Nyctography
by Darkhax
Nyctography is a Magic mod that adds a substitution cipher rendered in the Minecraft font, so text in books, signs, chat and tooltips can be written in a hidden alphabet.
What it does
The cipher replaces letters with symbols drawn from the game font. Only consonants are used, which avoids confusion with real words, and five special characters join the letters and numbers. Numbers follow a separate scheme in which a marked prefix tells the reader that the following characters stand for digits, much as braille handles numerals.
Used in books, signs, chat messages and tooltips, the cipher works in most forms of in-game text. The mod converts the writing automatically, so a player only needs to know how to read the code. It is a Magic mod that also fits Adventure and Decoration play, and it runs on client and server. Bookshelf, Fabric API and Prickle are required dependencies, and Dark Utilities requires Nyctography.
The mod is published for 1.21.1 and for 26.1 – 26.3, across six release versions. Builds exist for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt. The code is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 only and is open source.
Key features
Substitution cipher in the game font
Letters are swapped for glyphs of the Minecraft font, so written text looks like ordinary game text.
Consonant-only alphabet
Only consonants are assigned symbols, keeping coded words from being mistaken for ordinary words.
Marked numbers
A prefix mark shows that the characters after it stand for numerals, in the way braille writes digits.
Writing in game text
Books, signs, chat messages and tooltips all accept the cipher, covering most in-game writing.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Requirements
Dependencies declared by the latest file for each loader.
Required 2
Required by 1 mod
Use cases
Hidden notes in a world
Players can leave messages on signs or in books that other players cannot read without knowing the cipher.
Puzzles and adventure maps
Map makers can build clues that require decoding the Nyctography alphabet.
Who it’s for: Players who want coded writing in their survival or adventure worlds, and map makers who build puzzles around text.
Questions
Does a player need to install the mod on the server?
Which dependencies are required?
Does the cipher require learning a code?
In the catalog
Nyctography is one of 7,216 Magic mods on ModsFinder, and one of 3,630 Magic mods for Fabric. 8,071 mods support Minecraft 26.3.
More from Darkhax
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What the author says
This mod adds the Nyctography substitution cipher as a Minecraft font! This font can be used for books, signs, chat messages, tooltips, and most forms of ingame text. Similarly to braille, numbers are written using a letter. This mod will automatically handle this when writing text with the font but you will still…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/nyctography
- Owner
- Darkhax
- Published
- 2024-10-22
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-09-25
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15