v0.62 26 October 2026

Bows of their own, elemental arrows, and archers who hold them right

• Weapons & combat

• Every bow looks like what it is. Bows are now built procedurally per style instead of all sharing one stick:
  • Bone Shortbow: made of bones. A vertebra riser with spines, a sinew-bound grip, ribs lashed along each limb with knuckled joints, and hooked tips.
  • Hunting Bow: a plain self bow with grain, a leather grip and horn nocks.
  • Ashen Recurve: charred wood, with tips that curl away from the archer.
  • Yew Longbow: tall and D-sectioned, with pale sapwood on the back and dark heartwood on the belly.
  • Nightstalker: dark lacquer with metal fittings. Starfall: pearl enamel with a gem.
  • Real limbs: the limbs bend as you draw, mostly toward the tips, and the riser stays rigid. The string runs from the bent tips to the arrow's nock. On release it snaps forward and shivers to rest.
• Three elemental bows (new items, found like any other weapon):
  • Cinderheart (smouldering wood with glowing veins): fire arrows. A hit sets the enemy burning for 4 s, taking 70% of the hit again as fire. Fire arrows that land in the world set the ground alight. Fire cancels frost.
  • Blightthorn (twisted thorny wood): poison arrows. Poison lasts 7 s and deals 60% of the hit over that time. It stacks up to three doses, and each hit refreshes it.
  • Rimefang (ice-crusted, with crystals): frost arrows. A hit chills for 4 s and slows the enemy to 60% speed. The third frost hit while chilled freezes it solid for 1.5 s, encased in ice. Bosses are slowed but never frozen.
  • Burning and poison ignore blocks, parries and poise, and armour stops only half its usual share. They show their own coloured damage numbers, and a kill by burning or poison is credited to the archer.
  • Each arrow is its own: a burning oil rag on a fire arrow, a barbed green head on a poison arrow, a glowing ice head on a frost arrow, each with its own light and trail.
• Archers hold the bow properly. One shared two-bone arm rig now drives the player, other players' copies, the menu outfit and enemy archers:
  • The bow arm reaches out along the aim with the elbow turned out and down, never locked, and the left fist is on the grip.
  • The drawing hand stays on the string at the nock through the whole draw, and comes back to an anchor under the jaw, so the arrow lies along the aim at eye level.
  • The drawing elbow sits behind the shoulder, in line with the arrow. Before, it rose over the head.
  • Enemy archers fixed: their skinned bodies now follow the arm rig. Before, the joints moved but the visible arms stayed in the animation's pose. Bone Archers and the Hollow Huntsman visibly hold the bow and draw the string.
• Multiplayer (protocol 27):
  • your bow's style travels with your weapon look, so others see the same bow;
  • elemental arrows fly with their element;
  • the host applies afflictions and clients see the flames, fumes and ice;
  • a hit's status rides along with it.
• Screenshots: --shots=bows (lineup at rest and full draw), (env BOWS=id,id) and --shots=afflictions.

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