Writing and Grammar in Mystcraft

Mystcraft uses a grammar to interpret the symbols in a book, working much like words forming a sentence. Providing the words "red," "dog," and "ball" might be expanded by a sentence generator into "The red dog plays with the ball" — but other expansions are equally valid. In the same way, an incomplete Age description is parsed and then expanded randomly; the more detail the author writes, the fewer choices are left to chance.

Modifier pages come before the page they modify, mirroring adjectives before nouns: Red Color -> Sky Color is correct, while the reverse is not. Some symbols even modify other modifiers (for example, one Color page can blend with another, a Length with another Length, a Direction with another Direction).

A recommended Standard Age page order, from first to last, is roughly:

1. Link Panel Page (the book's entry point).
2. Terrain and world type — Biome pages -> Biome Distribution, then solid block -> fluid block (or No Seas) -> World Landscape.
3. Weather page (or No Weather).
4. Lighting page.
5. Celestials — optional sunset colors, then Length/Direction/Phase -> Normal Sun, the same for the Moon, and Color -> Stars (or the Dark versions to omit a body).
6. Visuals — color pages feeding Sky, Night Sky, Fog, Cloud, Water, Foliage and Grass color (or their Natural equivalents).
7. World features and structures (large/medium/small features, lakes, mineshafts, strongholds, villages, dungeons, etc.).
8. Effects (all optional).

A Clear Modifiers page can be placed at the end as a safety net: it consumes any leftover "dangling" modifier pages, generating a little instability per unused page but preventing them from being assigned unpredictably.

An Overworld-clone template, for example, chains Stone Block -> Water Block -> Standard World, a Native Biome Controller, Normal Lighting and Normal Weather, sunrise/sunset colored Sun, Moon and Stars, natural cloud/fog/sky/foliage/grass/water colors, a night-sky color, and the standard set of structures and lakes.