Guide
How the learning AI in Araz works
Araz is a Minecraft AI horror mod with no machine learning: the creature unlocks abilities by counting what you do, and the world save keeps it all.
In short Araz is a Minecraft horror mod for Fabric where the creature starts with no special abilities and unlocks them by watching the player. Opening a door four times teaches it to break doors. Sleeping three times teaches it possession. Every observation, plus how familiar it is with you, is saved with the world. The AI is scripted, not machine learning.
In Araz the creature does not start with a full set of abilities. It starts with almost none. Every ability it later uses against you is one it unlocked by watching you do something first, and the record of what it saw is written into your world save.
There are four of those lessons in the current build: your door, your animals, your villagers and your sleep. Each needs a number of separate observations before it unlocks, and the moment it unlocks the mod tells you in chat.
I wrote Araz, so this is a description of my own code rather than a review. Everything below applies to version 1.0.0-beta.2, the current release as of September 2026, on Minecraft 26.3, 26.1.2, 1.21.10 and 1.20.1. Fabric only, no Forge or NeoForge.
What does it mean that Araz learns from you?
Learning here means one thing. The mod counts specific things you do while it is around, and at a fixed count it switches an ability on for that world. Before the count is reached the creature cannot do that thing at all.
Observations only start counting after it has introduced itself. The one time first sighting happens a few minutes into a new world, in daylight, with no attack. Until that scene has played, nothing you do teaches it anything, so it can never turn up already knowing everything.
What you did and what it learned
The first two columns are the table from the Araz page on Modrinth. The third column is the number of separate observations the mod actually requires before the ability unlocks.
| What you did | What it learned | Times it has to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Opened and closed your door | Doors no longer stop it | 4 |
| Walked past your animals without hurting them | Your animals matter to you, so now they have the wrong eyes | 5 |
| Walked among villagers | How to stand among them, with one villager too many | 3 |
| Slept | A body can be left behind, so it takes yours | 3 |
When a count is reached you get a line in chat. The door one reads:
It watched you open and close your door. Doors no longer stop it.
Each observation type has its own cooldown so you cannot farm it. A door counts once every 30 seconds, animals once a minute, villagers once every two minutes, and sleeping is once a night by nature. Four door observations are meant to spread across a session, not across two minutes of spamming a trapdoor.
Why does Araz come back faster the longer you play?
Next to the four lessons the mod keeps three sliding values per player: familiarity, threat and how much you run. Familiarity rises by one step every time an encounter ends and it does not decay on its own.
Familiarity changes four things at once.
- The wait between encounters gets shorter, by up to 30 percent at full familiarity. The beta.2 changelog lowered that discount from the 45 percent it had in beta.1, and raised the hard floor to 4 minutes.
- The chance that an appearance turns into a real hunt climbs from 25 percent towards a cap of 75 percent.
- It watches from closer in, because the watch distance shrinks as it gets to know you.
- It moves faster. Each lesson adds 4 percent movement speed, up to plus 60 percent.
Hiding is tied to the same value. Crouch, hold still, stay in light level 5 or darker and keep more than 6 blocks between you for three seconds and it loses your trail. Past roughly 60 percent familiarity that stops working, and it never works on a Blood Moon night.
How can I see what Araz knows about me?
Three things in the game show you the state of the record. None of them need a command block or an outside tool.
Read the Observation Log
It is an item in the chest at the abandoned camp, the first place the story sends you. Right click it and it prints how many nights it watched, how many times you met, every observation count and which abilities those unlocked. It is reusable and always current.
Read the signs it leaves
Some nights it plants a sign near your bed or your door carrying one line from the record it keeps on you, such as 14 TIMES / YOU OPENED IT. Counters keep rising after an ability unlocks, so the number on the sign is the real one.
Type /araz help
It reads your story progress and names your next step: the camp, the records, the portal ruin, the Essence of Araz or the altar. /araz altar prints the altar layout. Commands stay in English in every language.
The Observation Log speaks in the first person. A page in progress might read:
I watched for 12 nights. We met 9 times. Each time I am a little faster. I saw you open your door 14 times. What I learned: doors, your animals. I am still recording.
Is this real machine learning?
No. The word AI in the Araz description means game AI, the same sense in which a zombie has AI. It is a set of rules in the mod file.
Concretely: four observation counters and three float values per player, compared against fixed thresholds, switching entity goals on and off. All of it lives in the world save. Nothing is trained, nothing is uploaded, and the mod runs the same with no internet connection.
I say this plainly because a learning AI claim in a mod description usually oversells what is in the file. The wording in Araz is literal in one direction only: the abilities are gated on your habits instead of on a timer.
How does Araz handle modded and overpowered gear?
A second system sits next to the lessons, called power awareness. It weighs your gear and stats against vanilla. If you are far past that line, with hero mods, modded armor or a sword that hits for hundreds, it notices and tells you.
You are not normal. Then neither will I be.
From then on every encounter scales to you. The feature list on the Araz Modrinth page describes the scaling as:
- More health, derived from your attack damage, up to 1500 extra
- Harder hits, plus armor and armor toughness
- An armor piercing strike worth a share of your maximum health
- A cap so no single blow can take more than a fifth of its health
Vanilla gear never triggers it, full netherite included. The level is stored in the world save and does not drop when you take the gear off. The toggle is gucOlcekleme.
Which settings control learning speed and encounter frequency?
Every value below lives in config/araz.json, and in the in game settings screen as well if you have Mod Menu and Cloth Config installed. Both of those are optional. Fabric API and GeckoLib are the only hard requirements.
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ogrenmeHiziCarpani | 100 | Learning speed in percent. 200 halves both the observations needed and the wait between them, 50 doubles them. |
| gorunmeBeklemesiSaniye | 240 | Minimum seconds of silence after any appearance before the next one. |
| karsilasmaAraligiCarpani | 100 | Encounter interval in percent. 200 means half as often. |
| gunduzeKacGeceSonra | 3 | Nights after the introduction before it may appear in daylight. -1 keeps it nocturnal. |
| dogalKarsilasmalar | true | Set it to false to drop ambient encounters and keep only the story moments. |
| gucOlcekleme | true | Power awareness against overpowered players. |
For the atmosphere without the creature, hafifMod leaves it watching and making sounds with no attacks, jumpscares or possession, and the story still plays. isikHassasiyeti removes the flashes, glitch bars and pulsing overlays.
What is saved, and is it safe for an existing world?
Observation counts, familiarity, threat, how often you ran, nights survived, story flags and the power level are all written to the world save. Quitting does not reset any of it. On a server the record is kept per player.
Nothing is added to world generation. The abandoned camp and the portal ruin are built when you get close to them, which is why the FAQ on the Modrinth page says the mod is safe to add to a world you are already playing.
Known limits in beta.2
It is a beta. Almost all of my testing is single player. Multiplayer works and gets harder with more players nearby, but it has had far less play, so reports from servers are the thing I need most.
There are only four lessons. It does not learn arbitrary habits, only those four. Part II, the one that opens the portal, is not out. Downloads are on Modrinth and CurseForge, the mod page is spicesfire.com/araz, and bug reports go to Discord.
Frequently asked questions
Does Araz use real machine learning?
No. Araz uses scripted game AI: counters for the things you do, fixed thresholds and state saved in the world file. No model is trained and nothing about your play leaves your computer.
How long does it take Araz to unlock all its abilities?
It needs 4 door observations, 5 animal observations, 3 villager observations and 3 nights of sleep, and each type has its own cooldown. In practice that is a few hours of ordinary play. Setting ogrenmeHiziCarpani to 200 halves it.
Does Araz remember me after I quit the world?
Yes. Observation counts, familiarity and story progress are written to the world save, so it picks up where it left off. On a server the record is kept per player.
Why does Araz appear more often the longer I play?
Familiarity shortens the wait between encounters by up to 30 percent, and the chance an appearance becomes a hunt rises with it. Raise gorunmeBeklemesiSaniye or karsilasmaAraligiCarpani in config/araz.json to slow that down.
Why did hiding from Araz stop working?
Hiding fails once familiarity is high, at roughly 60 percent, and it never works on a Blood Moon night or during the guard chase at the portal ruin. Running and staring it down still work.