Building a Culture Pack

A culture file alone is a complete culture. A full culture pack also gives the culture towns, governments, a livery and a voice.

Files in a Culture Pack

Folder	What it adds	Reference
culture/	The culture and its subcultures.	Culture Files, Subcultures
given_name/, family_name/	Personal names.	Personal Names
settlement_name/, faction_name/	Names for towns and factions.	Settlement & Faction Names
founding_profile/	How the culture’s towns are founded, one profile for each form of government.	Founding Profiles
faction/	Faction kinds: forms of government, with their offices and name patterns.	Not documented yet.
bond/	The offices that a faction kind fills.	Not documented yet.
livery_style/	Livery that the culture’s people wear over their gear.	Not documented yet.
dialogue_voice/, dialogue_line/	How the culture speaks in conversations.	Voices & Cultures
lang/	Translations of names, demonyms and lines.	Translations

All folders are under data/<namespace>/. Use one namespace for the whole pack.

A Root pack can then make its founders favour the culture with a founder bias. Keep the bias in the Root pack, or in a small compatibility pack, so the culture pack works without that Root.

Founding Profiles

A founding profile says how a town of the culture starts: its culture, where it is likely, which Roots settle it, and its government.

data/<namespace>/founding_profile/<name>.json

{
  "schema": "townstead:founding_profile/v1",
  "name": { "translate": "founding_profile.examplepack.harbour_guild" },
  "culture": "examplepack:fisherfolk",
  "weight": 1,
  "spawn_bias": {
    "default": 0.2,
    "biome_tags": { "#minecraft:is_beach": 3 }
  },
  "population": { "outsider_baseline": 0.25 }
}

Field	Description
name	The name that players see.
culture	The culture of towns founded with this profile. With subcultures, see Founding a Village.
weight	How likely the profile is when a village is founded on its own. The default is 1.
spawn_bias	Place weights, in the same format as a Root spawn bias.
population	Which Roots settle the town. See Which Roots Settle a Village.
faction	The faction kind and the offices it fills.
resident_states	Entity states that a share of the residents get. See Resident States.
when	A Pheno condition on a resident. The profile is only used when it is true.

When a village is founded with the profile, Townstead:

1. sets the village’s culture;
2. names the village from the culture’s settlement names;
3. creates its faction, named from the culture’s faction names.

Resident States

resident_states gives a share of the town’s residents an entity state, such as a curse or a form of service. Use it for a town where many people share a condition, for example a town of werebears and their servants.

"resident_states": [
  { "state": "examplepack:werebear", "share": 0.6, "amount": [4, 8] },
  { "state": "examplepack:servant", "share": 0.75 }
]

Field	Description
state	Required. The ID of the entity state.
share	Required. The chance that a resident gets the state, from 0 to 1.
amount	The value of the state. A number, or [min, max] for a random value in that range. Townstead rounds the value to a whole number. The default is 1.

Each adult who comes to live in the town rolls once against each entry, in the order of the list, after the town has its faction. A villager born in the town does not roll. That villager gets states only from inheritance.

A state that excludes another state cannot take hold on a resident who already has that state. In the example, if examplepack:servant excludes examplepack:werebear, a werebear never becomes a servant. Then 60% of the residents are werebears, 30% are servants, and 10% have neither state.

A resident who cannot have the state does not get it, for example a resident with a body that the state does not allow.

Order of Work

1. Write the culture file with a name and a naming block. Test it with a debug village.
2. Add a demonym, settlement names and faction names.
3. Add founding profiles, one for each form of government.
4. Add subcultures, with spirit and forms, when the culture has distinct peoples.
5. Add clothing and a livery.
6. Add a voice and lines. See Writing a Culture Voice.
7. Add translations.

See Testing & Commands for how to check each step.