Progression Guide

Progression Guide describes the order in which Fear Nightfall's content is usually reached, from the first night in a new world to the endgame bosses. The pack combines mods that were never designed to work together, so no single mod sets the path. The route below follows material dependencies: each stage supplies the ingredients or the unlocks for the next. Each topic has its own article, linked in the sections that follow, and the exact numbers are on those articles.

Stage overview

Early game

The first night is the most dangerous period in the pack. Hostile mobs from Born in Chaos spawn in almost every Overworld biome, and the Sleepy Hollows biome drains Sanity while a player stands in it. Early progress depends on tools, food and shelter, which are covered on Getting Started and Food and Cooking.

Early ores come from the Overworld. Sulfur ore is the most common overworld ore and feeds Butchery, and the Dark Metal Deposit needs only an iron pickaxe, so it is the first metal ore most players can mine. Mithril is deeper and harder; see the next section.

Early chests come from the structures listed on Structures and Villages, and from the main early sources named on Getting Started, including The Graveyard and Dungeons and Taverns. Lootr gives each player an individual copy of a chest's loot, so a party does not share one set of items.

Mid-game metals

The pack adds four metal families that players reach in roughly this order. The gating item for each is listed.

• Dark Metal (Born in Chaos). The Dark Metal Deposit needs an iron-tier pickaxe. The armour set is made at a smithing table from a netherite piece, a Dark Metal Armor Plate and a Smithing Template, so it requires netherite. Its set bonus removes Wither and, at six health or less, gives Rampant Rampage and Hunger III.
• Mithril (Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks). Mithril ore sits between Y -63 and Y -38 and requires a netherite pickaxe; iron and diamond pickaxes cannot mine it. Mithril is the material for the Mithril Weave used in several spellcasting armour and robe recipes, and it is also a jewelry material.
• Soul Steel (Sons of Sins). Soul Steel is smelted or blasted from iron and Ether, or made by dropping an iron ingot into a blood pool. It is a building material rather than a combat material, and it is immune to the wither and the Ender Dragon.
• Neptunium (Aquaculture). Neptunium is not found in the world. It comes from blasting Neptunium gear, from fishing when the Neptune's Bounty loot option is on, and from the Neptune's Bounty chest. Its tools and armour are aimed at underwater play.

Dark Iron is a separate, Graveyard-only metal. Its ingot is made from one Corruption and one iron ingot, and Corruption comes from Graveyard mobs, so it is also a mid-game unlock.

Magic route

Magic is a parallel branch of progression, built on Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks. The Spell Books and Scrolls hold the spells, and the Mage Armor group, which adds max mana and spell power, is crafted from Arcane Cloth or Arcane Essence. The Netherite Battlemage pieces are made by smithing a Wizard piece with a netherite ingot, and the Epic-rarity single pieces need Mithril Weave and other rare parts. Mithril is therefore the usual entry point to the strongest armour in the magic branch.

Bosses

Bosses lists every boss and how it is reached. The order below is the suggested route through the pack's bosses, based on what each one needs and what it gives. Each boss has its own page for stats and phases.

The Lich is the usual late-game boss. Its summoning needs a Vial of Blood (see Corruption, Vial of Blood and Summoning the Lich), the altar, and night or a fixed-time dimension. It cannot be summoned on Peaceful difficulty.

The naughtiness system, which could summon the Krampus from a hidden score, is switched off in this pack, so the Krampus appears only from its natural spawn rules (see Naughtiness and Krampus).

Endgame gear

Several items are the top of their family and need the bosses or the carcass:

• Dragon Scale armour. Butchery ranks this set as its top-tier armour. Dragon Scales come only from the Ender Dragon carcass: under the default config, the dragon's death produces a carcass only when the killer holds a cleaver or has Butcher's Touch or Hunter on the held weapon. The carcass is cut up with a boss tool such as the Netherite Cleaver. The Dragon Smithing Template is also added to End city chests, so the template can be reached without killing the dragon.
• Sinful tools. The Sinful sword, pickaxe, axe, shovel and hoe are unbreakable and fire resistant, and they deal extra damage to sin creatures. The Osseous and Flesh sets are earlier tools.
• Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks weapons. The top-tier swords are made from mod materials such as Mithril, and several carry a preset spell.

Tiers that supersede others

Within each family, a later tier generally replaces the earlier one for the same role, and the pack's recipes reflect that. The main cases are:

• Netherite is the gate for Mithril ore, Dark Metal armour and Dragon Scale armour, so a netherite pickaxe and netherite armour are early requirements for the metal families.
• Dark Metal armour is worn in full for its set bonus, and each piece is a smithing upgrade of a netherite piece.
• Mithril Weave is the component of the Lightbringer Chestplate and the Infernal Sorcerer Chestplate, which are Epic-rarity pieces.
• The Neptunium Knife has the highest durability in the knife set, but Neptunium's perks apply only underwater, so the family does not replace the metal tiers for general mining.

For the full list of weapons and armour sets, see Weapons and Armor.

Changes that affect progression

Fear Nightfall changes several things that change the progression route:

• Horror weighting. Horror biomes are weighted six times higher than other biomes, so horror content, which includes many bosses, is more common in forests, taigas and swamps. See Horror and Spooky Content.
• Structure density. Horror structures are placed about 30% closer together than in the mods' defaults. Villages are merged into one set, so each location has one village type.
• Boss immunity. The Pocket Watch from Tide cannot freeze the Lich, Dead King, Echo of Tyros, Headless Horseman, Lord Pumpkinhead or any mob in the boss tag.
• Halloween helmets. The event skips mobs that already wear a helmet, so the Pharaoh keeps its head.
• Born in Chaos spawns. Its mobs spawn only in the Overworld, so they no longer fill End spawns and crowd out End bosses.
• Missing loot. Trims and the Blazing Fishing Rod were unobtainable in the replacement temples and fortresses, so their chests were given Trims and Tide, Iron's and Traveler's Backpack loot. See Changes to Vanilla.

Tips

• Keep a netherite pickaxe in the hotbar before going to depth, since Mithril cannot be mined with anything lower.
• Place all three bone staff fragments around the altar before summoning the Lich, since the summon fails without them by default. The Lich Prison is a separate structure and is not part of the summon.
• Keep a spare weapon in the hotbar when fighting the Krampus, because its disarm drops the main-hand item.
• Use Nature's Compass to find biomes, such as the horror biomes that hold many of the Graveyard, Sleepy Hollows and Born in Chaos structures.