Never Jhonsen

Unfortunately, yes they're centered around world spawn.
There are commands for generating them, but I don't know what would happen if you spawned in copies of all the story content into a world; would the game take you to the closer one, or would it default to the game's original location for it.
 

Rift activity being stuck on Medium/High is a known bug for 1.21.x that's being worked on.
As of 1.21.4, I myself have seen it on calm and low, so I'm assuming it's been fixed, but I am only one voice
Edit: here's the bug tracker link. It's marked as closed, so 1.21.4 should have it fixed

Visually it looks correct, I see nothing missing👍
What about inside the coffin? Did you fill it with 16 Iron ingots, all covered in charcoal?
A partially filled coffin will not fire.

Before 1.21, the tealish death glow was on a timer that would slowly fade. I think it was 5 minutes before it went completely out
However, I too have not seen it since 1.21.0 came out. I'll say that's a bug

First off, I do believe that is the same ruin that shows up every ince in a while on the title screen
Secondly, the 18/18 on the tapestry you found, just means it's number 18 in the list. from what I remember, none of the tapestries are lore-breaking, just lore backing. little small tidbits of flavor
Your particular one, Dangers of Temporality, will spoil zero bits of the game's lore should you read it
 

By "coal squib", are you talking about a "charcoal pit (Vintage Story Wiki)" or an "ore blasting bomb (Vintage Story Wiki)"? I hadn't seen the word Squib before, and googling it came up with coal mining bombs
Charcoal pit is a tough one for beginners to figure out, but becomes a "well duh" moment once you do. Let me do a quick walk-through of a 2x2 charcoal pit in some detail, see if this helps you out.
 - Firstly, find some level and flat ground to build this on
 - 2 by 2 pit, assuming 1 deep, would consist of 4 stacks of firewood, 32 logs each. If you have less than 32 logs in one stack, your charcoal pit will fail.
 - Dig out 4 blocks into the ground, and place all 128 logs.
 - When you place them down, make sure that all 4 sides are covered with a solid block. This should use up 8 blocks; 2 on the North-facing side of your stack, 2 South, 2 West, and 2 East. Dirt and cobble work best to use.
 - After that, build those 4 walls up again, with another 8 blocks. There should be a 2x2 hole in the middle, with all 4 of your log piles shown.
 - Cover three of those log piles with your solid block of choice, and place a firepit onto the last exposed log pile.
 - Place two more blocks down to cover up the remaining sides of the pit. The pit should have a block touching all 4 sides of it, and a stack of firewood under it.
 - Light the pit, and put one more block on top of it. You have 30 seconds to place that last block, otherwise your charcoal pit will fail.
As soon as you place that last block, smoke should start to rise above your pile. When it does, give it about an ingame day to finish smoking, and then dig out.

It is intentional game design
for the same reason torches don't burn out when in your inventory, or that holding a torch in your inventory/chest doesn't set you/it on fire
Making everything realistic comes at a price of game playability, and this is one of those exceptions where the devs would rather make the game playable, than realistic
With that being said, I can repeat the classic Vintage Story Forum line of "You can always make a mod of that".

The most basic setup you can do with both;

This screenshot doesn't show it, but they are spinning. It needs a bare minimal of 3 sail sets (60%) at 50% wind speed to start spinning. The photo above shows it with a full 5 (100%).

Chromite also requires Steel to crush, so you won't be able to use it quite yet 😔
It's Ilmenite (Titanium) that's used in Tier 3 Refractory bricks, not Chromite. That also requires a Steel pickaxe and Steel Pounder Caps to process.
Yes I actually wasn't sure myself, but I loaded up a creative world and made a furnace with all three brick blocks, all three grate types, and (this one I've already done before in survival) all 4 coffin types, and it's processing right now ❤️
I'm under the impression they don't break down on a beehive kiln, but I've not made one myself yet, so I'm not sure

Got a few questions for you;
1. How is the durability on your hammer, and your chisel? I don't know how low "too low" is, but if they're too low of a durability then it won't work
2. Double check your logs to make sure they aren't chiseled; I myself have fallen for that once before
3. Reload your world with all mods disabled, and see if that fixes it.
 - Alternatively, if you wish to not risk breaking your world, load a new world with your mods, try to craft a rotor, and if it fails try that world again with no mods.

All of my stone (tiny bits that might be knappable) collecting comes from the excess waste in rock (stone rock block) collecting; Quarrying out all of the rock tends to give out a lot of stones, which I use to make my cobblestone and path blocks.  I haven't paid close attention, so what I'm about to say next is a top-of-my-head estimate; I think I get about 6 stacks of stones for every 64 rock I quarry out. I quarry 4 rows at 16 blocks each, so one layer gives me 64 rocks and about. .. maybe its 5 stacks of stone. I fill two mining bags full of stones after 4 layers, so that adds up to about 5 stacks per 64 rock. But, never-the-less, my point with this long paragraph is that I'm usually getting my stones from other activities.
Anyways, heavy quarrying might be classified by some as Iron+, so for the bronze/iron that you're in, my recommendation for you is to find a cave entrance and mine about. Like you said, it is initially slower than running about, but running about can only get so much; that stone doesn't regenerate. If you fancy, there are bombs that can help gather stones in a more entertaining way, although I'm not sure on their speeds.
That early cobble is harsh though I've been there many a times. Spending days in the pre-copper era trying to build a nice house that isn't just dirt variants. 

That sounds like a bug
I have a lore book myself that, when I try to read it, says "You have already discovered this book" which =\ For those who don't know, you don't have to open your journal to read the lore, you can just keep that lore book you found and read that again. Which brings in the question of "What does it mean "I have already discovered this book"?" Are you not allowed to have two copies of the same book? I don't get it. 
Anyways, sounds like we both have bugged out books. It happens from time to time.

If you have a cellar, I would cook them.
Sealed meals tend to last longer in a cellar than their raw ingredients, especially if you put your crocks into a vessel and not on a shelf.
 

By any chance, is it this one?
https://youtu.be/d7qrZPggwQw
It's a 1.20 release that hasn't made it to the BandCamp soundtrack yet (I can not wait for it to be there), although it plays in the Fall time
.. I don't know of any other song that's heavy on the strings, sorry

There's a feature of the game in which holding down the ALT button inverts the mouse actions.
There's a setting called "Immersive Mouse Mode" that will change the default mouse option when you open a menu, and it sounds like you have that option turned on.
It's in Settings -> Interface -> Immersive Mouse Mode
I personally play with this turned on, I've grown a fondness for how it operates with multiple inventories open whilst interacting with the world around me, but I do see how new players may not enjoy it.

It sounds like your floor is made with slabs on the bottom half of the block.
The way to fix it would be to raise the floor 1/2 a block, place them in the upper half of the space. After you fix the floor, I think you will still need to re-place the baskets; since they did not get set on a flat surface, they attached themselves to the wall, and if I'm remembering correctly that has them slightly above the block below them.

The only way to fill your watering can is from a fresh water source, such as a pond or lake. I personally haven't tried it on saltwater and boiling water, but I assume that those will not work.

Actually, if no one is online, the world clock is paused
From what I remember of my short-lived, self-hosted 1.16 private server, all you have to do is drop your mods into the labeled folder and you're done. There may be some mods that need to be configured, but that'll be mod-specific; they'll state that on their main page.

Sounds like your new translocator is deep underground 😬 It happens from time to time
What I do is block in my translocator room, and then use ladders to dig straight up. You might see some ruined ladders already in your translocator room, I like to use those and continue from there with fresh ones.
If you wish to explore the deep caves where you're at, I would recommend plate armor, a shield, and your falx blade. Me being me, I wait until full iron plate before I go into the deeper caves, but I suck at fighting

When it comes to rooms, the largest you can create is a 14x14x14 cube; this is the inside measurement. Anything bigger and the game won't give it a room benefit
I know you can have some trapdoors/doors on a room, but I think there is a limit of 6 total? Them being open or closed matters not, it will still register as a room
I wish I'm a massive hoarder ingame, and having a large warehouse as a storage room would be wonderful. Alas, I have to keep them down to 14x spaces. You CAN build multiples of these cubes that share a wall, and put a double door setup betwixt them. I do this with a 2x2 setup of four max-sized rooms, double doors connecting them all.