Enchanted Books: Re-covered

Each enchantment is ranked within a hierarchy of significance.
When an enchanted book contains two or more enchantments, the texture of an enchantment ranked higher than the other ones is displayed. Give feedback
(This functionality only regards the native version. Optifine has its own ranking, it seems.)

• Respiration
  This was the first texture I designed, and is probably my favorite. The connection between the turtle shell and the ability of breathing underwater occurred to me pretty easily. Other people would just make a book with bubbles, or a small turtle helmet icon, but I'm surprised no one else came up with my design. A reference to a conduit was also considered, but I think nothing beats the current version. I also think that the turtle shell could theoretically be an implication that the enchantment is meant to be applied to helmets, but I know that it's a bit of a stretch. The bubbles are a cherry on top, referencing the hotbar elements, making it clearer than ever to understand.

• Aqua Affinity
  I was considering a watery theme with a pickaxe symbol, but then realised that someone could mistake it for a tool-enchantment, so I made it consistent with Respiration. I was considering adding bubbles, but realised that they wouldn't really relate to the enchantment's effect.

• Bane of Arthropods
  Initially I was trying different cobweb designs with a spider on top, but the resolution was too small to make it recognizable and clear enough, so I opted for a bug, which technically only has 6 legs, unlike spiders, but it's recognizable enough. It was supposed to be a red book with a black spider, but one user preferred the inverted version, because it reminded them of Miles Morales from the Spider-Verse, and I liked that reference, so I kept it that way.

• Blast Protection
  I firstly tried a TNT design, but it was giving me the wrong vibe from. I figured TNT is associated with destruction of the environment more than with the blast effect itself. Whereas creepers remind you of a threat to your life through the blast damage, with the destruction being an afterthought after having died. I wanted to do something different than everybody else, but sometimes the most obvious design is the best one. I made it angled by 30°, because I thought it would have been dumb to have a book with a twisted cover design for no reason (in real life). It took a few tries, but I think it looks acceptable.

• Breach
  First intention was to make a book with a big crack on the cover. First issue was that I couldn't manage to draw anything I was happy with, and the second was that I realized it could've been misinterpreted as Unbreaking or maybe a Curse of Vanishing. A broken chestplate turned out to be a neat idea. It was kinda hard to get the fractures right, but I think it turned out alright. I might improve the visibility of it in the future.

• Channeling
  Pretty obvious design, a lightning bolt referencing the lightning-summoning power. Teal colored, like the rest of the trident enchantments.

• Density
  Firstly I didn't know what the design would be, but taking inspiration from Sharpness and Power, I concluded that it just had to be a Mace symbol, like the other enchantments simply buffing the generic damage. Initially I thought it'd be hard to execute such a characteristic weapon on such a small scale, but I kind of surprised myself with my successful attempt, and think it came out very cleanly.

• Depth Strider
  Now this one took a bit of thinking. A lot of people made designs with Guardians from the ocean monuments, and I get the idea, but the implication isn't obvious enough. I mean, one could think that maybe it has something to do with dealing damage, because Guardians are highly hostage mobs, so maybe it would reduce the damage dealt from them? Who knows. I noticed how it wasn't really relating to the speed factor. I tried to think what could symbolise the speed in water environments. I was thinking of fish fins, maybe the backwash effect of the water waves, but then I remembered about the Dolphin's Grace magic effect that literally made you swim faster. It felt so satisfying to come up with that, and I hadn't seen anybody do it yet. I considered adding bubbles or just having no other decorations, but I added some moving kelp instead. I might adjust its animation some other time, so it doesn't obstruct the dolphin symbol.

• Efficiency
  It was the second texture I made, which helped make Aqua Affinity. For 99% of these 7 months it was a blue book with a greenish looking pickaxe. The colors kind of reminded me of the stronghold. I really liked this impression, but the poor contrast and the color scheme not really matching the vanilla style didn't sit well with me. The last week of development I changed the colors and preferred the new look over the old one. The golden pickaxe could also be tied to the haste beacon effect.

• Feather Falling
  Feather for the symbol. Couldn't get simpler than that. Now, the book color is not brown, despite that it could be, and would make it more consistent with the rest of the books, but I thought this enchantment is often sought out and it could get lost in the chest of other brown books, so I thought adding this delicate blue celestial color would make things clearer.

• Fire Aspect
  A flaming sword, need I say more?

• Fire Protection
  In Minecraft there is no symbol representative of fire resistance, except for one potion and netherite. Neither of which are a direct reference to fire. I initially rejected making  a book that's set on fire, because just imagine trying to read this kind of book. But then I came across magma, and figured that it was actually a nice symbol. Magma reminds you of taking damage, and is associated with lava and fire. So the only phenomenon associated with magma must be related to it dealing damage, so one could think that maybe this enchantment mitigates some part of the damage, thus fire protection. The art itself is a derivative of the Respiration texture with changed colors. Subtle animation is a nice additional touch.

• Flame
  There were a couple of designs involving just the arrow being on fire, the book being dark red, but I later found a way to make it consistent with the Power texture with an entire bow visible. I made the flame animation the best I could, I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's better than nothing.

• Fortune
  I really couldn't think about anything better that symbolizes improved RNG than a four leaf clover. This design almost qualified as not native to Minecraft, but technically there is a luck magic effect in the game, even with its own texture, so you can't say it doesn't exist within the game. I tried thinking about a design with diamonds or emeralds, or some kind of currency, but the clover beat them all.

• Frost Walker
  Again, a no-brainer. Ice texture referenced from the game. Additional snowflake symbol. There weren't many small enough pixel art variations to choose from that looked good. I think the current version is fine.

• Impaling
  If the drowned were affected by this enchantment (like in the Bedrock Edition) I might have tried a design with the drowned face, but since it's not the case, I took the road of just drawing the weapon itself, like with Sharpness, Power, and Density. Teal color for additional style points and consistency.

• Infinity
  Infinity symbol. Yes, it belongs in Minecraft.

• Knockback
  I dreaded working on this design so much. I was coming back to it over the span of months. Firstly I was considering drawing some kind of shock waves, like the Warden's sonic boom effect. Then a sword emitting waves, but nothing looked good. Then I tried drawing Steve's fist with some shock waves. Then instead of waves I drew some kind of a "POW" effect, like they do in the comics. First it was yellow and orange, but it looked like McDonald's french fries, so I made it blue and it started to look better. I'm not satisfied with it per se, but it's the best thing I was able to come up with. I saw people draw some kind of caveman's clubs or other things, but none of them seemed representative enough. I think a fist punching is a good reference to mobs being knocked away from the player. Now I realize that a punching fist might be confused with another enchantment literally called PUNCH (I hate Mojang for making these names) but the Punch texture on the other hand very strongly clears up any confusion with the literal arrow on the pixel art.

• Looting
  Now for this design I give myself a pat on the back–considering how clever it is. When it was its turn to be worked on, I quickly realised that it might be problematic to execute. How do you express Looting, the enchantment that increases the chance of mobs' drops to drop more than they usually do? I mean, the clover symbol is already used for something else; the word "looting" is associated with stealing, so maybe I could draw a chest, but then, it would imply that it improves the loot found in chests, which doesn't even make sense for the tool in your inventory to be able to cause. So maybe money? Diamonds? But mobs don't drop diamonds, that's not what you're gonna get more of, Fortune does that. So I thought, maybe rotten flesh, but when I tried it, the contrast wasn't really great on any of the background colors that made sense. So I gathered all of the items that mobs drop, even meats, and started analyzing which ones sparked the right idea when looked at. Not one single item conveyed the right message on its own. I considered the ones which would be somewhat valuable to the player, so he'd understand what would be the benefit of the enchantment, but also excluded any exotic drops like phantom membrane or magma cream, so to have the immediate association with the "mobs dropping items" mechanic, by using the most recognizable items. The use of the bone, which does not indicate the Smite enchantment in this case, the spider eye, which does not indicate of Bane of Arthropods to the contrary, both of them being hostile mobs which is not the message I wanted to convey, but then I also used an ender pearl, which comes from the semi-passive mob, which helps break the 'hostile mob' association, but it's also valuable to players, and is also very well known. I think it's perfect. All of these are mob drops, all of them are very recognizable, and at least one of them might indicate something valuable, but also shows that it regards more than just hostile mobs. I think the ender pearl is key here, because in regular playthroughs they're a scarce resource, and so the only reason they would be related to an enchantment, along with other mob drops, is if this enchantment increased its chance to drop. I think it's brilliant. The only grievance I might have is its contrast not being THE greatest. Other than that, I'm really happy with this one.

• Loyalty
  I think another pretty smart design. How do you express the trident... coming back to you? Like a boomerang I mean. Well I can't draw a boomerang. I saw one person draw a trident that's literally bent in half as if it was a magnet or something, which I thought was kinda funny but also pretty dumb. I needed to come up with something that would indicate that the trident has an owner to whom it always comes back to. The idea of the trident being attached to the lead really appealed to me. Leads in Minecraft have that stretching effect, so it would match this yoyo effect that tridents possess. They go away, stop, and then come back to you. I also don't think it breaks the "all art needs to be inside of the book bounds" rule, because books in real life often have some kind of a hanging element, whether it's a ribbon bookmark or something else used for decoration. And it doesn't prevent the book from being opened.

• Luck of the Sea
  I was thinking of designs, where the fishing rod would have something valuable on its hook, but looking at the loot table, there wasn't anything particular that could be objectively considered as valuable. Well, I couldn't put diamonds there either, so... a clover presented itself as a neat solution once again. The concept of reeling in 'something lucky' I guess works well enough. The book color had to be a little brighter than the rest, because of the fishing rods visibility, and also because I didn't want to make the rod black in order to stand out.

• Lure
  The combination of a fish and a hook was pretty obvious to me. I was thinking about adding some bait to the hook, but there's no real equivalent of bait in Minecraft, and using worms is out of the picture. I saw other people draw as big fish as they could, but I'm pretty happy with my pixel art. The fish facing the hook sends a clear message.

• Mending
  I feel like there's an expectation for this book to look more epic than the rest. I get that this book is used for everything, but I just wanted to make something regular, without any additional fireworks. For quite a while the design was the experience orbs. They didn't quite fit though with their big size. An experience bottle proved to be a simpler and better looking design. This enchantment is so famous that I don't think it needs any other bigger hints for it to be recognized. I think it kinda looks too clean for Minecraft's time setting. I might tweak it in the future.

• Multishot
  All crossbow enchantments have this issue that they could be mistaken for bow enchantments, due to their names. This forced me to include the entire crossbow, and not just arrows in the design. It was kind of hard to balance all the browns, to make it visible that the arrow is on top of the crossbow, and have the crossbow not blend in with the book color, without making everything yellow. Crossbows in game are dark brown with a small tint of red in them. I tried to make the string visible, but also not get in the way.

• Piercing
  This one required some thinking outside of the box, too. This enchantment allows you to pierce through multiple entities with a single shot. How would one convey this in their design? I tried drawing mob heads being impaled with arrows, but the scale was just not allowing it. I also tried drawing an arrow piercing through a straw target board, but it just looked dumb and the scale wasn't big enough. Then I searched my mind for the references in pop culture and remembered the age old symbol of an apple pierced through with an arrow. Fortunately apples do exist in Minecraft. The final result came out pretty well, with the arrow being barely recognizable, but just enough. Had to overlap with the paper-part of the book, but it's barely noticeable.

• Power
  Same as Sharpness, same as Impaling, same as Density.

• Projectile Protection
  Ah yes, a book that's been pierced through with an arrow, what a great idea! — thought every other pack maker. Look, I get the point, people like shooting in them things. For me, it goes beyond the boundaries of not being realistic enough. I mean, could you imagine? You wouldn't even be able to open the damn thing, not mentioning every page would have a hole in the middle. I chose the shield design. I imagine when someone sees a shield, their first association they make is to "that thing that blocks arrows".

• Protection
  A chestplate already is a great reference to being protective of all damage types on its own. But also, it ties perfectly to the armor points indicator above the hotbar, which players see all the time. This explains why I made the symbol be iron and not diamond, incidentally. It's because the diamond chestplate honestly didn't look as good as iron, and also the association to the hotbar was crucial. I'm also proud of how I managed to make it angled and still look good.

• Punch
  I had done many designs for this enchantment, a bow with an arrow with a blue glowing wave, an entire arrow with a blue wave, but I finally stuck with just the arrow head. Initially, there was a pointy kind of effect, like in Knockback book, but then I changed it to a sort of force field/ sonic cone kind of thing, I think it's clear enough. I also think the absence of the bow isn't a problem, because when you think about it, it's the arrow that executes the knockback effect, not the bow. It's not like the bow shoots arrows with a greater speed. You can shoot an arrow very weakly and the mobs go flying regardless.

• Quick Charge
  Similar reasoning to Multishot. There are 2 additional designs included inside the pack files, which I also like. You can rename them and try them out.

• Riptide
  Initially I was trying to draw some storms and waves, but couldn't manage anything good looking. I looked at the Riptide animation when you're flying with the trident and I referenced the wind sprites and just drew some swirlies indicating some wind blowing and sweeping I guess. The teal color makes it clear enough I think. I didn't like the idea of adding whooshing wind animation around the book. I thought it would've been too distracting.

• Sharpness
  Sword symbol for the go-to sword enchantment.

• Silk Touch
  I liked the idea of giving this book a delicate and pristine and somewhat heavenly look. Silk is generally off-white colored. I used a pickaxe symbol, even though this enchantment can be applied to most of the tools, because I think it's the first tool people add Silk Touch to anyway, maybe also on par with the shovel. But generally I think people use it to pick up ender chests and to dig up smooth stone and glass. I like the bible vibe it gives off.

• Smite
  I tried making a zombie face texture, but it somehow was harder to draw on an angle than the creeper face, so I just went with the obvious skull design. It being the symbol of the skeletons, but also—death (and so the undead mobs).

• Soul Speed
  Soul sand texture is the only correct choice here.

• Sweeping edge
  Sword with a sweeping sprite.

• Swift Sneak
  I admit my defeat against this one. I spent hours thinking about plausible designs, and none of them were good enough. How do you represent the action of being fast, but silent? How do you express speed, but also stealth? It's also applied to the pants. Well, if that wasn't nerve racking enough. I can't just make the symbol be a pair of pants, because what if Mojang adds some other enchantment for pants? There's no way to represent someone sneaking who's also fast, at least not on such a small scale. So I gave up and just made it a sculk book. I couldn't spend days and weeks just on one design. Sometimes you just have to know your limits and walk away. At least they're found in the ancient cities, so here's your reference I guess.

• Thorns
  I don't like how it looks. I guess the design is fairly easy to understand. I will work on a remake in the future. Realism-wise, I count it as openable—you'd just have to tear off the vines around the paper part. I imagine they would regrow, considering its magical properties.

• Unbreaking
  Scrapped designs involved obsidian, netherite, bedrock textures. None of them were giving off the vibe I was going for. I analyzed in what moments in the game do we get the feeling of toughness, of durability, of something that will last, of quality, of longevity. And then one scene kept popping into my mind—the moment of crafting your first diamond pickaxe. The moment you take the pickaxe out of the output slot in the crafting table you think "this shit is gonna last forever". That's the main concept driving this design. I should clarify that it's not supposed to be a full-sized diamond, but more of a flat-ish glyph permanently attached to the book cover. I know there's no indication of this, but that's the intention. Plus the white ribbon, I think it looks cool.

• Wind Burst
  Firstly I made the texture be the Density book with two wings grown out on either side. It looked interesting, but I later considered it not indicative enough of the effect. I guess the wind charge ball, although not being directly related to the enchantment, strikes the correct idea in the player's mind. The horizontal stripes included in its design prevented me from drawing it in an angled perspective.

• Curse of Vanishing
  For this item I think almost every other pack creator made a book that's turning into dust. Now, I think I don't need to explain why that doesn't make sense. There also no real obvious way of representing this enchantment. Items vanishing upon death. The withering/ turning to dust effect could indicate that the items lose durability quicker, which wasn't the message I wanted to convey. I think the pages and the book title erasing themselves and reappearing implies that the enchantment causes things to become fragile, but not wither or break apart. Like they're on the cusp of dying, but not quite yet. And also, just to be honest, I don't think this texture is that important, because I don't even think anyone actually uses this item or seeks it. I don't think people care. That's why I simply finished it and left it, considering it good enough.

• Curse of Binding
  I tried designs including multiple ribbons around the book, the book being tied around with chains, but it would cause the book to be unopenable. I simply opted for a padlock symbol. You can't get any simpler than that. I presumed padlocks exist in Minecraft, due to the existence of iron doors, doors in general, and the ominous vaults requiring keys to open, so the padlock technology must have certainly been invented in Minecraft a while ago. I guess the red ribbon acts as the warning and an indication of the forbidden nature of this enchantment, being a curse and all. Same with the Curse of Vanishing.