The Wither was introduced to Minecraft during the "Very spooky update", also known as 1.4; however, the origins of this new powerful and mysterious boss mob was never revealed, just as with other Minecraft mobs.

Many people have conjured up their own stories that describe the tale of the wither, and offer some consolation for the mystery we face, but none of them have been fully satisfactory for me. Of course, everyone has their own views and interpretations on the shadowy parts of Minecraft lore but that's exactly what makes these unknown things fun. As a result, I've gone ahead and created my own "story" to the wither and created a drawing to show how I see this powerful force, and then I'll discuss improvements that can be made to the wither's gameplay in minecraft.



The nether was accessed by the ancient world, the civilization before the world was reformed leaving one survivor without a clue to what happened. Powerful black magic accessed by the old witches allowed the ancients to enter the Hellish dimension and explore the vast landscapes over the lava seas. The intentions of the ancients was to explore and understand the other worlds that existed, but discovering minerals and organisms that displayed peculiar qualities lead them to dominate the dimension.

Life was difficult: the transfer of livestock lead to monsters as the cows disintegrated into organic matter that eventually littered the dimension and tried to suck in anyone who'd dare to walk on it, pigs would become disfigured by the infections caused by a strange plant that begun to grow out of the organic matter the cows melted into. The pigs eventually took on a humanoid form and acquired a lust for gold. Witches took interest in the plant that caused disease and studied its properties in hopes for making stronger potions while the ancients took to building fortified castles in defense of the "Ghosts" as they called them: Masses of flesh that had the appearance of newborns, but grotesque outline of jellyfish. Witches cultivated the treasured plant within the walls of these castles because their potion making potential was too tempting to overlook, and ancients became demented over years of dealing with the strange surreal world.

But, one day, the leader of the ancients fell into a puddle of lava. The liquid rock seared his top layer of flesh off, but managed to be rescued by other ancients. The leader was dying, and the ancients turned to the witches for salvation. The witches experimented with different methods of brewing the plant they held with such strong reverence, but none of them were able to fully heal the man. Experimentation with more toxic minerals was out of the question until one witch decided to take the risk. He took sulfur, neurotoxin proteins, and fruit extract to generate a potent potion. He believed that the sulfur would kill any remaining dead flesh, and the neurotoxin protiens would aid in destroying damaged nerve endings, and he utilized fruit extract to help regenerate any exposed flesh. All of these ingredients brewed with the plant they cultivated should have worked according to the witch, but something worse happened.

The leader's dead flesh was destroyed and the exposed healthy flesh began to grow back. The ancients celebrated shortly until the regeneration took a turn. The man's body began to distort, his arms and legs grew longer and thinner, and his flesh began to shrink down to the bone. His body began to dry and char, until he became a black skeletal being. The ancients were in shock, and in a fury tried to kill the witch that killed their leader. A faint glow began inside the skull of the ancient who just died, and the light began to grow stronger, quickly washing over the ancients and witches. The body was reanimated, but hostile. It lashed out at a nearby ancient, drawing blood. The ancient screamed in terror as his flesh then began to char and disintegrate at the wound. They quickly attacked back at the being, but even thought the being was in pieces now, the skull continued to glow. Witches inspected the cranium, discovering a small pile of hot dust collected at the bottom of the skull. When they held it, they were overwhelmed by an intense feeling of power, agility, and gained incredible regenerative properties, but the dust quickly disintegrated; possibly through the use. The ancients became enthralled by the event, and desired to know more about the strange dust.

After a decade of further madness, the ancients became obsessed with the powder. The witches had aided the ancients in sacrificing captives by making them ingest the potion that created the withered being. They intentionally created hundreds of these creatures and kept them locked in the dungeons of the fortress, saving them for the final ritual. After years of collecting these creatures, the ancients killed them, and brought the skulls to the witches where the dust would be collected. They found that the dust was the concentrated soul of the humans being sacrificed, which offered unearthly powers to those that were near it. They coated three skulls with the dust, as it amplified the energy. The skulls were brought together, along with a generous supply of organic matter, leftovers from the disintegrated cows, to create a being that generated a core of this dust within itself. They planned to dispatch it and harvest the core, but were all killed by it.

The ancients inside hell were all destroyed by the massive creature, inside of which were hundreds of souls, growing and feeding the beast.

-end

The wither could be improved in a few ways, I think. For one, the wither's AI could be worked on so that it isn't constantly hovering above you. This leads to wither fights being nothing more than gearing up with enchanted diamond armor and waiting in pits to kill the wither hovering above you. If the wither is programmed to stay at a small distance from the player and circling them in a way that would allow the wither to dodge arrows, gameplay against the wither would be more fun, being forced to aim at it instead of just shooting up at it. Furthermore, the netherstar could be put to other uses as well, possibly in potions. If we could brew potions of wither using the nether star, and have the ability to gain the life being taken from enemies similarly to the wither, it would offer more choices to the item in the game.

That's all I have to say about the wither. If you guys have any opinions on the story and suggestion to the wither's game play, commend below.