Minecraft Artifacts Mod, Quests, Dungeons and New Armor For Minecraft (WIP)
This is possibly the most exciting mod ever made for Minecraft (perhaps better than Millenaire, even!) The Artifacts is an upcoming mod that adds meaning to Minecraft by adding secret areas that can only be accessed by finding the fifteen artifacts, which are placed at random throughout the world (20 – 25 chunks apart) and must be found by the player. There are at least five different kinds of artifacts and each of them impart special abilities when held. A green artifact gives a 10% walking speed bonus when held, for instance, and a black artifact increases the damage done by 10%.
The aim of the Artifacts mod is to give players a reason to expand their bases and continue their exploration. At present time there's pretty much nothing left to do in the game once you've built a base, but with the Artifacts mod there are secret items, valuable gems to discover and new places to find.
As you play you'll come across Labrynths – pre built structures that contain special treasures, like armor that negates lava damage. You might be thinking that it would be easy enough to cheat your way through Labrynths by knocking your way through walls, but the mod prevents the placing and destroying of blocks in Labrynth zones, forcing you to play 'properly.'
Perhaps this sounds all very well and good, but you still feel as if the game would inevitably end in you meandering about the place fairly pointlessly. Well, here's an incentive to keep your wits about you – thieves. Thieves spawn with a very low spawn rate (around 2%) but they can hunt you down and kill you and take your precious artifacts. To get them back, you'll need to hunt a thief down and slay them in return. The more artifacts you have, the more likely it is that thieves will come after you, so beware your own success!
In many respects this Mod is reminiscent of the Zelda series, especially Ocarina of Time, which had you haring about the place diving into various dungeons to retrieve gems. But unlike Ocarina of Time, the Artifacts Mod has the power to surprise you.
The mod is still in development at the time of writing, but it is definitely one to keep an eye on, for more details about the mod and to get the download when it comes out, visit the Official Minecraft Artifacts Mod thread.