Land of the Poet

So, a lot has been happening and I didn’t post in over a month, but hey, I’m back and I have actually been playing in the meanwhile. So, previously, I had named a bunch of animals and I got two wonderful cockatrices. I also forgot to mention that I renamed the cows’ collars, so all of them have names now.

Starting off, I organized all of my items. It took a while, but I now have farm stuff next to the farm, stone and ores next to the mine, and an area for miscellaneous items. I also got overly excited about making a bestiary, so I ended up using all of the manuscripts on it. In case you don’t know, a bestiary is a sort of collection of facts about mythical creatures, and in the Ice and Fire mod, you can add more passages to it using manuscripts.

I went for a bit over to the swamp for, well, I actually have no idea, I probably just wanted to see what was in that direction. I ran all the way to the end of the swamp and kept going until I found another even further from home. I then saw some really pretty birds. They looked sort of like golden eagles except darker and sleeker. Being my extremely gullible self, I approached them and

was immediately met by a barrage of feathers in my face. It took me a full five minutes to kill one of them, at which point the flock dispersed, leaving me with seventeen stymphalian bird feathers (Apparently stymphalian birds are in Greek mythology, and are really hard to spell properly). That was not very fun, so I returned home to my bestiary.

After a few minutes of reading, I decided I wanted a pixie. I made a jar and set off towards the dark oak forest in search of the magical fairies (I realize there are some differences between pixies and fairies, but I’m going to use the terms interchangeably). However, I failed to read the part where it said they spawn in fairy villages and those are incredibly rare. Somehow, my brief quest to find a pixie turned into a long journey all the way to the ocean, over a thousand blocks away from home.

At this point, I decided to focus on exploring as much as possible and finding some loot to bring home. I found the village where I was killed by a fire dragon, but the dragon was nowhere to be seen. I waited until nighttime when fire dragons supposedly return to their dens, but it never arrived, so I looted the den. There was a lot of gold and cobwebs, but I did manage to procure two more manuscripts to aid my addiction. I don’t know why the loot was so bad, but I assume the designers wanted the dragon to be the main source so players couldn’t just burrow under the chests and get the loot that way (which is what I did for the cyclops).

I decided this meant the place was safe, so I double checked the village for any goods and stumbled upon a cyclops in a ravine. The guy was just chilling at the bottom, so I didn’t think twice when my cockatrice ran over to the side to stare at him (she wasn’t being weird, that’s one of her attacks). Due to her hyperactivity, she sort of… fell. It was going alright before that, but she got cocky (pun intended but regretted) and ran into the giant, gaping hole in the ground and died.

After that scarring event, I decided I had nothing left to live for and just swam into the open ocean. Miraculously, this was the one time a sea serpent wasn’t around. I continued swimming until I came to a weird palace/temple structure. There was creepy laughter coming from inside it, so I thought that it wouldn’t be the best idea to go inside. I ignored it and went into the ocean to get some kelp since I didn’t have any at home.

I then saw a cool sea horse looking creature. A hippocampus! I fed it as much kelp as I could until it was tamed and I got an achievement. It was quite deep in the water, so it took me a few minutes to lure it into a bay with more kelp. I also learned that when tamed, hippocampi don’t sit down or follow you like other tamed mobs. I ended up hollowing out an area for the hippocampus to stay until I got a saddle from home.

Taming a hippocampus made me feel a lot better about my cockatrice hen’s death, so I went home to get a saddle. I almost got roasted alive by a green fire dragon on the way back, but I managed to avoid it. Rather alarmingly, my male cockatrice, who I also brought along, went missing somewhere between me escaping the green dragon and reaching home. Before, this was just because the cockatrice refused to teleport after you reached a certain distance away from it, so I’m hoping to find him when I go back for the hippocampus.

This post was a lot longer than my previous ones, the reason being I was a bit preoccupied with school and tests, so I just waited until I had enough time and willpower to actually write. Also, I have no idea why I didn’t make proper titles to these posts, but I don’t think there’s any use changing the naming convention now.

After last week’s terrible and deathly encounter with a Cyclops, I decided to take a more leisurely pace with the game. First, I obviously got my stuff back from the Cyclops lair and somehow managed to kill the overgrown goblin. Sadly, it didn’t drop anything, so I raided the village and got some hay bales (among other things).

The village also had a graveyard, which, unbeknownst to me, contained ghosts. See, the thing about ghosts is that they can just pop up anywhere, attack, then retreat back into the ground. After a few more spirit-related deaths, I managed to loot the graveyard and make it away with the items. Among several bones and two skulls, there was ectoplasm and manuscripts. I must be honest, I have absolutely no idea what either of those are for.

So, I was making my way back with hay bales, ghost-y items, and a whole bunch of wool, shears, and mutton (who knew Cyclopes loved sheep so much?), and decided on a name for my noble horse mount. His name was to be Sir Ginger Eddington the First. It’s a tad long, but so is my list of regrets.

When I came home, I immediately decided to take the adventuring down a Notch (see what I did there?). I started by giving my lovely cow a new collar. It was the pink one with a cyan gem that I bought from the villagers down south (or north? or west? I don’t even know anymore). I reached the animal pen and put it on her when I realized something. All the sheep were gone. They were nowhere to be found and the only creatures left were the cows. I was rather sad at first, but I’m really glad the cows didn’t despawn as well.

Aside from the unfortunate circumstances, I was happy to find you could ride cows thanks to the Genetic Animals mod. I obviously put the saddle that Sir Ginger used to wear onto the multicolored cow with the pink collar. I then realized you needed a bridle to ride animals and the only reason Sir Ginger didn’t need one was that horses weren’t yet included in the mod. So, I fashioned some leather into a bridle and took the cow for a ride. I decided to name her Daffodil.

I rode around my base for a while before venturing towards the sea. I found a pretty lagoon that flowed into the ocean, and thought that I could later make a small house there as a vacation home. Of course, when I went to mark it, I saw a purple sea serpent. In fact, this was so close to the spruce biome where I had died previously that I think that was the very same sea serpent as before.

Somewhat saddened, (story of my life) I went back home and checked in on my chickens. There were quite a few and I had racked up an alarming number of eggs. The animal mod made it so that each egg was different depending on the mother hen’s genetics, which meant they couldn’t stack. I also got a couple rotten eggs, which I figured were sterile, so I threw them.

Now, one of those eggs must’ve been life-bearing, as a tiny half-chicken, half-lizard creature popped out. A tiny, adorable, yellow and green hybrid. It was a cockatrice! I eagerly got it to follow me and I spent the next ten to twenty minutes lavishing it with attention. All of a sudden, it grew! A little, yellow chick turned into a large, menacing creature, and I was ecstatic. I rushed over to the hen house for the more eggs and lo and behold, was yet another rotten egg. I quickly threw it and this time a while and greenish-yellow chick came out.

I was so, absolutely, undeniably, happy that I got not one, but two cockatrices. I brought them around with me for the rest of the day and even made a small woolen nest for them. It looked rather pathetic, but at least I tried.

With my new companions, I started my mission to beautify my base. That included finally making a bridge to the hen house and connecting the animal pen to everything else. I really liked the texture and color of the river planks, so I used them, realized the trees were tiny, and planted a bunch of saplings. I ended up spending an outrageous amount of time rushing back and forth to harvest the small trees and place the planks.

It turned out well, and I even made some passages through the hills so I didn’t have to go around. All in all, I think today went rather well. Also, since I just love cockatrices, I though I’d put in their awesome withering stare attack. It definitely makes me feel a lot safe having them around.

I haven’t posted in over a week, but don’t worry! I’m back and have done a lot of work in the world of Vellichor, starting with getting my favorite animals collars. Since I had done a lot of breeding and I didn’t want to kill any of the original animals, I put the collars on them first. Then came my favorite; a female brownish-tan, splotched cow. She’s second generation,  but I still love her.

After doing this, I spend a long, long while chopping down trees in my little tree farming area. I only needed some birch for the second floor, but seeing as I had nothing better to do, I harvested the others as well. I got about 2 stacks of birch, spruce, and dark oak, so I don’t think I have to get more logs anytime soon. I also got really annoyed by the lake being too shallow for me to swim in, so I spent a harrowing hour deepening it. I’m quite happy with it, though I still need to make a bridge across to the hen house and also the animal pen on the other side of the mountain.

After being bored (and despite the fact this always ends badly), I went on an adventure. I plowed through the dark oak woods and ended up in a desert. It would have been great if I hadn’t already gotten all the sand I could possibly need. Still, I went further into it and found a pillager tower! Obviously, I ran straight in, destroyed the staircase so the pillagers could get in, looted the place, and jumped off the side. I almost died, but that’s what you do for shiny objects.

I kept going past the spire of doom, went into an acacia biome and found a village! There I procured several emeralds and two collars from villager trades. One was a pretty black with a turquoise sort of gem and the other was a bright pink with a more greenish gem. I headed back home with my findings and decided to drop them off.

I then headed in the opposite direction of the desert and acacia village, finding myself riding (more like stumbling) my horse through the woods. I eventually found the coast and another village. I was excited, then I saw wings and hid underground. Thankfully this dragon didn’t spot me and I waited until it left. It was nighttime and I was feeling adventurous so I set my spawn in a little hole I created and went to get some goodies.

The dragon was sleeping. Despite making tunnels and trying my best to outrun the other one, I never once thought to consider that it would sleep. After feeling incredibly stupid for that other time I went to face a fire dragon, I ran to the village when I noticed something on the side of the mountain. I ran over there after confirming there was no sea serpent or otherwise dangerous creature nearby. I was about to walk into what looked like a custom cave when a cyclops picked me up and took about half my health. I immediately ran to the ocean and jumped.

I was terrified but not persuaded to leave just yet. Like an absolute idiot, I dug a tunnel under the lair and poked holes under the chest so I’d get the loot. This worked for the chests until I got to the last one. I hopped up since it was a bit higher up and got grabbed. Unlike last time, I did not escape and I did not survive. So, yet again, I’m left to spend the next post trying to get my stuff back.

Sorry for the wait, but I have been rather busy with some of my amazing friends, one of whom made a beautiful poem about some Twitch chat lore. This is the link if you’re interested: A Story is Told.

Anyways, all I suggest is that you go check it out if you’re interested, she’s an awesome writer. I also made a post earlier today, explaining our different roles in the poem if you’re a bit confused.

Regarding Minecraft, I have done a bit of work in Vellichor, mostly centered around the house on the hill. I decided to make the base stone brick, since I had a lot left over from making stairs for the mine. Sadly, I ran out, so I had to sit around and wait for more stone to smelt.

During the time it took the stone to smelt, I went ahead and finished the framework of the house, along with the spruce walls. I also went out to look for a beach where I could get some sand for glass, but I couldn’t find one. However, I did find an extreme hills biome (the one with mountains) that had some fluffy llamas! Normally, the llamas would look rather derpy, but the Genetic Animals Mod made them look super fuzzy.

I also found a pretty creature from the Ice and Fire Mod, which after checking online, I confirmed was a hippogryph! The world-wide web also said they were neutral mobs who would only attack if hungry. I figured since the llamas were intact, it would be safe to approach, and I was proven wrong. The hippogryph launched me into the air after I failed to block its attack, almost killing me. I sadly had to cut its life short because trying to outrun a creature with wings would inevitably end in my own death. So, I killed it and it dropped feathers and leather, which I renamed “RIP Alpine Hippogryph” (I really should stop trusting the creatures the Ice and Fire mod adds, huh?).

After that traumatizing trip, I went back to base barely before sundown and went to sleep. I awoke the next morning and immediately took the stone out of the furnace to make stone bricks and went to finish the bottom floor of the house. I decided on river planks for the floor and, after accidentally making the wrong kind of door, I decided I was happy with the first floor. Of course, I still need to add windows and a couple decorations, but I think it looks decent.

 

Starting off, I did practically nothing useful or progressive in terms of the game, however, I built a bit and got some other stuff. After my encounter with a dragon, I have to say I was eager to return to a humbler lifestyle. I noticed that one of my chickens was missing, the only female one, meaning I couldn’t get any chicks nor eggs. I sped off on a (local) expedition which led me to the swamp and two chickens. Both were female, and though I only needed one, the other joined along.

When I led them back to the hen house, I bred the two with roosters and proceeded to leave. As you may know, my hen house is halfway inside a hill and halfway on the shallow lake in front of my setup. As I was swimming back to my wheat farm/setup, I saw a pretty fish. Naturally, I put it in a bucket and read its tagline (the part that specifies its species in Update Aquatic). It was a Supercharged Pike that had really awesome colors, so I renamed him “Astro” and put him in with Abyss. As you can see from the photo, Astro is a darkish gray/navy with almost neon cyan eyes and fins.

After the whole ordeal with getting new animals, I realized that though I had areas for all of them, I didn’t have anywhere for myself to live. I quickly ran to where I planted a bunch of saplings and chopped down the trees, along with planting new ones. Of course, I needed none of the trees that I chopped down, so the trip was completely useless other than filling my chests.

I got some dark oak logs, since the trees grow rather big and I had over a stack, and I made a quick outline of the framework. It was getting late, so I used dirt as a substitute for the windows and the door and left it at that.

I didn’t post yesterday, so I decided to post today. Self-imposed deadlines suck, don’t they? Anyways, today and for a bit of yesterday, I tried to stay a tad more safe, what with the dragon and cyclopes (apparently that’s the plural, but it’s weird).

I did actually manage to loot the village, with a minor death here or there, but it turned out fine in the end. All the villagers were gone, for some strange reason, couldn’t be anything to do with their town being a magnet for the magical and terrifying. It was a bit difficult near the cyclopes, but I got 3 emeralds, bread, hay bales, and a saddle. I also got a stack of charred dirt, charred grass, and charred cobblestone along with some ash. I thought it looked cool, so I went over to the dragon’s nest (again) and it ended with me stuck in a hole burrowing my way out of the village (again).

As I was heading back, I noticed there was a pretty chestnut horse roaming around the plains. Instead of walking away from the cyclops plains, I went into it and tamed my horse. Thankfully, nothing killed me and I got a fast horse. Naturally, this meant I had to ride him, and I did. I went in circles, lost my sense of direction, then somehow ended up in a dark oak forest and figured I needed dark oak anyway.

Having gotten a horse, wood, and a bunch of other stuff, I was content to go back home. Of course, I got lost and ended up in a swamp, but hey, what can you do? Eventually I got back to base and dropped my new horse at the pen. I also put some hay in for the animals to eat instead of the grass. I moved the chickens into their new hen house that now has a nice, dark oak roof.

Today, I created a new world because I really wanted to make something in a book, but I didn’t have leather in Vellichor. While in that world, which I named “Sh*t”, I saw that the animals were rather drab. Since the world-wide web has many things, including animal mods, I figured I could just search it up. After a while of finding mods in older versions or ones that required OptiFine instead of Forge, I stumbled upon the Genetic Animals Mod. I did some research, realized it would make everything more complicated, then downloaded it.

To start off, I did a bit of work on the mines, making stairs so in and out would be easier. I didn’t want to wait for all the stone to smelt, so I went out to find some wood for an animal pen. I was low on pretty much every wood other than oak, and using oak wood for anything other than a house’s framework is a big no in my book. So, I took my saplings and planted them outside of Vellichor. For reference, Vellichor is the valley in which I am building, and I am yet to choose a world name.

After having planted saplings of the river and birch tree variety, I cast off to go find an animal. I was running around and exhausting my hunger bar when I ran into a male sheep just outside where I was building my pen. Near him were two female sheep that I also brought back to base. At this point, they were tearing up the grass, so I went to get a hay bale and was pleased to find the three sheep looked right at home in their pen. I bred them with wheat, then went off to find cows.

Instead, I found two adorable chickens in the swamp that I enticed with seeds and led back to the pen. They seemed to hate the entire journey and kept walking into the water rather than walking normally. After about five minutes, they were in the pen with the sheep and I bred them. Realizing I had no idea how to tell when the sheep would give birth nor if the breeding of the chickens actually did anything, I resorted to the world-wide web; specifically, the Genetic Animals Mod front page. I learned that Shift+RMB would open up a menu in which you could see the animal’s hunger, age, and sex. Thankfully, the wheat was effective and the sheep was pregnant. As for the hen, her eggs were fertile, so I got to hatch a little baby chick.

Moving on from the animals, I decided I needed to find a village and trade with the villagers. I departed on a noble quest to find civilization and got quickly distracted by a spruce forest by the open ocean. I needed spruce, so I cut down a few trees and went to the coast to see the ocean, hoping to find some sea creatures from Upgrade Aquatic. I instead was greeted by a large purple sea serpent who proceeded to outswim me, leap at me, and kill me. Quickly I ran back to my death point from base to find my items scattered across the ground and the serpent killing the local sea life. I grabbed the stuff and made a run for it, being constantly terrified by the serpent’s hisses.

After that fatal encounter, I figured that there was nothing worse out there, so I kept going, this time avoiding the ocean. I quickly arrived in the middle of the plains biome and saw a cyclops. I decided the cyclops probably wouldn’t notice me, so I ran past it (staying about 30 blocks away). Then I saw another. And yet another. I was in the middle of a triangle formed by three large one-eyed people. But, I saw a village, so I tried to head over there. I somehow succeeded, but then realized the village had a huge charred nest right next to it, with a dragon flying above. These guys really chose the worst place in the world to live.

Having survived my (second, I died on the first) encounter with a sea serpent, I figured an adult fire dragon would have the same area of perception. I was wrong and the dragon flew at me when I was still far away from any form of shelter. Then came a blur of mining down as the dragon set everything above me on fire. I mined away and then tried to get back up to the surface, which resulted terribly, as shown by my recording of the event (this is the end result, the whole attack lasted 10 minutes).

That is where I am as of now. On half a heart, about to burn to death, and my items are bound to be burned as well. Many things went wrong, I just hope I can get there before my stuff despawns. But alas, that is a task for another day.

Recently, I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft, specifically the modded kind. I created a new world in which I’m mostly building (What did you expect? Actual gameplay?). The two mods I installed (by myself because I’m a very smart person), are the Ice and Fire mod and Upgrade Aquatic. The two are absolutely amazing together! Ice and Fire has dragons and a bunch of mythological creatures, while Upgrade Aquatic has a ton of fish. I love both, so I’m really glad I could figure out how to install mods. Also, I installed a mod called Origins, but it’s not compatible so I’ll try it after I finish with the others.

I only just started two days ago, but I have a mine down to diamond level (y-coordinate of 11) and a little pumpkin farm. I have to say, the water plants and fishes added by the aquatic mod are so pleasing to look at. I set up base near a lake, so I can place a bunch of plants that are annoying to go through, but look pretty. Unlike with people, looks do matter and if it’s sub par, I will destroy it. F*ck you ecosystem, I need my color palette!

In my little area where I have set up base, I have a mine that goes down into not one but two ravines, a pumpkin farm which is rather pathetic, a beautiful pond full of pike, and lots of trees. I must say, I went a bit crazy with the mulberries, but what can I say? I simply love them.

I am greatly surprised by how much I accomplished within two days. I already got diamonds, a farm, and something to later worship. That last one was when I was killing some fish for food, and found this beautiful black pike swimming around. I named him Abyss and he is living happily in a small pond by my pumpkin farm.

As for the worshipping part, I have a feeling that Abyss here is going to get involved in some shady activities requiring me to think outside the box for explanations. Just a hunch, or is it?