs cast spells from Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks — driven by datapacks and config, so any mob can become a spellcaster, with first-class support for Villager Recruits and a per-NPC magic-school system for recruits and villagers.

What it does

• Datapack-driven, and your datapack wins. Drop a small JSON in data/<pack>/spellcasters/ naming an entity type and a list of Iron's spells — that mob now casts them. No tags, no add-on mods. Shipped loadouts cover optional NPC mods (Recruits, Guard Villagers) and stay inert unless that mod is installed — vanilla mobs cast nothing until you opt them in (copy the skeleton example below). Bundled loadouts automatically yield to yours (your guard file with only throw means guards cast only throw), [builtinLoadouts] config toggles or an {"enabled": false} stub disable any shipped loadout, and when two of your packs collide, "replace": true overrides cleanly. /magicnpcs loadout, /magicnpcs validate, and /magicnpcs config show exactly what each mob resolves to and which server config is live.
• Magic schools (recruits & villagers). Assign each individual recruit or villager one of the nine Iron's schools — fire, ice, lightning, holy, ender, blood, evocation, nature, eldritch. Its spell pool is built dynamically from that school, so it even uses spells added by Iron's add-ons. Schools are assigned automatically on spawn (recruits by chance/rank, villagers by profession), and you can set any individual's school with the /magicnpcs school command or the School Tome item (right-click to cycle, sneak to clear).
• Real Iron's casting. Spells fire through Iron's own cast path, so you get the genuine projectiles, particles, and sounds. Mobs have a real mana pool that regenerates and gates how often they cast.
• Smart and safe. Casters check line of sight, range, mana, and cooldowns; they won't cast while sleeping, dead, or on Peaceful, and mana scales with difficulty. Friendly-fire protection keeps villagers, iron golems, players, pets, owners, and teammates out of the blast — and Recruits cast only at enemies using their own diplomacy, respect their command state, and scale mana with rank.
• Works with your NPC mods — and vanilla's odd ones. Beyond Recruits, optional config-gated support covers Guard Villagers, MCA Reborn, MineColonies, Easy NPC, Human Companions, More Villagers, and VillagersPlus — each behind a toggle that defaults off, so nothing changes until you opt in. Owned/teamed NPCs (e.g. Human Companions) get friendly-fire safety automatically, sitting companions hold their fire, and as of 0.6.0 witches and iron golems can cast too (their vanilla combat AI used to starve the casting goal): golems cast only while defending, and witches never nuke their own raid.
• Chance & gear gating. Make only some mobs casters (caster_chance — rolled once per mob and saved with it) or require a held staff/focus per loadout (required_items, works with item tags).
• Deeply tunable. A server config controls global on/off, mana/cooldown/regen balance, decision interval, difficulty scaling, line-of-sight and friendly-fire rules, a spell allow/deny list, equipment requirements, per-mod compat toggles, and the full magic-school system. Optionally, recruits can use Iron's own combat AI.

Make any mob a spellcaster (datapacks)

Magic NPCs is datapack-driven: drop a small JSON naming an entity type and a list of Iron's spells, and that mob casts them. A complete, minimal pack is two files under <world>/datapacks/my_magic/:

pack.mcmeta — for 1.20.1, pack_format is 15:

{ "pack": { "pack_format": 15, "description": "My Magic NPCs loadouts" } }

data/my_magic/spellcasters/skeleton.json:

{
  "entity_type": "minecraft:skeleton",
  "max_mana": 100,
  "mana_regen": 10,
  "spells": [
    { "spell": "irons_spellbooks:magic_missile", "level": 1, "weight": 3, "max_range": 16.0, "role": "attack" },
    { "spell": "irons_spellbooks:heal", "level": 1, "role": "support" }
  ]
}

Run /reload and skeletons now sling Magic Missiles (and heal when hurt). Each spell also accepts min_range/max_range, safety_radius (friendly-fire clearance — larger for AoE spells), and role (attack or support). Add "profession": "minecraft:cleric" to scope a villager loadout to a single profession. The full guide — annotated multi-spell examples, modded mobs, the spell-focus tag, and explicit-loadouts vs. magic-schools — is in the README and docs/loadouts/.

Requirements

• Forge 47.4.0+ for Minecraft 1.20.1
• Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks (1.20.1-3.15.x) + its dependencies GeckoLib, Curios API, PlayerAnimator — required for any spellcasting
• Villager Recruits (1.15.0+) — optional, enables the recruit features

Magic NPCs does not include these mods; install them separately. Every NPC-mod integration is optional and loads safely whether or not that mod is present.

Notes

• Server-side config; settings sync to clients automatically. For an existing world edit <world>/serverconfig/magicnpcs-server.toml; for a modpack, ship your tuned copy as defaultconfigs/magicnpcs-server.toml so every new world inherits it (client-side config edits do nothing). Verify in-game with /magicnpcs config.
• Villagers given a school only actually cast when they have a target (raids, guard mods) — their normal, peaceful behavior is preserved.
• Open source under GPL-3.0. Iron's Spells and Villager Recruits are compile-only dependencies — neither is bundled or redistributed.