57 Fun Facts About Hard Minecraft

How many elder guardians generate inside each ocean monument?

They generate with the monument itself, one in the top room and one in each wing, and never respawn once killed.

A piglin brute always spawns wielding which weapon?

Piglin brutes always carry a golden axe and, unlike ordinary piglins, never barter, never retreat and are not distracted by gold; they guard bastion remnants.

A cave spider's bite poisons the player on which difficulty settings?

Only on Normal and Hard: the bite poisons for 7 seconds on Normal and 15 on Hard, with no poison on Easy, which is why mineshaft cave spider spawners are so dangerous.

A sculk sensor detects vibrations within a spherical radius of how many blocks?

A sculk sensor hears vibrations up to 8 blocks away in every direction; the vibration travels to it at one block per game tick, so distant events register slightly later.

Besides stopping copper oxidizing, applying a honeycomb to which block prevents editing it?

Honeycombs also craft candles, beehives and honeycomb blocks, and shearing a full hive drops three at a time.

The floor of an ancient city always generates at which Y level?

Ancient cities are centred at Y=-51, deep in the deep dark; their stone-lined streets use wool and wool carpet to muffle footsteps near sculk sensors and shriekers.

Swift Sneak, the enchantment found only in ancient city chests, goes on which piece of armor?

Swift Sneak is a leggings-only enchantment that speeds up sneaking, at level III to about 75% of walking speed, useful when creeping past shriekers in the deep dark.

Trails & Tales, the update that added the sniffer and archaeology, shipped as which Java Edition version?

Trails & Tales shipped as Java Edition 1.20 on June 7, 2023; its stated theme was self-expression, hence the cherry grove, camels, bamboo wood and armour trims.

What does a warden always drop when it dies?

A warden always drops one sculk catalyst and just five experience points, a poor return for the game's most dangerous mob.

If a warden detects nothing, it digs back into the ground and despawns after how long?

After 60 seconds without detecting any vibration or scent, a warden burrows back into the ground and despawns; the deep dark then stays quiet until a shrieker summons another.

An allay dancing beside a playing jukebox splits into two if you hand it which item?

Handing a dancing allay an amethyst shard makes it duplicate; the shard is consumed and both allays then wait five minutes before either can duplicate again.

Sniffer eggs are dug out of suspicious sand found in which structure?

Sniffers never spawn naturally; the only other way to get an egg is to breed two hatched sniffers with torchflower seeds.

Which item is used to breed camels?

Camels are bred with cactus, the one food they accept; a camel seats a rider plus a passenger and, when standing, is tall enough that most ground melee mobs cannot reach them.

Which enchantment cannot be combined with Frost Walker on the same pair of boots in Survival?

Depth Strider and Frost Walker are mutually exclusive: both are boot enchantments about moving over or through water, so an anvil refuses to put both on one pair.

A conduit with a complete frame of 42 prismarine blocks empowers players out to what range, in blocks?

A full 42-block frame gives 96 blocks of range: the radius grows by 16 for every seven prismarine blocks, and nothing activates until at least 16 blocks (a 32-block range) are in place.

A wandering trader spawns tied by leads to how many trader llamas?

A wandering trader arrives leashed to two trader llamas; its trades are randomized on every spawn and it despawns after 40 to 60 minutes, so a good deal is a one-off.

What are the odds that a newly bred axolotl is the rare blue variant?

There is a 1 in 1,200 chance that a bred axolotl is blue; otherwise the baby copies one parent's color at random, which is why blue axolotls are prized on servers.

An adult goat drops a goat horn when it rams into which of these blocks?

Packed ice is on the short list of hard blocks, with stone, logs and ores such as copper, iron and emerald, that knock a horn loose when a goat rams them; a goat can lose both horns this way.

A froglight is created when a frog eats which mob?

A frog that eats a small magma cube drops a froglight, its color fixed by the frog: temperate frogs give ochre, cold frogs verdant and warm frogs pearlescent.

Armadillos repel which mob?

Spiders and cave spiders flee from armadillos, which roll into a ball when hurt or when undead mobs, sprinting players or riders come near, and shed armadillo scutes every five to ten minutes.

The heavy core needed to craft a mace drops from ominous vaults at what chance?

Each ominous vault roll has a 7.5% chance of a heavy core; combined with a breeze rod it crafts the mace, which in Java Edition has the slowest attack speed of any weapon.

What does a bogged drop when it is sheared?

Shearing a bogged yields two mushrooms and leaves it permanently bald; the mossy skeleton spawns in swamps, mangrove swamps and trial chambers and fires poison-tipped arrows.

An evoker's 'wololo' spell turns sheep of which color red?

An evoker that spots a blue sheep casts 'wololo', an Age of Empires joke, and dyes its wool red; Mojang added the Easter egg when evokers arrived in 1.11.

What is the chance that an endermite spawns when a player-thrown ender pearl lands?

A thrown ender pearl that lands has a 5% chance of spawning an endermite; endermen attack endermites on sight, and the mites despawn within 120 seconds unless given a name.

A hoglin turns into a zoglin after being outside the Nether for how long?

After 15 seconds outside the Nether a hoglin zombifies into a zoglin, an undead mob that never retreats and attacks almost every non-zoglin mob it sees, creepers excepted.

A saddled strider is steered with which item?

Striders can walk on lava and are one of the few renewable sources of string in the Nether.

Without Luck of the Sea, what is the chance of fishing up a nautilus shell on any given catch?

Nautilus shells sit in the treasure pool, a one-in-twenty catch, alongside five other items, so each cast has about a 0.8% chance; Luck of the Sea III lifts that to roughly 1.9%.

A heart of the sea can only be found in which kind of chest?

Every buried treasure chest holds a heart of the sea; the chest's spot is the red X on a buried treasure map, which is itself found in shipwreck and ocean ruins chests.

A chiseled bookshelf holds up to how many books?

A chiseled bookshelf has six slots; a comparator reads it as a signal from 1 to 6 indicating the last slot touched, not how many books are inside.

Decorated pots are crafted from pottery sherds and which ordinary item?

Any of the four side faces can be a sherd or a plain piece, and the pot shatters back into them if hit with a normal tool.

The Far Lands, the terrain glitch of early versions, began roughly how many blocks from spawn?

The Far Lands began about 12,550,824 blocks from spawn, where the terrain noise overflowed; Beta 1.8's new generator removed them, and the world border added in 1.8 sits at 29,999,984 blocks, more than twice as far.

Smelting chorus fruit 'pops' it into the ingredient for which building block?

Four popped chorus fruits craft four purpur blocks, the End city material; eaten raw, chorus fruit teleports you to a random spot within eight blocks, even when your hunger bar is full.

How many End crystals sit on the obsidian pillars of the End's central island?

Two of them are protected inside cages of iron bars, and all of them respawn when the dragon is re-summoned.

In Java Edition, what percentage of naturally spawned drowned carry a trident?

In Java 6.25% of naturally spawned drowned hold a trident (Bedrock uses 15%); even then one killed by a player drops the weapon only 8.5% of the time, plus 1% per Looting level.

The uncraftable enchanted apple grants Absorption at what level?

The enchanted golden apple gives Absorption IV for 120 seconds, plus Regeneration II and five minutes each of Fire Resistance and Resistance; despite the glint it carries no actual enchantment.

A recovery compass is crafted by surrounding a compass with eight of what?

Eight echo shards, found only in ancient city chests, surround a compass to craft it; it points to your last death only in the same dimension and spins anywhere else.

Which block found in ancient cities cannot be obtained in Survival even with Silk Touch?

Reinforced deepslate drops nothing even with Silk Touch and has no assigned tool, so every tool breaks it at the same glacial pace of well over a minute; it frames the ancient city's central structure.

How many armor trim smithing templates existed after the 1.21 Tricky Trials update?

Sixteen arrived with 1.20 and Flow and Bolt with 1.21; they are found only in structures, but any one can be copied in a crafting table using diamonds.

When does a turtle drop a scute?

Turtles always swim back to the beach where they spawned to lay eggs, however far you have moved them.

Which panda variant is a recessive trait, like 'weak'?

Brown and weak are the only recessive personalities, shown when both the main and hidden genes carry them; each gene has a 1 in 32 chance of mutating when pandas breed.

In Java Edition, trying to feed which food to a parrot kills it instantly?

Cookies kill a parrot outright in Java, a nod to chocolate being toxic to real parrots; in Bedrock the bird gets the Fatal Poison effect instead.

Wither skeletons are the only renewable source of which item?

They are also the only source of wither skeleton skulls and spawn exclusively in Nether fortresses.

Roughly what fraction of all Overworld chunks are slime chunks?

In Java they are decided by the world seed; in Bedrock the same coordinates are slime chunks in every world.

Which illager exists in Java Edition's code but never spawns naturally?

The illusioner, added to Java in 1.12 but obtainable only via commands, fights with a bow, conjures four duplicates of itself and casts Blindness on its target.

What does a lightning strike do to a mooshroom it hits?

A lightning strike swaps a mooshroom between red and brown and back again; brown mooshrooms otherwise never spawn naturally, and feeding one a flower makes it give suspicious stew.

A naturally generated sculk shrieker tries to summon a warden once a player's warning level reaches what?

A warden is summoned once a player's warning level reaches 4, one level per shriek; the level drops by one every ten minutes without a shriek, and player-placed shriekers can never summon.

Crying obsidian is the key ingredient of which block?

Six crying obsidian around three glowstone craft a respawn anchor, the Nether's bed substitute; piglins also barter crying obsidian, and ruined portals generate some of it in place of plain obsidian.

Which dropped item is immune to explosions?

A dropped nether star survives explosions, though fire, lava or the void still destroy it; it is the wither's guaranteed drop and the core ingredient of a beacon.

After its owner sleeps through the night, a tamed cat has what chance of bringing a gift?

A tamed, non-sitting cat has a 70% chance of dropping a gift beside its owner on waking: string, a rabbit's foot, rabbit hide, raw chicken, a feather, phantom membrane or rotten flesh.

Minecraft's official franchise anniversary is tied to which 2009 date?

On May 17, 2009 Notch posted the first public build, now called Classic, to the TIGSource forums; Mojang celebrates that date as the anniversary, while the full 1.0 release came on November 18, 2011.

Who took over from Markus 'Notch' Persson as head of Minecraft's development?

Jens 'Jeb' Bergensten became lead developer in December 2011, when Notch stepped back after the 1.0 launch; Microsoft later bought Mojang for US$2.5 billion, completing the deal on November 6, 2014.

The death message '<player> experienced kinetic energy' comes from doing what?

Hitting a ceiling does no damage at all; only a vertical surface at speed triggers the fly-into-wall damage type.

A vindicator given which name attacks almost every other mob it sees?

Naming a vindicator Johnny, via name tag or a named spawn egg, makes it attack almost every mob it sees, even ravagers, vexes and witches, sparing only fellow illagers.

Which composer wrote the music discs 'Pigstep' and 'otherside'?

Lena Raine, the Celeste composer, wrote Pigstep for 1.16 and otherside for 1.18, the first music discs not by C418; Pigstep is found only in bastion remnant chests.

Elytra are found in an item frame in the treasure room of which structure?

A shulker guards the frame together with the ship's two loot chests, and the End ships sit only in the outer islands.

Which Dwarf Fortress-inspired base-building project did Notch work on before Minecraft?

RubyDung had an isometric 3D view like RollerCoaster Tycoon; Persson also explored a first-person mode in it.

Which studio developed the Xbox 360 Edition, the first console version of Minecraft, released on 9 May 2012?

4J Studios' version, launched under the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, introduced a redesigned crafting system.