u/The-Real-Radar

Minecraft’s third underground layer:

Originally, we got the additional world height and the new deepslate layer in the cave update.

It was a widely renowned update that took Mojang a while to complete.

Since then, Mojang has overhauled many attributes within Minecraft to make them data driven.

Suffice to say Mojang has the resources to do a new cave update.

My suggestion is a specific interpretation of that.

##The Mantle level##

The mantle is the layer of Earth below the crust. It is impossible to dig to by any measure.

But Minecraft doesn’t apply physics.

So, what is the Mantle in Minecraft? It takes on a more fantasy form than in real life. Dare I say technological.

##Height levels##

The mantle could be reinterpreted as a third height level of world gen, one stretching to Y level of -128.

Y level extends to 319 above, so this is a move that would bring more parity to rising and lowering Y levels.

From layer -124 down, each y level increases rate of lava generating by 20%. There is a bedrock floor.

From -64 and below, deepslate starts transitioning into hot marble. An orange block similar to cobblestone but more like lava.

hot marble can be instamined with haste and efficiency 5 for those wondering.

From -80 to -124, magma blocks will sometimes spawn in clumps like andesite.

Ore distribution would not have to be rebalanced.

##Blockset##

The total amount of blocks added by this update is 101.

There is a marble variant and a smooth marble variant which you can get by smelting the block, then smelting it again respectively.

Marble is a white, glossy block that can be used as a build set similar to quartz. Chiseled, pillar, bricks, slabs and stairs.

##Customization##

You can use 1 dye and 8 marble to created colored marble. Its look is slightly more highlighted than the normal dye.

Smooth marble looks more like the original hot marble but white.

You can combine 1 dye and 1 smooth marble to create colored smooth marble. It’s decorative like glazed terracotta in that each color has a pattern and multiple colors.

The block set alone is a great reward for digging this deep.

##Garnet & other ores##

In descending order of rarity, those would be: redstone, garnet, iron, copper, each having a hot marble variant.

Garnet is a new ore that generates in hot marble as garnet ore.

Garnet ore gives you 1 garnet, a purple tall octohedral crystal.

Garnet has two uses, 1 physical and 1 magical.

##Magical##

Garnet is magically infused with the power of metamorphosis. It can be used in a crafting grid to reverse the smelting of a block or item.

Its purpose is an all purpose desmelter, which can be useful or useless on different items.

Think of it like turning smooth stone into stone, stone into cobble, or a cooked steak into a raw one.

##Physical##

Garnet can be used to upgrade your miscellaneous armor or tools into garnet variants.

Think of a garnet turtle shell, elytra, trident, mace, bow or crossbow.

Not only does this increase the durability by 200, but it also gives you access to a new enchantment on the tool.

##Enchantment##

Unifier is a treasure enchantment found in one of two structures in the mantle.

It’s like you’re holding all garnet items you have on you at once.

You’ll always use the damage and durability of whichever unifier items damage has it most high in that moment.

You’ll always use the attack speed of whichever unifier item is the lowest.

##Diamond Geode##

Diamonds are made in the mantle, and while you can’t find diamond ore here, you can find diamond geodes.

This includes a magma, smooth marble, and obsidian layer. Budding diamond grows out of the occasional crying obsidian found within.

Crying obsidian doesn’t grow diamonds, but budding diamonds can be mined to get 1 diamond if full size.

##Bejeweled mob##

The Bejeweled is a mob similar to blazes and breezes. One always spawns within a diamond geode. It isn’t trapped there necessarily.

It’s crystalline and launches diamond shards at you. It is particularly tough as it has 50 hp and does 10 hp of damage.

It charges up its bursts of 2 shards every five seconds. It hovers 1-3 blocks above the ground and moves slowly.

If its shard attack hits obsidian, it becomes crying obsidian and grows a small diamond bud.

##Drill tunnel##

The drill tunnel is a 5x5 tunnel with periodic redstone dust spills.

redstone lamp rings every 10 blocks in the hot marble can reveal hidden redstone blocks if a lamp is on.

Clumps of gravel may generate, some being suspicious and containing metals as well as the garnet upgrade trim.

You can find occasional copper chests with sensible loot alongside unifier enchantment books, their only place.

#Mantle mobs##

A list of the mobs you can find in the mantle before getting into them in terms of most common to least: redstone bugs, bugged exoskeleton, bugged endoskeletons, mesh, endermen, Bejeweled, molten golems

##Bugged Exoskeletons and Bugged Endoskeletons##

Two hostile mobs spawn here and they are the Bugged exoskeleton which is an undead variant and the bugged exoskeleton which is a spider variant. They occasionally become a jockey too.

They resemble their counterparts but are more hollow, melted metal and bony in the spiders case.

In the undeads case they may spawn with skeleton or zombies behavior depending on if they have a bow or not.

They are made of iron and have a redstone theming which is what animates them.

Both these creatures have 30 hp which means they are the tanks of their class.

Otherwise they’re similar to spiders and skeletons though they drop 1-2 iron ingots and are infested with 1-2 redstone bugs.

##redstone bugs##

They were in the April fools snapshot, Minecraft 2.0 alongside other later additions like coal blocks and tinted glass.

Well they’re back and they they have a unique texture between endermites and silverfish.

Only this time, they don’t spawn every time redstone ticks. They do however hide in redstone or redstone ore and reappear when it’s activated or broken.

##Molten Golem##

No iron golem can survive more than two minutes below -64 before they melt. They also spawn rarely in the mantle.

Molten golems are hostile variants of iron golem made from red hot, molten metal.

To restore one, you need to raise the golem to above -64. You can also dump a water bucket on it which will solidify it temporarily.

Once the golem is restored, it won’t have rose vines and will become a neutral golem if it hadn’t already been one.

You can tame the golem by giving it a rose bush, which will grow the vine back and make it into your golem.

Molten golems can pick up lava source blocks every minute and create a mesh

##Mesh##

A mesh is a creeper variant from the mantle. It appears as a twig-like orange hot iron rod spine, legs, and a creeper face outline. It has a redstone core resembling unlabeled tnt.

They have 10 hp and act passively and runs away. However, if a redstone mite sees it, it will infest it. When this happens, the core is now charged and prone to explode like a normal creeper with slightly more power.

Just like the molten golem, mesh can be cooled down. In this form they’re always passive whether charged or not.

If you give it grass (the transparent block), it will turn into a normal creeper. That creeper will always try to follow you around, but it only is able to explode if you do this to a charged mesh.

Mesh drop gunpowder only if charged, they drop redstone dust otherwise.

##New Biomes##

The mantle is composed of two biomes, the mantle and the molten lakes.

The mantle has its own unique generation as caves that wind down in a zigzag and are extremely flat but wide.

The molten lakes is a wider cave with more area to build in, but there is a lot of lava lakes and shelves here.

##Conclusion##

What I’m suggesting is a massive update with major implications for Minecraft without affecting the rest of the game. The y levels are always gonna be a good place for new content in Minecraft, especially as time goes on.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this update even if you disagree with parts of it or have other ideas.

Using a 2x2 of ice blocks you can craft ice bricks, which are new ice blocks with unique properties and texture (which are small bricks like resin/clay rather than stone bricks)

The unique property I mention is that sliding on ice bricks doesn’t work the same as any other ice block. Once you tread onto ice bricks, your momentum will be conserved and you’ll just keep sliding until the bricks run out or something stops you, in other words you don’t slow down or change directions.

Unlike other ice blocks you also won’t gain speed on ice bricks. It’s a cool puzzle mechanic I love seeing in games and could be good for transportation.

You can enter a penguin sliding mode when you sprint while on ice bricks, the same as swimming or crawling. You can penguin slide onto other ice blocks on which you have freedom to turn and is similar to ice boats.

The only way to negate the effect of ice bricks would be crouching, which gradually slows you. When your velocity reaches zero if you keep crouching you can move freely but slowly on the block.

Reaping is an enchantment that when applied to hoes replaces the typical right click tilling of dirt with a stealing of mobs xp.

When you right click an entity using that hoe, its xp orbs scatter around it. It’s similar to xp dropping on death, but xp disperses into a wider radius.

Mobs that have been reaped can’t be a second time and won’t drop xp on death. It won’t work on boss mobs.

On players it can remove 91 xp, equal to the first seven levels, just like is recoverable on death, provided the player has 91 or more xp. The orbs can be picked up by either player.

It’s meant to act like stealing their soul, inspired by the grim reaper. It’s useful for collecting xp without hurting mobs or to steal xp from players though doing so is punishable.

The enchantment is a treasure enchantment that will be found in the new abandoned camps in the dappled forests.

If you choose to accept, here are the rules:

1. You gain access to a debit card which resets its balance of 1500 dollars a day. You can summon it like Thors hammer and it has anti-suspicion properties.

2. A second version of you as you are now will be created next to you with all your memories and personality. They cannot harm you. Agents will arrive within a minute to bring them somewhere on the streets and they will be barred from owning or paying for anything above 1500 dollars.

3. You cannot ever contact your alternate self nor send money to them directly or indirectly. However they can choose to write a letter to you once a week for no cost.

An awkward potion now acts as a potion with its own small effect. The effect doesn’t have a duration like others, instead it acts instantly like harming for example.

For mobs their ai resets, they lose interest for a moment and play a random idle unused sound and an idle animation if applicable.

While on players it doesn’t change their behavior, but does play the ‘Ough’ sound which used to indicate damage, or the burp sound which plays sometimes after eating.

It’s only useful in niche pve scenarios, for activating mobs sounds, but gives an otherwise transitionary item some use.

Just like partly empty blocks can be waterlogged, blocks like stone, deeplsate, tuff, granite, sulfur, etc can be ore logged.

This saves the need for having a lot of ore blocks aside from stone and deepslate.

In terms of how this is stored in the game, I would use an nbt driven approach while in item form.

But when in block form, they act as two overlapping blocks. This lets the blocks still be moveable with pistons.

To ore log a block, right click with the item in creative mode. In survival mode being able to ore logging can cause duping.

Thanks for everyone’s help in the suggestion!

Using shears on a cactus block will remove it’s thorns. These cacti will slowly grow back their thorns unless waxed, but in the time being they are safe to touch.

The thornless cactus block can be eaten to restore 1 hunger shank and 1 saturation, or fed to a camel.

When you shear them, the cactus thorn item drops. The cactus thorn is a very unique items. Like cactus, they harm you when there’s any friction.

Cactus thorn will deal 0.5 damage to you when you pick it up, throw it out, or interact with it in the inventory. Not only is it unique, but it’s also realistic and makes sense with the cactus.

Cactus thorns can also be placed down on the face of a block. You can place them down in units of up to 4. When these thorns are walked over or interacted with, it deals 0.5 damage and one thorn drops as an item, making each block limited use.