Volcanoes and Sulphur and Geysers oh my!

As is my way, rather than deal with the various important things that should be occupying my attention I’ve instead been thinking about Minecraft and how it needs a volcanic biome.

The Volcanic Biome would be a rare, warm biome and consist of stone, gravel and terracotta. Plants would be limited to dead bushes, tree stumps and occasional mushrooms and berry bushes. There would be extensive lava lakes and scattered lava source blocks – the latter especially underground so mining would be problematic.

There would be no villages, although perhaps ruined villages (nothing but stone walls left) could be a feature. There would be occasional lakes, mostly floored with magma blocks.

Open topped ravines would be common. Also common would be long, linear caves – lava tubes – just under the surface. Some of them would be roofed by gravel, so having the ground collapse beneath your feet would be a constant risk, which would be particularly unfortunate over one that’s still full of lava.

Volcanoes – conical hills with deep, lava filled shafts at their crests- would of course be common.

The real attraction in the Lava Biome however is geysers!

A geyser block only occurs in a Volcanic Biome. It is extremely hard and if broken is destroyed – unless broken with a Silk Touch pick. It naturally generates on the surface layer with between 1 and 5 lava blocks in a line below it. A water block generates on at least one side.

As long as a geyser block has a lava block below it and is touching a water block on at least one side it will randomly erupt. An eruption is preceded by an increasing rumbling sound for a few seconds (giving players time to run away). It then shoots a stream of particles upwards 5 metres for every lava block below it, to a maximum of 25 metres. Blocks above the geyser will suffer damage and may be destroyed – as per an explosion.

The particles fall to the ground like snow, but inflict fire damage on any mob they hit. They build up in layers, again like snow, and can be harvested with a shovel – although they are tougher than snow and each layer removed only has a 20% change of producing a drop. Particles falling on a geyser block are destroyed and do not create layers – thus keeping the geyser clear.

There are at least two types of geysers, white and yellow. White geyser layers drop bone meal, making them an excellent source of fertilizer. Yellow geyser layers drop sulphur, which is a new resource that can be used in dyeing and potion making. Most importantly it can be combined with charcoal and bone meal to produce gunpowder!

So that’s the idea. I expect my cheque from Mojang directly!