Darkness Potions
Live on Realm Striders MC
Darkness potions are installed on the production server (Paper 26.1.2, plugin v1.0.0). Brew the full chain in a brewing stand.
Darkness potions apply the same Warden Darkness vision debuff used in the deep dark — pulsing black fog that shrinks your field of view. They are brewed in a brewing stand and can be thrown, lingered, or tipped onto arrows.
This is not Blindness. It uses the real Darkness status effect.
Brewing chain
Use a brewing stand with blaze powder as fuel.
| Step | Bottle slot | Ingredient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Awkward potion | Sculk Catalyst | Potion of Darkness |
| 2 | Potion of Darkness | Gunpowder | Splash Potion of Darkness |
| 3 | Splash Potion of Darkness | Dragon's Breath | Lingering Potion of Darkness |
| 4 | Crafting table | 8 arrows + lingering bottle | Arrow of Darkness (vanilla tipped-arrow recipe) |
Quick test gives
/give @s potion[potion_contents={potion:"minecraft:awkward"}] 3
/give @s sculk_catalyst 1
/give @s gunpowder 3
/give @s dragon_breath 1
/give @s arrow 8
/give @s blaze_powder 1
Durations (default)
| Source | Darkness duration |
|---|---|
| Arrow splash (impact AoE) | 5 seconds |
| Splash | 5 seconds |
| Lingering cloud | 5 seconds per tick in cloud |
| Drink | 5 seconds |
Server config: plugins/RealmStridersDarknessPotions/config.yml
Scout's Root interaction
If the target has Scout's Root active (Heptera's light / Warden Darkness ward from field rations), offensive Darkness is reduced to 2 seconds instead of 5. Environmental Warden Darkness is still fully blocked.
Scout ward does not make players immune to arrows — it only shortens the blind.
Arrow splash on impact
Arrow of Darkness behaves like a splash effect when it lands. On impact (block or entity), all living entities within ~4 blocks of the impact point receive Warden Darkness — including the shooter if they are standing in range.
You can shoot straight up and let the arrow fall at your feet to blind yourself and anyone nearby. Direct entity hits also splash at the impact location, so nearby players can be caught even if the arrow only grazes one target.
Radius is configurable: darkness.arrow-splash-radius in config.yml (default 4.0).
Fullbright caveat
The plugin applies real Darkness and re-applies it every few ticks while active. That helps against clients using gamma tricks, but cannot guarantee full protection against hacked fullbright mods that strip status-effect shaders.
PvP notes
- Does not affect Warden vibration detection (N/A in PvP).
- Darkness is a vision debuff only — no damage.
- Works on players and other living entities in arrow splash radius or splash potion range.
Troubleshooting brewing
Brewing stand layout:
- Top row (3 slots): potion bottles
- Bottom center slot: ingredient (sculk catalyst, gunpowder, or dragon's breath)
- Fuel slot (left): blaze powder
If gunpowder or dragon breath does nothing:
- Confirm step 1 produced Potion of Darkness (purple custom name), not a plain awkward potion.
- Leave the darkness bottles in the top row — only swap the bottom ingredient to gunpowder, then dragon breath.
- After a plugin update, pick bottles up and place them back in the stand before brewing again.
Staff / developers
Local testing — from the repo root:
.\scripts\test-darkness-potions-local.ps1
Join localhost:25565, brew the chain above, and test arrow impacts with and without Scout's Root active. Try shooting straight up so the arrow lands at your feet — you should get the Warden Darkness pulse.
Deploy notes
- Plugin:
realmstriders-darkness-potions(Paper 26.1.2) - Deploy:
scripts/install-brewing-plugins.ps1(requires Minecraft restart)