West

West, this mysterious, unknown latitude full of potential. You have never explored this part of the Overworld before, which, considering the vast and never-ending size of the Overworld, is fully reasonable. And yet, bold as you are, you set out on your journey toward this new direction, placing torches on your way to make sure you can find your way back from uncharted land. 

However, it doesn’t take long before your torch-placing suddenly comes to a halt. While the sun annoyingly sets in the west (and in your eyes, damn you, sun!) you reach a fork in the road. Peering into the distance, you notice that one path leads to a mangrove swamp – something you’ve only heard tales about! The other leads to a, gulp, w-woodland mansion! 

Head to the swamp, it’s safer to build shelter.

As you make your way into the swamp, you quickly begin to build your new makeshift home, using the materials at your disposal: mud! How extravagant! Almost as comfy as your dirt house constructions, just a tad bit more humid!

Suddenly, just as you're about to put the last muddy mud block on your humid hut, a blue light darts towards you. Oh no, is it a phantom? It's not your fault that no one ever wants to sleep on this server! Lucky for you, it turns out that the mob coming towards you isn't a nightmare from the sky – it's an allay!

Your mud house has plenty of room. Maybe you should bring it inside?

Invite the allay inside!

Like the friendly neighbor you are, you invite the allay to your humble abode. Not knowing what an invite is, the allay flutters around randomly for a bit before it finally enters, just as the sun sets. Its gentle allaying effectively drowns out the lamentation of nearby zombies, and before you know it, you wake up to a new day full of possibilities!

Upon closer inspection of your shed house, you realize it has potential to become something more, and judging from the allay's ongoing allaying, you can only assume that it agrees.

This house won't be a home until I fill it with food. Hunt for something to eat!

If you're in it for the long term, you need to make sure you have a decent food supply. No sooner said than done, you begin to search the mangrove swamp high and low for something edible.

However, it soon turns out that food is scarce in this region. The only thing that seems to be in abundance is mud, and since you're not a toddler, that's no longer a viable option for your future hunger issues. The only thing you manage to find is one single egg, with no trace of the chicken. What now?

Give the egg to the allay!

In a stroke of genius, you give your one and only egg to the allay, which excitedly accepts the object and takes off with it. If the rumors are true about their love for collecting things, you will soon become this biome's most renowned eggsplorer! If not, then you've been robbed by a real con mob! For the sake of your pride, let's hope that's not the case...

While you wait, what do you do with your mud hut?

Who doesn't love a view? You build a tower.

Inspired by the view from the tall pillager outposts, you immediately get to work on an exciting lookout tower – your own thrillager mudpost if you will. With so much mud to go round, there's no telling how tall you could make it.

As you build your way up, you begin to take in the view above the treetops. Beautiful! Carpe diem! The only thing missing from this day is...

Music! You never leave the house without redstone. Craft a note block!

With some leftover planks and a piece of redstone, you manage to first construct a crafting table, then a fresh new note block shortly after. After having placed them both on top of the tower, you notice that the sun has started to set again. In this calm moment atop of your mighty mudpost, you begin to play "Sweden" on your note block – which ends up sounding awful considering you only have one tone available.

Suddenly, you see a familiar soul. It's the allay flying towards you, and before you know it, it rains eggs down by the note block. It really did return! Yay!

You need plenty of storage for all those eggs. Build a basement.

The basement. The perfect place for storing all your food in, as well as 97% of all the other items you hoard but completely forget you ever owned!

As you dig through the murky foundation of your home to create your underground floor, you soon realize that it's actually quite dark down here. This wasn't what you signed up for! You specifically wanted to avoid deep dark places – not work in them. Maybe the allay can grab some torches for you?

No, the allay should keep bringing eggs. Get out of the basement and build upwards instead.

"The sky is the limit!" you think as you continue to stack mud blocks onto your growing tower, before you suddenly slam your head against an invisible roof. Huh, the sky really was the limit!

It’s once again night, and up here it's just you, the clouds, and the moon. Below, you see the Overworld spreading far and wide. Looking to the east, you can see tiny glowing dots that you can assume is the camp you left, and not far from your current position, there's the ominous woodland mansion you saw earlier. 

This is really nice. Those clouds look really soft. Like pillows. Maybe it's time for bed.

Before you know it, you're back at ground level next to your muddy hut. But how did you get down? Did you jump? Climb? Teleport? Was it some kind of deus ex machina, or maybe a plot hole that the writer forgot about?

ANYWAY. After a good night's rest, you see how the sun rises on the horizon. As a new day dawns, you step outside to admire your towering wonder. Your moment of admiration is short-lived because as you exit your hut, you suddenly trip of a pile of eggs. Who in their right mind would place eggs outs... Hey! The allay came through after all!

Go outside and wait for the allay to come back and give it a torch.

You don't have to wait long. As you emerge from your hidey hole, a shower of eggs hits you in the face. At first, you're convinced that the Eggpocalypse have begun. Then you realize there is no such thing and that you totally made it up for dramatic purposes. In reality, it's the allay who upon its return have brought you a whole bunch of eggs. Perfect timing!

You take back the egg held by the allay, trade it a torch, and off it goes again. This time, it's back in an instant, and with a lot of torches! There must have been a bunch of them nearby. Come to think of it, these torches look pretty familiar, almost as if... oh well, that's not important. 

Head back into the basement so you can illuminate it and stock it with eggs.

Once you've placed a few torches in your basement, it becomes pretty cozy down here. The more you think about it, the more you realize that this muddy hole has more potential than the last ten dirt houses you’ve lived in! With a bed, a cauldron, maybe even a few bookcases, this place could become your forever home! Maybe you should go get some of the stuff you left at the campsite base? Well, if it's still there. People just love digging through other players' chests!

Place the torches around the swamp instead!

You spend the next few days constructing the largest build you have ever built. You find inspiration from the swamp, from the tales your friends told at the campfire, and from the light of the sun and the moon. And the cow that stared at you for an entire day. That was intense. Can't believe it won that stare-off!

This build could just go on forever! Should you stop? 

Just one more block.

You place yet another block, adding more to your already amazing build. Keep going?

I think that's enough building for now. Sleep time.

You wake up the next morning, not only refreshed, but with a sense of inner pride and accomplishment. Finishing a build in Survival Mode? Surely this is all a dream! But no, as you step outside and overlook your build, you confirm it is no fantasy.

You put a lot of work into this perfect build. You could tell everyone about it. Or, you could keep it to yourself. 

This house won't be a home until I add some greenery. Gather some mangrove leaves! 

With the goal of decorating your soon-to-be-beautiful mud home, you set off on an epic quest to find some mangrove leaves. Ok, maybe not epic – mangrove trees are literally everywhere – and reaching their leaves with your shears proves to be easier said than done. Gathering them while wading in the murky waters becomes a tedious process, with the only gains being soaked clothes, a drained hunger meter, and grumpy mood.

Throw the egg and search for house material instead!

With the goal of decorating your soon to be beautiful mud home, you set off on an epic quest to find some mangrove leaves. Ok, maybe not that epic – mangrove trees are literally everywhere, and reaching their leaves with your shears proves to be easier said than done. Gathering them from the murky waters becomes a tedious process, with the only gains being soaked clothes and grumpy mood.

Give the allay a leaf so it can pick up the leaves as you break them off the trees

By involving your new allay friend, you become an inseparable duo, a well-oiled machine in the art of leaf collecting. While you elegantly cut leaf blocks off mangrove trees, the tiny mob flies around the water to quickly pick them up. You leaf no stone unturned and share a good laugh over how silly that writer's pun was.

By the end of the day, you and the allay have collected a whole forest worth of leaves. That's more than enough for interior decoration. Maybe you should focus on a different build instead of modifying your makeshift mud house?

All this mud, and mangrove, and leaves would be perfect for an island getaway. Pack it all up in your boat!

As luck would have it, an ocean has generated not far away from the swamp biome. Continuing your journey ever further west, you construct a boat with a chest, using the nearby trees as material for your transport. You pack all the stacks of leaves – and even some mangrove wood – and take to the sea. You don't have to row far before you find the perfect little island to create your resort.

Start building! You are the swamp ruler!

Days go by and you grow more and more invested in this biome build that only uses natural resources for materials. Soon, an elaborate homage to the beauty of the swamp starts to take form. There's mud hallways to sink into as you make your way to the indoor pools, all shaped – or disguised – as a majestic mangrove tree. It seems those leaves really did come handy. A job well done!

Community favorite or not, that blueberry stays outside!

Leaving the allay outside to fend for itself, you soon drift into sleep, and before you know it, you wake up to a new beautiful day full of possibilities!

As you walk outside, you realize that your mud house isn't so shabby after all. With some work, you could turn this into a real mud mansion, a mud city, a mudtopia with you as its Mudperor! The more you think about it, the more your mudolomania grows.

Every journey begins with a single mud block, and right now, your "house" needs some more detail to it! The question is: what?

MORE MUD

Of course, your house needs more mud! Mud is the very foundation of which we build our lives upon. And from what you've heard, there's endless potential with the malleable material! Or at least that's what you've heard? Now that you think about it, you're not really sure what to make of it!

You need a moment to think. You place a mud block and take a seat.

As you take your place on the mud block, doing your best impression of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker while contemplating your options, you gain three new insights:

1) Your thinking pose looks more like Edvard Munch's The Scream. 

2) That mud is wet and you've made a mess of the diamond legs you crafted the other day. 

3) You notice how you sink down a bit into the mud. A whole two pixels in fact! What a weird, yet interesting block! 

You start experimenting with different ways to craft the mud

With the help of a crafting table that you brought with you on your journey, you conduct an experiment to discover the unknown potential of this muddy block. As luck would have it, you discover that you can create "packed mud" with something so simple as wheat. From here, a whole new world of mud-making opens to you. Mud bricks! Mud brick slabs! Mud walls! Mud stairs! Mud cakes! No wait, don't try that last one.

Suddenly, you stand there with a huge variety of mud-themed blocks in your inventory. It's almost overwhelming how much choice you have, so you boil it down to two alternatives. A part of you wants to share these new findings with your friends – it could definitely improve the camp. On the other hand, this feels complicated, and maybe you should just do something simpler, like building a tower of mud?

Maybe I'll add some mangrove wood to balance it out

You decide that you want to explore mangrove wood a bit. You chop some wood and place it upon your crafting table. The results are fantastic! All sorts of shapes and shades of red-brown are revealed to you, and as you gaze upon it, inspiration strikes!

You need more wood

So you want more wood huh? That's easier said than done! Looking around, you realize you've cut down quite a few trees already. Now this is quite the setback! You don't want to leave the swamp before you've had the chance to gather more mangrove wood, but right now, it's a finite resource.

However, all is not lost. On a nearby mangrove tree, you notice there's something hanging from its leaves – a propagule! This could be the key to your problem. Well, that is if you have patience. Come to think of it, you could also just search other areas for more wood.

Get in your boat to find trees from a nearby forest

As you begin to look for more mangrove trees to cut down, you find one in the distance, a few minutes away from your current location Once there, you start to cut down a few trees from the forest. One after another, you fill your inventory with mangrove wood, without paying attention to your surroundings. Suddenly when you turn around, everything looks the same. Which way was the swamp again? You put the wood you gathered in your boat's chest and set sail (set rows?).

Finally, you see a swamp in the distance. But is it the one you came from?

Collect propagules so you can plant the saplings to grow into new trees

No rest for the wicked! You immediately start collecting any propagules you can find in order to plant them on every spare dirt block you can find. You feel good about yourself! Here you are, in the middle of a new biome, helping nature heal. You've done good!

Let’s head to the mansion, there’s no time to build a shelter

In the cover of dusk, you approach the towering structure through the thick, dark forest. Quiet as a mouse – or as quiet as a mouse can be as it accidentally faceplants several dark oak along the way – you make your way to the stony entrance of the massive building. There's an eerie silence around this place. So quiet. Too quiet.

Let’s sneak inside!

With outmost caution, you sneak into the woodland mansion in a silly yet effective crouch stance. The hallways are dark and stretch several blocks, and yet you still venture into the massive structure in search of something exciting to uncover. Every now and then, you hear grunting coming from behind the walls, proving that you're not alone. Then suddenly, you hear something sounding like music coming from a room not far from you. You could check it out, or continue down the hallway.

Investigate the room!

Entering the room reveals some kind of prison, and inside its stony cells you find the source of the music: allays! Not one or two – but 12 of them! You assume that it must be those pesky illagers. They are always up to no good!

Free the allays!

With no time to spare, you open the prison cell to free the little allays. Not sure how to act around them, you leave the prison door open. You also offer one of them a cookie as a gesture of good faith. To your surprise, the allay accepts, and together, you now leave the woodland mansion as quickly as possible. No need to stay here anymore! You quickly crouch your way out of the mansion with the allay not far behind.

As it is still night, you should try to set up a shelter for you and your blue friend. Maybe you could do it in the mangrove biome, or should you take the risk and head home to the camp?

Continue

After some heavy headwork, you decide to continue through the hallway. After all, it's not every day you get to walk the red carpet! Surely there must be some form of treasure in one of the rooms ahead? At the same time, you can hear the grumpy noises from earlier getting stronger. Something is definitely close! Question is – are you brave enough to investigate it?

More view! No rest for the wicked, you keep building the tower

"The sky is the limit!" you think as you continue to stack mud blocks onto your growing tower, before you suddenly slam your head against an invisible roof. Huh, the sky really was the limit!

It’s once again night, and up here it's just you, the clouds, and the moon. Below, you see the Overworld spreading far and wide. Looking to the east, you can see tiny glowing dots that you can assume is the camp you left, and not far from your current position, there's the ominous woodland mansion you saw earlier.

Buckle down and start building!

You spend the next few days constructing the largest build you have ever built. You find inspiration from the swamp, from the tales your friends told at the campfire, and from the light of the sun and the moon. And the cow that stared at you for an entire day. That was intense. Can't believe it won that stare-off!

This build could just go on forever! Should you stop?