The End Update

An End update has been one of Minecraft's most requested features for a long time now, so I decided to put my own spin on it. Before this project, I had no coding experience. I'm still learning as I go, and there's a long road ahead. This mod is NOT meant to be an expansive dimension overhaul. Instead, it focuses on:

• Giving several under-utilized vanilla features a reason to exist. The Recovery Compass (especially for Hardcore players), Chorus Flowers, the End's sky flashes, and even the Creaking (to an extent) all get meaningful new roles.
• Easing a few long-standing Minecraft annoyances: Phantoms constantly harassing you in the Overworld, the tedium of picking up large quantities of dropped items, the inability to insta-mine wood even with a Haste II beacon, and the need to build ugly temporary bridges just to cross void gaps.
• Introducing vanilla-adjacent content designed to complement the base game.

Showcase/Trailer with (almost) full feature breakdown:

Full list of features:

(Features are also showcased in the gallery page)

The Mirelands Biome

• Features End Mire, the Endstone equivalent of grass (similar to how nylium relates to netherrack). Inspired by mold.
• Introduces a full green Ethereal wood set.
• Decorative Mold Foliage.
• Phantoms spawn here (highly recommended to disable insomnia — phantoms are far less annoying when confined to this biome).
• Stellarith Crystal spikes that generate in Mirelands spawn herds of Ethereal Orbs near their tips.
• Ethereal Trees sometimes grow Mold Crawl — horizontal vines that spread sideways (like twisted/weeping vines but lateral). Useful for bridging void gaps with bone meal.
• All mold/mire-type blocks (including the wood family) are compostable.
• Tendril Saplings (obtained from Void Blooms) grow through three stages before becoming full Ethereal Trees.

Shadowlands Biome

• A darkened land of shadows covered in End Murk (black Endstone "grass" equivalent).
• Decorated with Shadow Claws — foliage that looks like hands and works great for builds.
• Features enormous black Shadow Trees and a full black Shadow wood set. Farm new trees by planting a 3×3 of Shadow Claws.
• Ash particles drift through the air.
• Roughly 1 in every 256 Shadow Trees is hollow and contains a Shadow Altar.
• Craft a Shadow Hunter's Tracker (Recovery Compass surrounded by 8 Shadow Claws). It points toward the nearest hollow tree. Shift + right-click when nearby for precise close-range altar tracking.
• Light a Shadow Altar on fire to begin the Shadow Creaking boss fight.

Shadow Creaking

• 15 seconds after lighting the altar, a Shadow Creaking emerges and summons two Endermites.
• Initially behaves like a normal Creaking (only moves when not being looked at).
• At 50% health, it "wakes up" and can push through being looked at to attack.
• Cannot be trapped or cheesed — it teleports if stuck or unable to reach the player for extended periods of time.
• Landing too many ranged attacks causes it to fire a ranged attack back.
• On defeat, it splits into two Mini Shadow Creakings (each also summoning two Endermites). Minis are smaller, faster, hit more often, do less damage, and are harder to hit.
• Each Mini then splits into two Tiny Shadow Creakings (again with two Endermites each). Tinies have very low health, light damage, extreme speed, and are difficult to hit.
• The four Tiny Shadow Creakings drop a total of four items: one Enchanted Pages, one Enchanted Book Cover, and two Wood Chips.
• Craft two Wood Chips vertically into a Wooden Cone. Use it on a cow for an Ice Cream Cone or on a mooshroom for a Strawberry Ice Cream Cone (grants a 30-second sugar-rush-like effect).
• Craft the Enchanted Book Cover with Enchanted Pages to create the Chopping enchantment book. Applied to an axe, it boosts the existing Efficiency level (does nothing on its own), enabling instant mining of wood blocks with Efficiency V + Chopping.

Stellarith Crystals

• Crystal spikes now generate throughout the End in varying sizes and angles.
• Bases are made of pink Astral Remnant blocks; tips are blue Stellarith Crystals.
• Mining Stellarith Crystals without Silk Touch drops 3-5 Voidstar Shards.
• Crafting chain: 9 Shards -> 1 Voidstar Nugget -> 9 Nuggets -> 1 Voidstar Ingot -> 9 Ingots -> 1 Voidstar Block.
• Voidstar Nuggets feed baby Ethereal Orbs.
• Voidstar Blocks duplicate adult Ethereal Orbs.
• Voidstar Ingots serve as an armor trim material.
• Ethereal Orbs naturally orbit nearby Astral Remnant or Stellarith Crystal blocks.

Ethereal Orbs

• Spawn in groups at the tips of Stellarith Crystal spikes in Mirelands biomes.
• Feed a Voidstar Nugget to light up an adult Ethereal Orb's bulb, then use a brush on the lit bulb to obtain Spectral Debris.
• Craft Spectral Debris into Spectral Clusters (armor trim) and then into Spectral Blocks (light-emitting).
• Feed a Voidstar Block to an adult Orb to materialize a baby Orb. Babies eat Voidstar Nuggets.
• Shear a baby Orb's bulb to get an Ethereal Bulb — a glowing button that can be placed on any surface and stays pressed longer than vanilla buttons.
• Spectral Debris or Spectral Clusters used as armor trims create glowing particles around the player. Debris takes up less visual space and produces fewer particles.
• Tame an Ethereal Orb by killing a Void Tardigrade that is actively hunting it. Babies duplicated from a tamed Orb are automatically tamed to the same owner.
• Tamed Orbs orbit their owner's head and follow them. Shift + right-click to make them stay and orbit in place.
• Tamed Orbs detect nearby hostile Void Tardigrades and temporarily trap them in a particle cage (with a short cooldown), giving you time to take care of the threat before that threat takes care of your pet.

Void Tardigrades

• Mostly harmless creatures that float in the void between outer End islands.
• When they sense an Ethereal Orb, they fly toward it and attempt to eat it. Successfully eating an Orb causes them to spit out a Tardigrade Shell Bit.
• Craft 9 Tardigrade Shell Bits into a Tardigrade Shell Brick.
• Use Tardigrade Shell Brick as an armor trim to increase the armor toughness of diamond or netherite pieces.
• Kill a Void Tardigrade while it's hunting an Ethereal Orb to tame that Orb.

Tetherlings

• Purple/baby blue creatures that hover over the void between outer End islands.
• Lock eyes with a Tetherling and hold contact for ~3 seconds. It will approach and latch on with a purple particle trail.
• Once latched, you have ~5 seconds to move backward — the farther you move, the greater the launch distance.
• Just before launch, the Tetherling rockets upward and flings you in the direction you're looking, making it handy for quickly crossing void gaps.

Ash Stone Craters

• Occasional Ash Stone Craters appear in the End — impact sites of varying size, each with a single Nebula Vent at the center.
• Nebula Vents periodically erupt in a geyser of purple smoke that can propel elytra flight when you lack firework rockets (or want to fling your friends in the air).
• Ash Stone is a new dark gray/black stone type that can be crafted into stairs, slabs, and walls, or polished into Smooth Ash Stone (with matching stairs, slabs, and walls).

Ender Chrysanthemums

• Generate mainly on the tiny islands between larger outer End islands, and occasionally along the edges of bigger islands.
• Can be placed on any block in any orientation (including upside-down and sideways).
• Close into Closed Ender Chrysanthemums during vanilla End flashes.
• Spiders and Cave Spiders retreat from both open and closed Chrysanthemums, even when potted.
• Brewable in the ingredient slot with Awkward Potions to create Potions of Weaving.

Void Blooms

• Fully matured Chorus Flowers have a chance to grow Void Blooms from any of their surfaces.
• Craft a Void Bloom into Void Sap — a sticky, glow-lichen-style block.
• Smelt Void Sap into Tendril Saplings to farm the green Ethereal wood set and encourage use of vanilla Chorus Flowers.

Gravitite

• Gravitite Ore is hidden inside the outer End islands. It is immune to explosions — the easiest way to find it is by blasting the island.
• Smelt the ore into Gravitite Essence, then craft 9 Essence into Pure Gravitite.
• Use Pure Gravitite as an armor trim to attract nearby items. Attraction range scales with the number of armor pieces trimmed with it.

Quantum Gateways

• Crafting recipe: 1 Netherite Ingot in the center, surrounded by 4 Beacons on the sides and 4 Voidstar Blocks in the corners.
• Place the Quantum Gateway on top of an active beacon to activate it. A particle effect appears around the beacon beam (toggleable with a redstone signal).
• Open the Gateway GUI and insert 1 Recovery Compass + 1 Diamond Block to receive a special compass that's now bound to this Gateway.
• Hold the special compass and shift + right-click to teleport back to the Quantum Gateway from anywhere in the world (consumes the Recovery Compass).

King Phantom

• Craft 9 Phantom Membranes into Membrane Blocks.
• Spawn the King Phantom by arranging Membrane Blocks in a 2×3 rectangle with a 2-block "tail" extending from the middle of one of the long sides, then lighting every block on fire.
• The King Phantom orbits above players, occasionally swooping for melee damage or firing ranged attacks. It becomes more aggressive below 50% health.
• Drops 12 King Phantom's Essence on defeat.
• Brew the King Phantom's Essence with Awkward Potions to create Potion of Phantom Ward, which, well... wards off Phantoms (causes them to ignore you).

Thanks, -Ritro