the current

the wind's sister element. rivers in this world are flat — there is no slope to read in most of a river's length — so the current is derived, not simulated. where the surface steps down a block, the game's own water already knows which way is downhill; those cells become anchors, and they are also where the rapids live. between them, downstream is "toward the nearest descending step," walked outward through the connected water. and where the water genuinely cannot decide — a long dead-flat reach, a lake, your own pond — the wind is the current. that line was written into quill's river post before this mod existed; now it is the specification for still water, kept on purpose.

what rides: boats, dropped items, paper boats. an unmoored boat leaves at a walking-away pace, so mooring matters now; a dropped log finds the sea eventually; a letter given to a real river sails a real river. what never rides: you. a swimming player feels nothing, ever — the river became alive without once fighting your hands.

the tells are never a number. wake streaks lie along the flow, strongest where it runs fastest. the rapids chatter. and salmon and cod hold facing upstream, correcting with slow tail-work — on the test server a salmon held its ground against the same push that carried a log thirty blocks and over the falls, which is the whole mod in one image. the almanac, if it is home, records the first thing of yours the river carries out of sight.