Hi gang!

Editorial (intro)

Playing modded Minecraft can be an amazing and highly satisfying experience. With the right mods you can change or expand the game in nearly any way you want it to go. However... this can also pose a bit of a problem...



This is my friend Aya who recently managed to generate enough mana which allowed her to create several terrasteel ingots; this is an end game material provided by the Botania mod and it allows you to craft terrasteel armor (see above) as well as several terrasteel items like a sword ("Terra Blade"), axe (shown above: the Terra Truncator) and also the Terra Shatterer; a pickaxe unlike any other.

The armor easily matches a set of Netherite armor, but is actually a lot better. One of its perks for example is constant health generation; even if your hunger bar isn't entirely filled. Mana usage for tools such as rods is also decreased by 20% and to top it of the armor can even passively generate mana if you keep a so called mana tablet on you to collect said mana.

All terrasteel items can use mana reserves carried by the user in order to negate any wear and tear. In other words: as long as you have a source of mana available then all your items from terrasteel (and also manasteel) will automatically repair themselves.

Needless to say: this can gain you a lot of extra advantages over time, but this can also mean that your abilities will heavily surpass the expected difficulty of the game. Especially when you play with several mods together. For example... the Ars Nouveau mod which provides a spellbook that you can use in whatever way you'd like, assuming you have the resources to unlock all of its specific features. But shooting fireballs at hostiles, keeping yourself affected by nightvision (or other positive effects) and healing yourself whenever you need? Easy!

So if wither skeletons, pillagers, whole hordes of angried zombie pigmen (in the nether of course) and even the wither itself no longer really pose a challenge then maybe it's time to raise the stakes...

Ice & Fire: Dragons

The 'Ice & Fire: Dragons' mod adds a whole plethora of mystical creatures to the world of Minecraft. If you enjoyed watching fantasy series like Game of Thrones, Xena, Hercules or movies such as Clash of the Titans then you're very likely going to love this mod. As you can see it's not just dragons which got added to the game, but other mystical creatures from both Greece and Roman history ("mythology") as well. The cyclops (shown in the screenshot above) which can kill players by literally picking them up and biting their head off... Or what about the infamous gorgon (remember Medusa?) which can turn everyone to stone. Both players and any other mobs out there. Better be careful, because if you become a statue you can kiss your gear goodbye!

These are basically mini bosses, but we also get other hostile creatures like sirens, liches and even sea serpents. And passive creatures which can also help you, like the magical pixies.

New armor and mechanics!

However, this mod isn't only about adding new (hostile) creatures to the world, it also introduces new game mechanics as well as new places to explore. Ever fancied to hatch, raise and maybe ride your own dragon? Well... now's your chance! The "only" thing you'll have to do is try and get your hands on a dragon egg. No... not the one from the Ender dragon ;)



The mod adds several new types of armor to the game which can be crafted with items dropped by the various new mobs. A nice detail here is that these armor types (and optional specific weapons) also have an actual function. For example... what is the best material to cause a solid dose of damage against werewolves according to fantasy lecture? Easy: silver! So it shouldn't come as a surprise that if you craft a silver sword then it gets you 2 bonus damage points when using it to fight undead mobs.

And there are more nifty tools provided. The dreaded gorgon which I mentioned earlier can turn you to stone ("insta-kill") by merely looking at you. So how can you protect yourself from that? Easy: make a blindfold using 2 string and one leather. Sirens are mermaid like creatures who can lure you towards them by their singing. Better watch out because when you get to close they'll show their true hideous form and try to kill you. Fortunately we can now craft earplugs to block their lure.

In addition we also get several cosmetic blocks too, such as dragon scale blocks, charred and frozen blocks (these form when a dragon wrecks havoc on the overworld) and dragon bone. And we can also create piles of gold, silver and copper. After all: dragons are said to prefer sleeping on their treasure.

While there are dozens of new mystical mobs added by this mod the focus is obviously with the dragons. If you manage to slay a female dragon then you may be able to snatch some eggs from her. These eggs can be hatched after which a new baby dragon gets born. It's even small enough to sit on your shoulder! Either wait long enough or feed it with some dragon meal (made from bones and meat) and you'll be able to slightly speed up his growing process.

This is not a mob which will immediately change from a cub into an adult: it will go through several stages of its lifespan, five in total, and eventually growing big enough for you to actually ride it. But that's not necessarily the end of it because they become ridable at their 3rd life stage ;) Fun fact: you can even craft dragon armor for your dragons!



Dragons come in three different variants: fire dragons are the most commonly found: they can breath fire, they can grab you with their mouth and shake you around causing huge amounts of damage before they spit you out, hurling you away, eventually causing even more (fall) damage. They can also use their tail to whack you around. Ice dragons use ice breath attacks, as their name already implies. These attacks shoots ice spikes at you which will cause you both physical and freezing damage. They can use the same physical attack techniques as a fire dragon but will also turn the whole world around them into ice. Better be careful because they can easily freeze you to death!

And finally the lightning dragon... this one uses electricity as its breath attack and while that may not sound too impressive... it's attack is actually the most deadly of all dragons.

If you manage to slay a dragon you can obviously gain spoils from them. These don't drop as with other mobs but instead you need to go up to the dead dragon and interact with the body to grab its spoils. In addition you can also come across dragon skeletons within several biomes which can provide you with a solid amount of dragon bones; these are an essential ingredient to craft tools such as a dragon horn and dragon staff; both of which give you the power to command your tamed dragons.

Dragon fights are very difficult but fortunately you can get yourself some help. See, it's not only dragons that you can befriend. The cockatrice is a wild and dangerous mob which you can actually tame, though it won't be easy! Once tamed it can then help you in fights, and it's actually ferocious enough to make a difference while fighting a dragon.

Underwhelming starting process

You don't really "get started" with this mod, which can be a little confusing at first. The mod provides an in-game book called the Bestiary which can be crafted with 3 manuscripts; these are paper items that you can find as loot in dungeons. Or... if you're lucky then you may be able to find a villager scribe which might be willing to trade emeralds for manuscripts.

However this bestiary isn't enough. When crafted it provides you with one chapter ("Introduction") which only briefly mentions some of the new armor and tools and then points you to the Bestiary Lecturn: this is a block where you can apply other manuscripts to your bestiary in order to unlock new chapters. Each chapter will cost you 3 manuscripts and the chapters which you can unlock are picked by random with a total of 28 chapters to unlock. Fortunately this lecturn can also be used as a profession block to employ a villager as a scribe, which makes it a viable source for manuscripts.

Still... after having only unlocked 4 or 5 chapters of the bestiary my friend already lost interest because of the random approach, and the fact that there's also no way to really tell anyway what mob you're going to find out in the world. Fortunately this isn't a big issue, but it can make it a little frustrating to get started with all this, especially if you don't yet fully know what you can expect. It also doesn't help that the mod changes the main menu of your Minecraft game thus giving off the impression that you're going to get some kind of a full gaming "adventure". This custom menu is an option which can be turned on or off by the way.

But like I said, it's a non-issue because the quality of this mod is truly outstanding. Not to mention that it's still a work in progress: new features get added with nearly every new release. Why outstanding?

Well... have you ever played around with using the /summon command to add mobs to your world? Sure, you can also use a spawn egg, but using the /summon command allows you to further customize any mobs by using NBT tags. Maybe you want to give it a custom name, or customize some of its properties and capabilities? At the very least you'll want to tag a mob so that it'll be easier to address it in other commands at a later time.

Now, one of these properties that you might find useful is NoAI; this will instruct the mob not to "do" anything other than standing around.

So here's the thing: pretty much every mob in the game has an idle animation. Even you: go stand somewhere, press F5 to toggle your perspective and you'll notice that your character is constantly moving their arms a bit.




See, idle animations aren't always common with certain mods. Despite being pretty popular the mobs from Ars Nouveau don't have any idle animations: they just stand there being quite lifeless.

You guessed it: the mobs from 'Ice & Fire' all do have idle animations, where those for the dragons are pretty impressive if you ask me! Have you seen the logo for this blog post? All Aya and me did was stand / pose there and when the dragon started doing the thing we wanted I simply snapped a screenie.

In conclusion

Like I said before: if you're into 'fantasy' then I'm convinced that you're going to love this mod! Please keep in mind that it can also become a little frustrating at times... here you were trying to simply use a boat to get to the other side of an ocean and sure enough: suddenly you're being attacked by a sea serpent. That can be annoying, obviously.

But seriously: this mod adds some awesome new appeal to cave exploration! See, while you can find some dragons in the overworld above ground those are actually considered the "small" ones, but do note that small does not imply that they're not dangerous. The thing is though... the fully grown and thus seriously tough ones can only be found underground, within huge caves where they spent most of their time sleeping in their lair. These are the types of dragons which you'll want to hunt down if you're looking to get any eggs.

But woe to you if you get too loud and somehow wake them up by accident... these beasts give the Warden a run for its money, that's for sure! Trying to hide from them by staying underground? That's cute, not to worry though: once they located you they'll just destroy the whole area around, and you'll probably get included in that process ;) Get ready for some utter chaos!

And it's not only dragons you'll find down there. There are even 'haunted' mausoleums where foul things roam. Maybe, just maybe you'll be able to get a key from one of the undead guardians which will grant you access to the structure itself. But then again, you'd be a fool to go in there!

But yeah, there you have it! This mod is really something else, highly recommended by the both of us.

And speaking of my friend... special kudo's go out to AyanamiKun for agreeing to help me with the logo for this blogpost. That scene is an homage to the Dragonslayer movie from 1981, which is a favorite with the both of us. And in case you're wondering: yah, this mod actually adds chain "leads" as well which you can even use on other players, this can become quite tricky to get out of.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed and... this mod is really worth checking out!