Mob Menagerie: Evoker

In the imposing woodland mansions of the dark forests of the Overworld, and in the service of the Arch-Illager in Minecraft Dungeons, you’ll find a spell-casting fanatic who loves nothing more than to ruin your day. It’s the evoker, and it’s our illager mob of the month!

Evokers began appearing in Minecraft in November 2016, following the release of the Exploration Update, which also added shulker boxes, exploration maps, and totems of undying. They were also a part of the Minecraft Dungeons experience from its launch in May 2020.

Evokers aren’t easy foes to tangle with. Appearing on upper floors of woodland mansions only, you’ll likely hear them before you see them – their spells are telegraphed with a shimmering sound. That sound means danger: one spell will summon fangs to shoot up from the ground, while another will summon pesky vexes that’ll attack you from the air.

Did I mention that evokers are rarely encountered alone? Woodland mansions are also packed with vindicators, who’ll chase you down with their axes while you’re trying to dodge the evoker’s spells. It’s a similar story in the many Minecraft Dungeons missions where you’ll encounter evokers – You’ll need to utilise all your cunning and skill to avoid an untimely end.

“I wanted to force players to move around and not just stand with a shield and wait,” chief creative officer Jens told my erstwhile colleague Marsh in 2017.

Succeed in defeating an evoker and you’ll get a totem of undying – an extremely handy relic that springs into action when you receive fatal damage to grant you a last-minute reprieve. There’s just one catch – you need to hold it in your off-hand, which means you can’t equip it at the same time as a shield.

Oh, and have you ever wondered what evokers do when players aren’t around? Their favourite hobby is to change the color of sheep. True story. An evoker that isn’t in combat and encounters a blue sheep will immediately raise its arms and cast a spell to turn that sheep red instead – a trick, accompanied by a sound effect, that older gamers may find familiar. 

In Western mysticism, "evocation" is the act of calling upon spirits, demons, deities, or other supernatural forces. The word comes from the Latin word evocatio, which was a ritual conducted during wartime in ancient Rome that tried to lure the god protecting a city over to the Roman side – usually by promising more followers or a nicer temple. What this meant in practice was that the Romans would have a spiritual excuse for looting the temples and shrines of a conquered city – because they were supposedly going to install them in a much nicer temple later.

In fantasy settings like Dungeons and Dragons, evocation is less about calling upon spirits and more about magic that manipulates raw energy or elemental forces like cold, flame, thunder, lightning or acid. This usually translates into hurling fireballs and lightning bolts around – a useful job for a wizard on a battlefield.

Minecraft’s evokers seem to more closely follow the spirit-summoning tradition than the elemental hurling one – most obviously with the vexes. But also, who knows which creature owns those fangs that erupt from the ground when the evoker raises its arms? We’ll continue to investigate, but in the meantime, if you have any ideas then don’t hesitate to get in touch!