Taking Inventory: Echo Shard

Hello! (hello, hello, hello, hello) Welcome to Taking Inventory! (ory, ory, ory, ory) Today, we’re talking about a very strange item (item, item, item, item), which is only found in very dangerous places (places, places, places, places). It’s the echo shard, and it’s our item of the month! (month, month, month, month)

Echo shards (shards, shards...) [Editor’s note: Please, stop that, Duncan, it wasn’t funny the first time!] were added to Minecraft in the Wild Update, released in June 2022. It added mangrove swamps, frogs, allays, and – crucially – the intimidating deep dark, with its wardens and ancient cities.

Picking up an echo shard means finding your way down into the depths of the Overworld, locating one of those ancient cities, and evading the wardens in the process. Pick your way through the ruins, and with any luck you’ll happen on a chest – which may or may not contain an echo shard.

Here’s the thing, though. Despite making your voice sound weird (weird, weird, weird) [Editor's note: NO! I'm warning you!], echo shards aren’t much use on their own. You’ll need to find seven more before you can do anything productive with them. You’ll also need a compass.

Once you’ve acquired those things, put the compass in the middle of your crafting grid and surround it with the eight echo shards. You’ll be rewarded with a recovery compass – a nifty gadget that allows you to locate the spot where you most recently died.

The effort you’ll need to go to to obtain a recovery compass seems pretty high. But if you think about the effort involved in replacing your enchanted tools, armor, and other inventory gubbins then I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty good deal.

My top tip? Invest the time in creating a recovery compass before you end up dying in some distant corner of the Nether. Then you’ll be able to set off immediately to recover your items – without any risk of having them despawn. Now I’m off – let’s see where this recovery compass will take me! (take me, take me, take me, take me, take me, take me, take me, take me)

And that's the story of how Duncan lost his job.