Black Temple

Black Temple was one of my first major projects and now stands as my signature one. It is a classical Greco-style temple, build with obsidian, sandstone, and cobblestone.

The obsidian is rarely mined, but "cast-on-sight" - that is, me taking 28 buckets down to a lava pit, filling them up, then taking two water buckets and two stacks of gravel also back to the surface. I use the gravel to make a mold of each layer of the column, then fill that mold with water, and finally "cast" the lava directly into where it needs to be. Each column takes roughly a little less than one Minecraft day to cast, depending on how close the lava spring is, which is slightly better time than if I was mining it - and less taxing on the wrist, too.

The original Black Temple was built during the second iteration of the Acidcraft server, around the time of its first major griefing attack. It was envisioned as a challenge to the griefer - while he could break glass vandalize our work, there was very little at all he could hope to do to the temple - but after he was found out and banned, it took on new meaning. I used it as the centerpiece of the town is occupied, which began to decline after the griefing, and it became a symbol of the town's revitalization afterwards.

The second Black Temple (featured in the schematic) was built on the third iteration of the Acidcraft server. It was a duplicate of the first, though I'd mastered the casting technique and was able to complete it much faster than the first. This iteration does not make use of the gate featured in the screenshots, however, as it was built in a secure zone.