Mob Menagerie: Strider

What next? Well, there are two options. The first is to feed the fungus to the strider, and another to a different strider nearby, so that they both enter “love mode” and make a baby strider. Yay! More striders!

The other option is to slap a saddle on that bad boy and ride him into the lava. “Wait, what?” I hear you say. That’s right – striders are your ticket to bypass all that nasty lava and reach more distant shores of the Nether. Striders can walk on the surface of lava, you see, keeping the toes of anyone riding one juuust above the point at which they’ll burn. 

The tricky thing is that striders tend to just wander around aimlessly. That’s why I believe it was a smart piglin that invented the warped fungus on a stick – an easily craftable way of getting a strider to go in the direction you want it to go. To dismount, you’ll want to reach land again and then point your crosshair at the block you want to dismount to before pressing the use button.

Striders are uncommon among Nether mobs in that they’re perfectly happy outside of the Nether. You’re good to take your new friend through a portal and down to the depths of the Overworld, to skate across the lava lakes found there. Just remember to keep them out of the rain...