Twilight Forest Landmarks

Twilight Forest Landmarks refers to a variety of structures that are naturally generated in the Twilight Forest and stand out very strongly from natural terrain. All or most of these structures appear on a Magic Map once one has been crafted and centered (right-clicking with a Blank Magic Map produces a Magic Map that has been centered and scaled) in a "grid" pattern in that they are not scattered at random throughout the terrain but placed on a grid relative to one another. Use of a Magic Map reveals that no Twilight Forest Landmark (excepting minor ones, e.g. wells, Skeleton Druid houses, etc; rule of thumb: if there's no ores & no boss mob, it's minor) can be within 256 blocks of another Twilight Forest Landmark (the distance between each Landmark on the grid pattern).

This means that a distance of 16 chunks is located between each Landmark, and Landmarks are always generated at intervals of 256 chunks; thus, a reasonable method of finding Landmarks (although they may not be the desired landmarks; one may search for a Large Hollow Hill and end up finding oneself in grave peril at the wrath of a Hydra) would be to find one, align oneself with the "grid" and walk 256 blocks in all directions from the given landmark to find others.

If a world is generated with the "Generate Structures" parameter set to false, Twilight Forest Landmarks will not generate. The exception is Hollow Hills, which will still generate but will not contain ores above the norm, will not spawn Wraiths or other Twilight Forest monsters and will not contain stalactites/stalagmites. All other landmarks will all-out refuse to generate.

More useful would be a Magic Map so that it is easier to locate the desired landmarks as well as to pinpoint oneself relative to one's entry/exit portal, etc.

Major Landmarks

Major Landmarks are landmarks that appear on a Magic Map. These landmarks usually have loot of some sort (sometimes ores or items in chests) and a boss mob as with the Naga Courtyard, Hydra Lair and Lich Tower. Each Major Landmark is near what is known as a Major Feature biome, which is always located at a pair of coordinates of which both are divisible by 256. These "biomes" have an area of 1 square meter and control the generation of Major Landmarks in the game's code, as the two are tied together. Wherever a Major Feature biome is, a Major Landmark will be within a dozen or so blocks.

• Aurora Palace
• Hedge Maze
• Hollow Hill
• Quest Grove
• Naga Courtyard
• Lich Tower
• Labyrinth
• Hydra Lair
• Dark Tower

Minor Landmarks

Minor Landmarks typically contain a small amount of monsters, if any, have no boss monsters and only a small quantity of loot. Minor Landmarks are sprinkled randomly throughout the landscape and do not appear on a Magic Map. Minor Landmarks do not follow the grid pattern of Major Landmarks. Minor Landmarks are always accompanied by a Minor Feature biome with size of 1 square meter, similar to how Major Landmarks function. However, whereas there will always be a Major Feature biome at coordinates both divisible by 256, the pattern of Minor Feature biomes is random and will follow the pattern of the generation of Minor Landmarks.

Skeleton Druid House

Skeleton Druid Houses are houses found on the overworld of the Twilight Forest which always contain Skeleton Druid spawners. They are made of Mossy Cobblestone, have a roof of Wooden Stairs, a fireplace and a chimney made of Bricks. They are fairly common and yield no treasure.

Ruins

Ruins are structures found on the overworld of the Twilight Forest that consist of spires of Mossy Cobblestone with a wooden and dirt floor. They range in size from 6x6 to 10x10, 6x8 being the most commonly found. Digging underneath the floor sometimes reveals a secret room containing a Chest with various Twilight Forest and Vanilla dungeon loot as well as 0-2 Skeletons and 0-3 Goblins. Secret rooms only spawn about half of the time in Ruins, and are two blocks below the surface. The loot chest mostly has food, plus the occasional bucket, pot, feathers, torches or a Charm of Keeping.

Wells

Two varieties of Wells exist: the 1x1 and the 2x2. Treasure chests in small compartments off to the side of the well can sometimes be found near to the bottom of the well; however, water source blocks are found all the way down the well, posing a potential drowning damage to underprepared players. Sand or Gravel is helpful to fill in the well before digging down to see if there is a chest. If a chest is present, it will be behind a source block of water, inset into the wall near the bottom of the well. The possible loot is quite varied, mostly food, the occasional torch, seeds, buckets, plants or a Charm of Keeping.

Pillars

Pillars spawn rarely in normal biomes and more often in the Highlands Biome and Twilight Clearing Biome. They are a tower of either Obsidian or Stone, two blocks wide and they seem to be between 10 and 20 blocks tall. An obisdian pillar will have one Lapis Lazuli block on top, and a Stone pillar will have an Iron Block on top.

Stalagmites

Stalagmites appear similar to Pillars, but are generally shorter and always made out of stone. They may occasionally include random blocks of ores, though not nearly as rich as the deposits found in Hollow Hills.

Stone Circle

A grouping of three block tall pillars made of mossy cobblestone, Stone Circles are purely aesthetic.

Generation Code

For a more detailed explanation of how the code for Twilight Forest generates landmarks, both major and minor, see Twilight Forest Landmarks/Generation. This page contains a pseudocode derived from the code that generates Major Landmarks in the Twilight Forest.

Notable points of this pseudocode: Enchanted Forest biomes always spawn a Quest Grove, as do Fire Swamps with Hydra Lairs, Clearings and Clearing Borders with Labyrinths and the Dark Tower can only spawn in a Dark Forest and has a 1/3 chance to do so per landmark spawning site. Otherwise, the chance of certain landmarks is as follows:

• 3/8 Small Hollow Hill
• 3/16 Medium Hollow Hill
• 1/8 Hedge Maze
• 1/8 Lich Tower
• 1/16 Large Hollow Hill
• 1/16 Hydra Lair (if a swamp biome) or, if not, defaults to Naga Courtyard

Unimplemented Major Landmarks

There are currently five major landmarks that exist in the game's code, but the generation of which in the world has currently been disabled. These are the Glacier Maze, the Quest Island, the Druid Grove, the Floating Ruins and the Knight Stronghold. No known generation code exists for these such that they would generate within a world, and the generation of them can only be controlled by the editing of the game code to remove the parameter that disables their generation. Doing so may crash the game, corrupt worlds, cause grievous errors to the client or to the computer the client is running on, or possibly worse. Caution is very much advised when doing this. This is untested.

The Glacier Maze and the Quest Island are the only Major Landmarks that may generate in Glacier or Lake biomes (see Twilight Forest Landmarks/Generation. This explains the reason why Glaciers and Lakes can never contain landmarks.

Resources

The official wiki for Twilight Forest.