Ghosts & Graves is a side project of mine where I go over my ideas for an expansive update to Minecraft, centered around horror/Halloweeny elements. This is NOT a mod or a game. It's just a collection of ideas. I worked on this in 2020-2021 with some contributions and input from @turntail , @Emilmacko , @Phisnom , @StupidButterfly , and @YEPmulti .

Please watch part 1, The Overworld, here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2SGzEdE4IL4

And now you get to check out Part 2. I'm just sharing the script, instead of presenting it as a video, since Part 1 unfortunately flopped pretty hard. I will format these in the form of multiple tweets per day, for multiple days (maybe up to 5). This will be a lot of reading. Here's the first section!

So we’ve finally reached part 2 of Ghosts & Graves, where I talk about a new dimension for Minecraft. And, as I suspect most of you have guessed, it is called the Underworld. Now, you might be thinking, “But hold on, isn’t the Nether the Underworld”? I wouldn’t consider it the Underworld, in a literal sense. The Nether is much more of an illustration of the stereotypical, modern, Christian portrayal of hell, which is not the same thing as the Underworld, which is mostly used in reference to the Greek mythological realm of the dead. The Nether, as torturous and firey as it may be, is not the realm of the dead in Minecraft. It’s moreso just a place of violence and danger. So let me introduce you to a place for souls even more dead than those in the Nether… the Underworld.

The Underworld is the fourth dimension in Minecraft, logically placed at the very bottom of the universe, acting as a home for souls and creatures that can’t thrive in the Nether. I’m sure you’ve noticed that at the bottom of the overworld is a bedrock floor, and at the ceiling of the Nether is a bedrock ceiling. To travel to the Nether you need a portal, but have you ever thought that the Nether is supposed to be below the Overworld, logically? I think that’s supposed to be the case, though it has never been illustrated in-game, because if you mine through either of those bedrock layers you’ll find yourself face to face with the void. But the only reason the void is in the game is to make world sizes more manageable. Having to load both the Overworld and the Nether at once would take a huge toll on the game.

So, let’s assume that the Nether is actually underneath the Overworld and that the Overworld’s floor and the Nether’s ceiling are supposed to be the same thing. That would make a fair bit of sense, and it’s a fun idea to play with. But with that comes a new question. What is underneath the Nether’s bedrock floor? Because yes, unlike The End, the Nether does have a floor that can’t be broken through. And this is where the Underworld Rift from Part 1 comes into play. A structure that lets players travel even deeper into the world’s core, to fall through the Nether and access the deepest, darkest parts of Minecraft.

In my idea of Minecraft’s world, you could place The End at the very top of the world. It might even be in outer space, what with its moon-like block textures and pitch-black sky. Then there’s the Overworld, a dimension with no ceiling but with a bedrock floor. Under that is the Nether, with both a bedrock ceiling AND a bedrock floor. And then below that is a final layer called the Underworld, which has a bedrock ceiling but no floor. This concludes Minecraft’s world. Now that I’ve explained where and how the Underworld exists, let’s explore it a bit.

The Underworld is a desolate, cold, wasteland, comprised of islands connected to its bedrock ceiling by pillars, sprinkled with bright green pools of toxic liquid. This world has a very sombre atmosphere, a scary but also sad landscape. It’s a place that humans definitely shouldn’t be in. If you look at the ceiling as soon as you fall into the Underworld, you’ll see clusters of bedrock tubes, one of which would have been the one you fell through. But you can’t escape through these tubes. If you reach them, you’ll see that they’re blocked off. So yeah, you’ll need to find another way out. But let’s stay a while and take a look at the environment a bit, and then we’ll get to the mobs that live down here (my favourite part).

Firstly, look at the floor. This light-purple rock is called Sleepstone, and it’s the foundation of the Underworld. It can be mined with a pickaxe and turned into most things that stone can be turned into. It also has polished and chiseled versions which can be acquired through familiar means. You’ll see a lot of Sleepstone as you explore the different biomes, so you can compare this to the Nether’s Netherrack, or the End’s End Stone.

Next is Styx Liquid. There’s a river in the Ancient Greek Underworld called the River Styx, and this river is basically what bridges the Earth with the Underworld, comprised of souls of the dead. It also apparently had magical properties that could make someone invulnerable, but in this update, Styx is the name of the liquid itself that you’ll find in the Underworld, and unlike the mythology, it’s actually very dangerous here. It’s also impossible for this block to interact with any other liquid block in the game. That’s because if you pick up Styx Liquid with a bucket and place it in any other dimension, it will burst into a cloud of souls. Lava, when placed in the Underworld, will immediately turn into Basalt (because apparently Lava plus Souls plus Cold equals Basalt), and Water will immediately turn into ice. So yeah, you can’t mix these liquids. Styx will deal damage to the player, like lava, but it can be travelled across with any boat.

Next is Nether Ash. Nether Ash is a beige coloured block with a unique gradient on its side that gives it a cool layered look when placed on top of itself. This naturally happens a lot in the Underworld’s Ash Piles biome, which has many mounds of ash that has fallen from the Nether through the bedrock above. This block is the only gravity-obeying block that naturally spawns in the Underworld.

There’s also Under Ground, which is this dimension’s version of dirt or soul soil. It can be mined quickest with a shovel, and it’s the base of a plant that we’ll get to later. This block has a strange, swirly texture that almost resembles a brain. It’s also a dark reddish-purple rather than a brown, which gives it a nice contrast with the light-purple Sleepstone that it often spawns next to.

Next are the Underworld’s deposit blocks. Instead of having ores that are hidden inside of walls, the Underworld has two minerals that are much easier to spot from a distance, as they form large, brightly-coloured crystals on Sleepstone blocks. These are the Ectoplasm Deposits and Pink Salt Deposits. Mining an Ectoplasm Deposit will instantly yield usable Ectoplasm. Pink Salt, when mined from a deposit, has a number of uses. Firstly, Pink Salt can be thrown straight from the hand, and if you chuck salt at any type of ghost, it will have a knockback effect on them without dealing any damage. And yes, I said any TYPE of Ghost. You can also craft Pink Salt Blocks, which are area-of-effect repellents against ghosts, even if they’re obscured by other blocks. So you can hide Pink Salt Blocks underneath the walls of your house to protect it from ghost invasions if you want. Pink Salt Blocks also deal damage to all types of ghosts if they touch them, and it’s not possible for them to walk through them. Perfect if you somehow make a Ghost farm. And lastly, Pink Salt can be used to improve the saturation of all cooked foods in the game, multiplying the saturation level by 1.5x. This is applicable to all cooked meats and baked potatoes. Doing this will give the food a “Salted” effect, which adds the same visual effect as an enchanted weapon. Pink Salt is a pretty useful element in the Underworld that I feel like a lot of people will appreciate finding.

To be continued tomorrow!