Getting there

There are two ways into the Swift: the Deep Dark portal, which you light with a melody, and rifts, which open by themselves on some nights, or for a Soul Block or a Singer.

The Deep Dark portal

The frame. In the Swift mod, any upright opening with at least three fifths of its edge in reinforced deepslate works, up to 27 blocks across and 27 high, including the great frame in every ancient city. Reinforced deepslate can’t be collected in Survival, so the ancient city’s frame is the one most players use. Before it stands a Twisted Warden.

The melody. Play five different notes on note blocks within about 12 blocks of the frame and 24 blocks of each other, all within 12 seconds. Any way of playing a note counts: clicking, punching, or redstone. A tuner singing near the frame counts as a note too.

Beams of light. Every note played near a frame shoots a tall column of light from its note block, coloured by its pitch across the rainbow. The fifth different note fills the frame with portal.

The golem choir. Awake echo golems within 12 blocks of the frame sing along. When a note is played, each golem that hasn’t sung in the last 12 seconds chimes a different note of its own, with its own beam of light, and each chime counts toward the five. One note block and four awake golems are enough.

A Singer’s song. A Singer singing within 16 blocks lights the frame too.

None of this works in the Swift. There, a dark gate relights once four awake echo golems stand within 12 blocks of it: the four nearest chime one after another, each with its beam, and the gate fills. Wake the gate’s own four guards during Thrive and they do it for you.

Travelling

Stand in the portal for 4 seconds (instantly in Creative). You arrive at an arrival gate: a reinforced deepslate portal set into a mound of red swiftstone and teal moss, with terraces stepping down in front of it, guarded by four dormant echo golems facing outward. You land inside the gate’s portal and must step out before it will take you anywhere. The gate is linked to the portal you came through, so walking back in takes you home (see getting home). Mobs can travel through it too, as through a Nether portal.

Rifts

At night in the Overworld, a rift sometimes tears open in the air 24 to 48 blocks from a player and unfolds: a ragged slab of pink and orange cloud, rimmed in white and gold. You’ll see the message “A rift tears open nearby...”. This happens about once every three or four nights.

• A rift closes once no one has gone through it for 30 seconds, folding back up as it goes.
• Sometimes an illager patrol steps out of it: a vindicator and one or two pillagers, looking for you.
• Only players can go through a rift.
• Walk into the rift to arrive in a meadow in the Swift. A return rift opens beside you there. Like any rift, it closes after 30 seconds with no one going through it.
• A rift in the Swift takes you back to where the rift you came in through stood. If you came by portal instead, it takes you to your spawn point: your bed, or the world spawn.

Opening your own

Use a Soul Block, or give a Singer an Echo Shard, and a rift opens a few blocks past it: into the Swift from the Overworld, or home from the Swift. These bring no illagers. None opens while another rift is open within 32 blocks, in the Nether or the End, or without ground and room for it; then the Soul Block keeps its charge and the Singer its shard. A Soul Block drains when it opens one, unless it’s in the Swift during Thrive.