About the Mod

In the mod Jiagu Reappearance, you will embark on a wondrous journey back to the origins of Chinese characters.
This mod cleverly integrates the ancient Jiagu Inscriptions (or Oracle Bone Script) with the crafting mechanics of the blocky world, introducing a core gameplay loop centered around the Cangjie Ding-Tripod, Character Disassembler, Rubbing Table, and their redstone automated variants.
Players can transform items, enchantments, and status effects into their corresponding Jiagu Inscriptions forms based on their names, disassemble and combine character components, and ultimately reassemble the characters and “rub” them to restore them into physical items, enchantments, and status effects. Furthermore, you can forge unique Amethyst Inscriptions, which contain special abilities related to the meaning of their characters.
Finally, utilize the Jiagu Inscriptions items collected from around the world to complete various Chengyu-Idioms on the Erudite Wenchang Altar, experiencing the unique charm of Chinese culture.
Please note: from version 1.8.0 onwards, the mod no longer requires the game language to be set to Ancient Literary Chinese (lzh); it now works correctly in any language.

Core Gameplay

Obtain Bone Lamellae dropped by Skeletons and their variants or Turtle Plastrons dropped by Turtles.
Craft the core item – the Cangjie Ding-Tripod.
Hold the item to transform (e.g., a Diamond) in your main hand and a Bone Lamella or Turtle Plastron in your offhand. Right-click the Cangjie Ding-Tripod. The main hand item will be transformed into Jiagu Inscription items corresponding to its name (e.g., Diamond (金剛石) → “金” + “剛” + “石”). The main hand and offhand consumables will be consumed.

By default, press R to open the Jiagu crafting page, which offers two modes: assembling and disassembling Jiagu Inscriptions.
In assembly mode, you can assemble Jiagu Inscriptions into more complex types, potentially raising their quality.
In disassembly mode, you can break complex Jiagu Inscriptions into their components.
Alternatively, the Character Disassembler and the Character Auto-disassembler can also perform disassembly.
You can conveniently look up assembly and disassembly recipes through the Dictionary item or JEI.

Character Assembly

Craft a Rubbing Table with planks, paper and an ink sac.
Hold Ink (an Ink Sac, Black Dye, Charcoal, etc.) in your main hand and the target item you wish to craft as a reference in your offhand (it will not be consumed). Right-click the Rubbing Table to consume the corresponding Jiagu Inscription items from your inventory and generate a brand new item identical to the reference item.

Crafting Talismans: Hold Yellow Paper in your offhand and an enchanted item in your main hand. Right-click the Cangjie Ding-Tripod. The Yellow Paper will become a Taoist Talisman, recording only the first enchantment from the main hand item. Any other enchantments are transformed into Jiagu Inscription items. This process clears all enchantments from the main hand item.
Applying Enchantments: Hold a Talisman in your offhand and the item to be enchanted in your main hand. Right-click the Rubbing Table to consume the corresponding Jiagu Inscription items and apply the enchantment recorded on the Talisman to the main hand item. Each Talisman can be used three times

After collecting a large number of Jiagu Inscription items, players can place them on the Erudite Wenchang Altar to spell out corresponding four-character Chengyu-Idioms as collection goals. All collectible idioms can be viewed on the Dictionary’s Chengyu page, along with their definitions and allusions.

/jiaguinfo [inscription]: Query the assembly and disassembly recipes for a specified Chinese character. Usable even without cheat permissions!
/givecharacter [“inscription”] <target> <count>: Quickly obtain the specified Jiagu Inscriptions item for a character. The character must be enclosed in double quotes (e.g., /givecharacter "金" @s 1).

The Jiagu Inscription forms used in this mod are an artistic imitation and recreation of ancient characters, inevitably incorporating the author’s subjective understanding. They differ from actual historical Oracle Bone Script and may contain academic inaccuracies. Please do not use them for any form of academic study or discussion! For characters not attested in extant Oracle Bone Script, the mod uses later forms (e.g., Bronze Script, Seal Script) for reasonable deduction and imaginative creation.
Even using refined Ancient Literary Chinese, the number of characters involved in the game is vast. Currently, 900+ Jiagu Inscriptions used in the game possess unique visuals and complete combine/disassemble recipes. More characters will be gradually added in future updates.
The Ancient Literary Chinese names used for vanilla content in this mod come almost entirely from Minecraft’s built-in Ancient Literary Chinese language file, and may be updated as that language file is updated.
Players unfamiliar with Ancient Literary Chinese and Chinese character structure may require an initial adaptation period. The Dictionary item and the tooltips on Jiagu Inscription items are key to understanding the mod’s character system. Recipes can also be queried through mods like JEI.