Glossary

What the words in these docs mean. The first section is for everyone. The later sections are for mod makers and people digging into how the game works.

Everyday words

• Mod — short for modification: an add-on that changes something in the game, such as how a hero looks, how strong an item is, or what the text says.
• Vanilla — the game exactly as it comes from Steam, with no mods.
• RSMM — Ravenswatch Mod Manager: the app, the website rsmm.me, the web editor and the rsmm modding tools, together.
• Registry — the list of mods shared on rsmm.me. The app’s Browse page shows it.
• Apply — write your switched-on mods into the game’s files, keeping a copy of each original first. The app does this for you when you press Launch Modded.
• Restore — put the original game files back, undoing every mod.
• Launch Modded / Launch Vanilla — the app’s two play buttons: start the game with your mods, or without any.
• Profile — a saved set of mods you can switch between. The Default profile is always the plain game.
• Enabled / disabled — whether a mod is switched on in the current profile. A disabled mod stays on your computer but isn’t used.
• Load order — the order mods are applied in. When two mods change the same thing, the one applied later wins.
• Conflict — two switched-on mods that change the same file.
• Dependency — another mod a mod needs in order to work. A missing one shows as missing deps.
• Config — a mod’s own settings, changed with its settings button in the app.
• Overlay — a small window some mods show on top of the game, like a damage meter.
• Script mod / Lua mod — a mod that includes a small program written in the Lua language, which runs inside the game. Most mods are not script mods.
• Loader — a small file (winhttp.dll) RSMM puts next to the game so that script mods can run. Mods that only change looks, numbers or text don’t need it.
• Experimental — a kind of change RSMM doesn’t fully understand yet. It may not work completely, and may crash the game.
• Doctor — RSMM’s health check. In the app: Commands → Doctor. In a terminal: rsmm doctor.
• Terminal / command line / CLI — a window where you type commands instead of clicking. Only needed for the modding tools.
• Web editor — a page on this site that makes item, talent and ability mods in your browser. See Web editor.

Mod-making words

• manifest.toml — the text file at the heart of every mod. It says what the mod is called and what it changes.
• [[content]] block — a section of the manifest that adds or changes one thing, such as an item or an enemy.
• [[patch]] block — a section of the manifest that changes one value, such as a number. Several mods can patch different values of the same file without clashing.
• Kind — what a [[content]] block changes: item, talent, enemy, map and so on.
• Base — the existing game thing a new one is copied from, or the one being changed.
• Lint — rsmm lint: checks a mod for mistakes before you play.
• Pack — rsmm pack: bundles a mod into one .zip file to share.
• Publish — upload a mod to rsmm.me so others can install it.

Assets & cooking

• Cooked asset — a game-ready binary baked from a source (“uncooked”) asset. Ravenswatch loads everything from <install>/DarkTalesResources/_Cooking/. RSMM mods replace cooked files in place.
• Uncooked asset — the pre-bake source form (e.g. a PNG before it becomes a .Texture.dxt). The data/uncooked/ mirror is decoded for local reference and is git-ignored.
• .gen file — a cooked binary that is positionally serialized against a per-class schema living inside Ravenswatch.exe. Building one from scratch needs the text-.ot → binary-.gen re-encoder.
• .ot file — the text/structured form of a cooked object (header + class table + section ranges). The .ot decoder parses these.
• Encoded path / IYG cipher — cooked files live under obfuscated names: the plaintext path run through a fixed Caesar substitution cipher (src/rsmm/engine/cipher.py, find_iyg.py). asset_map.json maps decoded ↔ encoded.
• asset_map.json — generated map of every decoded path to its encoded cooked path. Built by walking UsedRscList.ot and applying the cipher.
• UsedRscList.ot / UsedRscCache.ot — engine manifests of which resources are cooked. New custom assets register through these.

Applying & lifecycle

• Apply — ./rsmm apply: copy a mod’s overrides into the game, backing up each original as <file>.rsmm.bak. Reversible with ./rsmm restore --all.
• Patch vs raw — a mod changes the game either by dropping whole cooked files (raw) or by composing declarative [[patch]] blocks the applier merges per file (patch — conflict-friendly).
• manifest.toml — the one artifact every mod ships: metadata plus [[content]] / [[patch]] blocks. Mods ship data, not code.
• Content kind — a typed builder (item, enemy, boss, hero, map, texture, …) that clones a vanilla base and emits a new definition. Each carries a confidence: confirmed, experimental, or guess.

Entities & gameplay state

Covered end to end in Anatomy of an entity.

• Entity (oCEntity) — the world object: hero, enemy, barrel, shrine, dropped item. It holds a transform, links to the scene and its definition, and a map of components — almost no gameplay state of its own.
• Component — what gives an entity behaviour. 188 classes; a component is found by asking its class, never at a fixed offset on the entity.
• …Settings / …NetworkData / …PersistentData — the three companion classes a component can have: the authored data a mod edits, the slice that replicates to other players, and the slice that survives a chapter transition.
• Definition (oCEntitySettings) — the cooked template an entity is built from. Mods edit definitions; the engine builds instances.
• HitPoint component — where health actually lives (current and max). Every damageable entity has one, enemies included. HP is host-authoritative in co-op.
• Entity value — a gameplay number in the generic keyed store (attack power, cooldowns, status stacks — ~221 of them). Stored as base + folded modifiers, so a raw write is discarded on the next recompute; a durable change must be a modifier.
• Hit data (oCEntityHitData) — the object an attack travels as. There is no “deal N damage” call; the struct is built inline by the resolver, so mods ride an existing attack rather than fabricating one.
• Display cache — the numbers the in-run stat strip prints. A separate copy from the value store, refreshed only when the engine folds a modifier, which is why a working stat change can still show as 0.

Engine internals

• oCEntity / oCEntitySettings — the engine’s entity object and its serialized settings tree. UI pages, enemies, items — all entities composed of component classes.
• Symbol map — data/symbols.json: the canonical name → address map for engine functions/globals/events. See Engine symbols.
• Pattern resolver — byte-signature database (function_patterns.json) that re-finds a function across game updates so mods can call it by name (rsmm.call).
• Loader DLL — winhttp.dll proxy + MinHook + Lua VM injected into the game for Lua-scripted mods (Windows). Texture/asset mods work without it.
• Anti-tamper / protector — the protector in Ravenswatch.exe. It does not block hooks at function entries; asset mods avoid the runtime path entirely and the loader hooks carefully. See Anti-tamper protector.