Taking Inventory: Lightning Rod

Some people build their homes from cobblestone. Some people build their homes from bricks. Some weirdos build their homes from slime blocks. But there is a substantial group of players who very unwisely build their homes out of flammable materials, like wood.

Don’t get me wrong – wood is pretty. It lends a rustic, natural look to any build. But in a thunderstorm? Well, let’s just say that house won’t be standing long. The odds are good that you’ll return home from a trip to your mine and discover your precious home burnt to the ground.

That’s why, in the upcoming Caves & Cliffs update, we’re throwing wood-builders a lifeline with a new item – the Lightning Rod.

Lightning rods are very much a thing in the real world, too. The danger of lightning strikes gets larger as buildings get taller, so it wasn’t a problem for much of human history but then European cities started building churches with towers that reached towards the heavens.

Their first defence against lightning strikes was prayer, but this wasn’t very effective, so a Czech priest named Prokop Diviš developed a “meteorological machine” that was designed to deprive the air of its superfluous electricity and very much resembled a lightning rod. Around the same time, in the United States, Benjamin Franklin was conducting electrical experiments and famously flew a kite in a thunderstorm – collecting electrical energy from the atmosphere. Soon decorative lightning rods adorned almost every tall building and many of the wooden sailing ships of the day.