You need:

• A diamond or netherite pickaxe. Some servers also allow iron, or require the Prospector's Pickaxe.
• A brush.
• Survival mode, in an Overworld world.

Open everything from the Fossil Collector's Journal or with /dig. Many servers also have desks at spawn that open the same screens.

Mine natural stone and ore at Y32 or lower: stone, deepslate, andesite, diorite, granite, tuff, calcite, and Overworld ores. Blocks players placed never count, and each spot can only give a discovery once.

The deeper you mine, the better your odds:

Deeper layers also hold more kinds of fossils; the Fossil Catalog shows what each depth adds. About 45% of discoveries are fossils or fragments, and the rest are gems.

Brushing out a find

On Bedrock, brush normally or use repeated brush interactions if holding use is interrupted. Progress is shared when players brush the same discovery.

When you find something, the space you mined turns into suspicious gravel. Switch to your brush and brush it out. For the first three seconds the gravel is shielded from your pickaxe. After that, breaking it with a tool destroys the find, and so can an explosion or letting it fall. Friends can help brush; what's inside was decided the moment you found it.

If gravel can't safely appear, because nothing solid is below it or someone is standing there, the find goes straight to your inventory. When your inventory is full, it drops at your feet.

Open the journal or /dig. The home screen has:

• Fossil Journal, Mags Bonewright's Bench, and Server Museum tiles.
• Appraise, Sell, Collect, Donate, and Upgrade buttons.
• Flint's status, and Progress & Help.

To act on an item, move it from your inventory into the menu's input slot: the empty slot beside the paper arrow at the top. It's a slot in the menu, not your hotbar, and the journal can stay in your hand. Then tap an action. Every action shows a review first; confirm or cancel. Closing the menu or changing screens gives back anything you haven't submitted.

Holding the journal, a fossil, a fragment, or a gem doesn't stop you from opening chests, doors, or crafting tables. To open the journal while looking at one of those, sneak and use the book.

Phones and tablets

On servers with GrimsClientChecker, Bedrock touch devices get a layout with seven slots per row, clear of the screen edges. Choose it with /gcc menu GrimsDeepDiscoveries mobile, switch back with classic, or use auto to follow your device. Progress & Help shows your current style.

Fossils are sorted into categories: Vegetation, Ocean Life, Mammals, Reptiles & Dinosaurs, and Invertebrates on a default server. Most are found whole. A few large ones are found as fragments that Mags Bonewright assembles.

Every fossil has a hidden condition, set the moment it's found. Nothing rerolls it: not trading, not reopening a menu, not appraisal.

An unappraised fossil sells for its base value. An appraised one sells for base value × multiplier, so most appraisals lower the price and rare ones raise it a lot. A Woolly Mammoth, base 1,100, sells for 440 when Crumbling and 8,800 when Museum-grade.

If the owner removes a fossil pack, its fossils move to No Longer Collectable. You can't find them any more, but the ones you own still sell, appraise, collect, assemble, and trade.

Flint inspects fossils for free and reveals their condition for good. A fossil must be appraised before you can collect or donate it.

1. Put the fossil in the input slot and choose Appraise, or hold it and run /dig appraise.
2. Flint keeps it while he works. Times depend on the fossil: 15 seconds for an Ancient Fern, 150 for a Woolly Mammoth, and 30 for most. Your server may set longer times; the review shows the real one.
3. Keep mining or log off. Flint sends a chat message when it's ready, and reminds you when you log in.
4. Collect it from Flint's Appraisals, /dig appraisals, or /dig claim <ID>. You need one free inventory slot; until then he keeps it safe.

By default Flint takes one fossil per player at a time, and a finished fossil you haven't collected still counts.

Mags assembles fossils found in pieces. On a default server:

Icon	Fossil	Fragments
	Primeval Cycad	Trunk, Frond, Crown
	Ancient Sea Reptile	Skull, Ribs, Spine, Tail
	Ancient Ichthyosaur	Skull, Ribs, Spine, Tail
	Woolly Mammoth	Skull, Tusks, Ribs, Femur

Open her bench from the home screen or with /dig bench. Put a fragment in the input slot, tap Hand item to Mags, review, and confirm.

• She keeps each piece until the last one arrives. Hand pieces over in any order, whenever you find them.
• If she already holds that piece, only a better one replaces it, and she gives your old piece back. An equal or worse piece stays with you.
• Tap a fossil on her bench to see its pieces. Tap a stored piece to take it back, any time before the last piece arrives.
• The last piece starts the assembly, which takes one hour by default. From then on, the pieces can't be taken back.
• Mags messages you when it's done, and again when you log in. Collect the fossil from her bench with one free inventory slot.

The finished fossil's condition is the average of its pieces, rounded down: three Museum-grade pieces and one Exceptional make an Exceptional fossil, so Museum-grade needs every piece Museum-grade. The review before the last piece shows the expected condition. Flint still has to appraise the finished fossil.

Collect stores an appraised fossil in your journal. Any condition counts. Collecting a fossil you already have swaps them and returns the old one to the input slot, ready to sell or donate.

/dig journal opens your collection by category. Each category lists its fossils. Ones you haven't found show where to look: the depth, any biomes, and the fragments needed. Collect every fossil for a milestone message.

Everyone builds the museum together. Donate gives an appraised fossil to it permanently.

• It accepts fossils the museum doesn't have yet, and better-condition copies of ones it does. An equal or worse fossil stays in your input slot.
• Every donation is credited, and earlier contributors keep their credit when someone improves an exhibit.
• The whole server hears when the museum is complete.
• Donating doesn't touch your journal. They're separate items.

Owners can archive a museum and start a new chapter. Old chapters, their exhibits, and their credits stay viewable. A fossil added to the server after a chapter began may have to wait for the next chapter before it can be donated.

Gems, Emberforged, and Stonebinder

Discoveries that aren't fossils are gems:

Your excavation level rises by one for every 100 eligible blocks you mine, up to level 50. Each level adds 2% to gem and fragment amounts, doubling them at level 50. Fractions become a chance: an amount of 2.8 gives two, with an 80% chance of a third. Whole fossils always come one at a time. /dig stats shows your level.

Emberforged upgrades an eligible pickaxe. Put the pickaxe in the input slot and choose the separate Emberforged button. It costs 4 rubies and 8 rock crystals from your inventory, and the pickaxe keeps its name, enchantments, and durability.

• Raw iron, copper, and gold drop as ingots.
• Fortune still works, Silk Touch takes priority, and there's no extra furnace XP.

Stonebinder is a separate upgrade. It costs 4 cat's eyes and 8 sapphires, and packs mineral drops into vanilla blocks without needing Emberforged:

• Coal, raw iron, raw copper, raw gold, diamonds, emeralds, redstone, and lapis use 9:1 recipes.
• Quartz and amethyst shards use their normal 4:1 recipes.
• Leftovers stay loose, and the upgrade never takes items from your inventory. For example, 14 lapis becomes one lapis block and five lapis.

Install it with the separate Stonebinder button in /dig, or /dig upgrade stonebinder. If a pickaxe has both upgrades, Emberforged smelts raw iron, copper, and gold first, then Stonebinder compacts the remaining eligible mineral drops. Choose its appearance with the Pick Appearance button in /dig, or /dig appearance <prospector|emberforged|stonebinder>; the texture choice does not change either behavior.

Plugin gems and fossils can't be used in ordinary crafting, smelting, or smithing.

/discoveries and /fossils work too. Commands that act on the item in your hand skip the review screen.

Fossil content packs and custom Java and Bedrock art, both on the earlier roadmap, arrived in 0.4.0. Ideas still being explored:

• Placeable fossil specimens for museums players can walk through
• A Prospector upgrade and a hard hat with Miner's Light
• Museum commissions that give duplicate finds an ongoing purpose
• Collection milestones, titles, and cosmetic rewards
• Regional collections tied to different biomes and depths
• More gem crafting, including uses for sapphires and cat's eyes, and expedition supplies
• Optional owner-controlled mining gas with a warning and brief nausea effect