Mowzie's Mobs

 

(ba-ra-KO-ah)
Roaming the savanna, the Barakoa travel in small hunting packs. These goblin-like creatures are one with the masks on their heads, which cannot be removed. Some use bones as clubs while others use poisoned blowdarts. Each hunting pack is led by a Barakoana elite, wielding a spear and shield. The Barakoa make traversing the savanna quite dangerous, as they can surround their prey quickly and put up a good chase.

When defeated, the Barakoa will sometimes drop their masks as items that the player can wear. Each mask bestows a different, small buff.

Barakoa can also be found in villages scattered across the savanna plain.

(BA-rah-koh)
Barako is the chief of the Barakoa tribe, residing in a stationary seat upon a throne in Barakoa villages. He draws his power from the sun, calling forth sunstrikes, solar flares, and massive solar beams. He can also create Barakoa followers - including healers called Barakoaya - from masks to defend him during combat. As such, his masked children revere him as a god. Unequipped travelers should keep their distance from his villages, lest they be smitten by his heliomancy.

Those strong enough to face and defeat him, however, are rewarded with his mask: the Sol Visage. This mask allows its wearers to breathe life into masks to create Barakoa followers. Unfortunately, the mask does not bestow heliomancy upon its bearer; this power is innately carried by Barako, and thus dies with him. Perhaps there is another way...?

(FROST-mah)

Frostmaws are dangerous beasts found rarely in snowy areas. Their massive size, impressive speed, and powerful ice breath make them near-impossible opponents. If, on your travels, you encounter one sleeping in your path, it's likely best to take a different route and let it lay. The beast guards a precious ice crystal that can unleash pure winter energy when wielded.

(GRAH-tohl)

These adorable crystal crustaceans live deep underground in caves and ravines. Sometimes called “living ore,” Grottols are prized as a rare source of diamonds. But only the quickest of adventurers can manage to catch them before they burrow away; grottols are very fast and surprisingly clever, even using minecarts to escape pursuers. Keep in mind that only iron or stronger pickaxes can penetrate their diamond shells.

(LAN-turn)

Lanterns dot the canopy of roofed forests, glowing like jellyfish. Some cultures believe that these creatures contain the souls of the recently deceased. Others wish on them like stars. Adventurers, however, know that the luminous jelly inside lanterns is a great light snack that will briefly illuminate the darkest of nights.

(NAH-guh)

Coastal cliffs are dangerous places. Adventurers tell of winged serpents called nagas with impressive speed and menacing acid venom. Though these drakes are evasive, a well-placed arrow can knock a naga right out of the sky; time your shots to hit when the naga is preparing an attack, and you can defeat it with ease.

Naga acid is deadly, but can actually be used to neutralize other poisons. The fangs they drop upon death can be used to brew poison antidotes and preventatives.

Pet nagas! Maybe rideable?
Pet grottols! They'll search for ores through blocks for you if you bring them with you underground.

Strongholder - Floating gauntlet that grabs, pounds, and swats to attack. Floats eerily through stronghold tunnels, maybe passing through walls.
Phoben - Fear spirit that spawns in roofed forests. Wields fear magic, a lantern, and a long, darkness-infused blade called Ej. Fighting the phoben will involve carefully but quickly deciding when to strike and when to block.
The Sculptor - A simian guru that can be found meditating on mountaintops. He will challenge players to complete obstacle courses made of floating rocks. Those who pass this test are granted the ability to wield powerful earth magic.
Forest Dryad - Will grant players her magic pan flute in exchange for the Phoben's lantern as thanks for defending the forest.
Biloko - Rival tribe of the Barakoa. Jungle pack hunters that lurk in the canopy before leaping down on their prey. Their simian features, ornamented headdresses, long claws, and glowing red eyes strike fear into their prey.
Nimbus Drakes - Flying serpents with clouds billowing from its head and wings. The clouds turn grey before the drake unleashes its lightning attacks. It circles an egg in a nest on the top of its mountain, which can be claimed and hatched by the player who defeats the mother.
The Winter Order - A league of cryomancers residing in a frozen citadel.

Considering:
Large, scary insects in swamps, maybe large, scary frog-things to go with them
Anglerfish-like deep sea monster
Ents that can be created from trees using an item.
Golems that can be created from Geomancy boulders.
Snake Charmer - Humanoid desert boss that spawns in a temple structure. He can summon snake spirits by playing his flute, and can transform into a moving painting on the wall to dodge attacks and move across the room.
Just a plain dragon. I'd like to try my hand at this timeless monster concept.

Lava kraken in the nether
Giant rocky armadillo enemies that roll around mesas. Their shells are impenetrable but their bellies are vulnerable. Trick them into rolling into walls to stun them and flip them over.

I'd like to add at least one mob for each of Minecraft's environments, and I do like suggestions! BUT I'm very picky about what I work on. I would add everyone’s ideas if I could, but I only have so much time to develop content. So, here are some guidelines to help your ideas better meet my standards.

What not to suggest

I will not add monsters from existing franchises and media.

I’m not interested in directly implementing real animals unless the concept has an exciting spin on it. Simply making the animal bigger than it is in real life is not exciting.

I'm not interested in creatures from existing mythologies unless the concept is a really original take on it. I’m not interested in adding variants of existing mobs unless the variant directly expands on and enhances the hook of the original mob. Otherwise, I believe variants make the original mob less special. For example, a petal-frilled foliaath variant in flower forests would only make finding the original jungle foliaath less exciting. Besides, aren’t brand new mobs a much better use of my development time?

No griefing or one-hit-kill moves.

No sci-fi. Mowzie’s Mobs is a fantasy-themed mod.

The “Hook”

Players are inclined to rush into mob battles with the strongest gear they have and simply hit the mob until it dies. But that's boring. A good mob design subverts this approach and makes players think about the mob encounter instead.
To achieve this, mobs need a hook - a core gameplay and design element that makes the mob interesting. This can be a weakness or a strength or a special role in gameplay. All of the mob’s abilities and attacks need to play off of this hook and support it in interesting ways. Players should be able to learn and understand that hook and develop new strategies and ways of playing around it. A mob is not just new because it looks different and has a different name, it’s new because it makes players interact with the game in new ways.

Take the grottol for example. Its hook is it’s a mob that you have to chase down to get a reward - something Minecraft didn’t really have before. It’s resistant to ranged attacks, forcing players to actually chase after it to hit it with a pick. It can hop into Minecarts to get away. It can burrow and disappear if chased too long. Its design is cute and its death animation is sad, making players feel a twang of guilt after chasing it down. All of these things support its hook. (It has a secondary hook too revolving around its living ore theme, which allows you to use silk touch and fortune enchantments when you kill it.) And that’s it! It has no combat abilities, because that wouldn’t support the hook.

Now take Barako. His hook is that he’s a powerful ranged opponent, but he can’t move. So he mainly deals damage from far away with sunstrikes and summoned Barakoa minions. Players will no doubt close in to hit him, so he pushes them away with a solar flare which has high knockback but barely any damage to put them back in his sunstrike gauntlet. The sunstrikes seem to be a basic ranged attack at first, but if you think about it, they come from the sky, allowing clever players to avoid the onslaught by hiding under or building a roof. This is a valid strategy, but once Barako loses some health, he gains new abilities that expand his hook and throw a wrench in players’ plans. His solar beam is line-of-sight based but slow to focus on a target, getting those players camped out in front of him under a roof with a bow but not those running quickly through his sunstrikes. His supernova move was developed specifically to counter players who wall themselves in next to him under a roof or below his throne. It deals massive damage around him, but only after a long charge up time that allows players that haven’t blocked themselves in to get away. It only lifts mobs up and towards him to damage players that dig far down beneath his throne and try shooting his butt with arrows. Every ability has a purpose that works together and supports the hook. It’s streamlined: only 5 abilities. If I gave Barako a big wooden club to wield, it might look cool but it wouldn’t support his hook at all - so I didn’t.

Designing mobs is hard and takes time. But I don’t need a full design from a suggestion. Some of the best suggestions I’ve received were just cool hooks I hadn’t thought of. Think really hard and find that hook.

Tips for coming up with a hook:

- Think of a strategy/item/tool/buff players can use, then design a mob that either counters or is weak to that strategy. For example, Barakoa are weak to area attacks because they focus on swarming the player. The Ferrous Wroughtnaut is strong against weak-but-fast weapons because it can only be damaged once every time its weakness is exposed. The frostmaw is effective against speed potions, because it can freeze players and nullify their movement buffs.

- A more extreme version of the above is to make something that usually helps the player hurt them, or vice versa. A boss could be only damageable by players at less than half health - regeneration and other healing effects would make the boss harder to hit. Fire damage normally hurts the player, but it allows players to escape the frostmaw's frozen effect making it useful.

- Give the mob a 'resource'. A resource is anything the mob uses to fight the player, but has a limited amount of. This can include ammo for powerful attacks/heals or buffs after specific conditions are met. This makes the fight much more interesting than just whaling on each other; the mob will try to accrue this resource while players will try to limit it. The key is to make the way the mob obtains the resource and the way players can limit the resource interesting. For example, a mob could get stronger the more fire blocks are nearby - the mob would buff itself as it sets the ground on fire and players can focus on extinguishing the fire to make the boss weaker again. Maybe a mob gets to use a big fireball each time it takes damage - players will focus on killing it in as few hits as possible, while the mob will focus on taking many small hits of damage.

- Puzzles! While they are way harder to design, logic and reasoning challenges are super interesting. Finding the Wroughtnaut's weakness, realizing you can sneak into Barakoa villages, figuring out how to steal the ice crystal, and discovering that pickaxe enchantments work on grottols are all examples of puzzles. There are two important things to keep in mind, though. First, your puzzle needs to be understandable and solvable without consulting a guide or a wiki; players should be able to use preconceptions and in-game rules to find the solution. Second, the mob still needs to be fun even after solving the puzzle; players will solve the puzzle once, but encounter your mob many many times afterward.

- Play other games. Other video games are great sources of inspiration and can provide new insight into game design. See if you can identify the hooks of enemies you encounter in other video games and think about how those hooks could work in Minecraft.

These aren't the only types of hooks or ways to think of hooks, but I hope this helps get you thinking in the right direction.

Simplify

When it comes to mob design, less is more! Players need to be able to understand everything about a mob without consulting a wiki or a guide, so simplicity and succinctness is key. It also makes it easier for me to read and understand your idea; some of my favorite suggestions have only been a few sentences. If your ideas are paragraphs upon paragraphs of detail, your idea is probably to complex or convoluted. Here are some things to look out for.

Disjointedness - When features or mechanics of a mob don’t come together to support the hook, those ideas are disjointed. Imagine if frostmaws could teleport; it would certainly make them stronger in combat, but it doesn’t work with any of their other themes or abilities. If an ability doesn’t support the rest of the mob design, scrap it.

Redundancy - Think about what role a mechanic or ability fills in a mob’s design and make sure none of the other abilities are filling that same role. For example, a mob that can blind players probably wouldn’t also need an ability that lets it turn invisible. A mob that drops a powerful sword for players to wield probably wouldn’t also need to drop an axe. If two aspects of a mob overlap, pick one instead of both.

Numbers - Exact numbers for movement speed, mob health, attack damage, etc in mob suggestions do not help explain your idea and distract from the rest of the idea. I always change those numbers while playtesting anyway. Instead, try using qualitative descriptors for the mob’s attributes - “a lot of health”, “a little bit bigger than a player”, or “high damage” for example.

Lore - Mobs don’t need complicated backstories. In fact, leaving out a lot of the details behind a mob’s origin or story can help add to the mystery and interest behind the mob. That’s the beauty of ambiguity; players’ imaginations will fill in the blanks in more exciting ways than you can.

Gameplay First

Carefully consider the gameplay your mob introduces. Mowzie's Mobs is a mod for a video game, so before anything else, players' experiences need to be fun and engaging.

Fun, not frustrating - Nobody wants a mod that makes them feel cheated or frustrated. Features that punish players without their agency or force them into unwinnable situations create this sense of frustration, even if they sound like fun on paper. See below for a breakdown of common frustrating and not fun mechanics to avoid.

Idealism over realism - Minecraft is a video game, not a real-world simulator. Certain simplifications are in place to make gameplay simpler, more intuitive, and more fun. Livestock, for example, have a lot of such simplifications. They don’t have food or water needs and they can breed without any notion of male/female. It’s important to prioritize gameplay over reality in mob designs. Unless it’s necessary for a mob’s hook, avoid mechanics like mobs leaving corpses behind when they die or dropping items like “[MOB NAME] meat” or “[MOB NAME] skin”. Just because they would in real life doesn’t mean they should in-game.

Don’t break the rules - Certain gameplay mechanics are already established by vanilla Minecraft and are understood by players. Unless it is necessary for the mob’s hook, don’t break these rules. For example, players understand that undead mobs burn in daylight. So, if you suggest an undead mob, it should probably also burn in sunlight.

Use preconceptions - Players will try to apply their existing knowledge of fantasy and the real world to mobs. They might assume that a frog-like mob enjoys being brought bugs as a snack. They might assume that a necromancer-like boss can summon undead mobs. Don’t fight these tropes, lean into them and let them inform your mechanical designs. Players love it when their assumptions about a mob are correct. It helps them better understand what is going on and what they should do.

Keep it interesting - Players download mods to add new content to the game. Mobs that are mechanically identical to vanilla mobs don’t add anything new to the game and are often boring. Sometimes, even new mechanics are boring; a new mob that does nothing but bite and claw at players is not particularly exciting. Change and enhance the way players play the game with your mob.

What will players do? - Players will always find and take the most optimal action. Try to imagine a player encountering your mob and the actions they will take. If a powerful boss only drops coal, players won’t ever fight it; they’ll choose to get coal more safely by mining. If a mob offers players a choice, make sure that the rewards for each choice match the challenge. For example, a mob that is hard to kill but easy to tame should offer the player a greater reward for killing it; otherwise, players will only ever tame it. Make sure your rewards don’t make other rewards obsolete; a flying mount that is easier to obtain than an elytra makes elytras pointless.

Understandability - Players need to be able to fully understand a mob without consulting a guide or Wiki. Things that behave the same should look and sound the same. Things that behave differently should look and sound different. Mobs need to Telegraph their abilities and give players an opportunity to learn what they do and how to react to them. Mob weaknesses or taming mechanics need to be discernible through observation or clever thinking.

Balance - This goes without saying, but balance is extremely important. Rewards should be proportional to the challenges in their way. Particularly powerful rewards/mobs should have drawbacks or weaknesses. Keep in mind the stage of the game a player might face a mob or obtain a reward, and balance it to match; for example, no early-game weapon drop should be as strong as a diamond sword and no tamed mob should provide flight before a player obtains an elytra.


Fun, not Frustrating

Here are some common mechanics I see in mob suggestions that are almost always more frustrating than fun. You’ll notice a lot of overlap around player agency and unavoidable danger.

Punishment without reason - Anything bad that happens to players needs to be the players’ faults. Undetectable traps, invisible foes, random dangerous encounters all rob players of agency in what difficulties they face. Players need to agree to put themselves in danger by approaching a boss fight, entering a dangerous structure, or exploring a more dangerous biome/dimension.

Random/Unavoidable boss encounters - Forcing players to fight powerful mobs or bosses is very frustrating. Players need to be able to prepare for danger and choose when to face it. In most cases, players should be able to run away from an encounter if they feel they’ve made a mistake in taking it on.

Unavoidable attacks - Mob attacks need to be telegraphed and avoidable. Players should theoretically, if skilled enough, be able to beat a mob without getting hit.

Stealing items - Until a player dies, their items belong to them. Mobs that can take a player’s powerful sword that they worked so hard to make are infuriating and disappointing. Mobs that steal items from chests are even worse, as players likely won’t notice the theft until long after it has happened and can’t do anything to stop it.

Grabbing/immobilizing the player - This one is tricky, as there are ways to do this right. But generally, players don’t like having their controls taken from them. Anything that grabs or immobilizes the player should be brief and/or easily escapable through intuitive means.

Undetectable danger - Players need to be able to see or notice anything that might hurt them. Invisible traps or invisible mobs are, in effect, unavoidable.

Randomness - Randomness needs to be approached with care and restraint. Damaging players purely randomly robs players of agency and can count as an unavoidable attack. For example, a chest-mimic mob that immediately damages a player that opens it would be, in effect, unavoidable. Such a mob would need an indicator that it is a mimic so players can learn to avoid it, or a telegraphed moment before attacking so players can react to it. Another example of frustrating randomness is when the same ability/mob hurts a player by random amounts. Players will become confused and frustrated if a mob’s fireball projectile deals 2 damage the first time it hits and 10 damage the next time. Instead, some sort of indication is necessary to communicate the increased danger.

Griefing - Players work hard to build their bases and become very invested in their creations. Mobs that destroy their hard work by blowing up walls, setting fire to things, raiding players’ homes, or even placing/replacing blocks are frustrating and not fun because they ruin players’ hard work. Even mobs that damage the landscape can create eyesores and frustrate players that value aesthetics. Avoid griefing if possible, or limit it to places players won’t build in or see often. Alternatively, limit block breaking/placing to be temporary effects.

Hyper-specific weaknesses: Mobs that can only be damaged with a particular item (tridents, tnt, etc) are frustrating, as players who aren’t equipped with these items will find themselves unable to fight the mob. Instead, consider making the mob weak to a broader class of items or damage types (projectiles, explosion damage, water).


The Design

A mob’s design is just as important as its gameplay. What it looks like, its personality and atmosphere, and the story it tells are key to a compelling mob idea.

Fitting in - A mob needs to match the environment and atmosphere of the location it is found in. A mob with water-themed abilities shouldn’t appear in dry deserts. An intense brutish warrior might not fit so well in the peaceful flower forests. An acrobatic flying beast might not be the best fit for low, murky, still, and slow swamps of the world. Consider not just the content of the environment, but the intensity of that space as well. Certain biomes, like plains and forests, are more “pedestrian” than their extreme counterparts, like deserts and jungles. The mobs in these biomes should reflect that, with less difficult and less exotic creatures in the pedestrian environments of the world.

Making sense - Think logically when developing and expressing the story of your mob. If something doesn’t make sense, change it. For example, a race of aquatic warriors would be strong swimmers and likely wouldn’t be found in boats. A mob that eats fish shouldn’t be spawning in deserts. On a similar note, it’s a bit strange to see sentient/civilized mobs wandering around randomly in the wilderness; they often feel out of place. Try to convey what the mob is doing there or consider placing such mobs in structures to better anchor them in the world.

Match the mechanics - A mob’s appearance and setting is the first thing a player notices about it. These design elements need to be directly informed by the mob’s gameplay and mechanics. For example, a mob that has ice abilities shouldn’t be bright red and spawn in forest biomes. A mob that attacks a player on sight should look scary and mean, not cute and cuddly. This ensures that your design clearly communicates to players what your mob does.

This document will outline the terms of fair use of intellectual property (including ideas, names, code, models, textures, sounds) collectively comprising the modification "Mowzie's Mobs" for the video game "Minecraft". All assets and ideas present in the mod are property of the individuals aliased "Bob Mowzie" and "pau101" with the following exceptions: code present in packages labeled "LLibrary", code annotated through comments or filenames to credit another author, and sound assets edited from other media (specifics listed in "Credits" section of the mod description on Curseforge).

Cases of private use do not fall under purview of this license. This includes standard modded play, private modpacks, or customization through configuration files or direct editing of modded contents as long as the project, associated files, or related media content (i.e. Youtube videos) are not made available to the public. Any use of Mowzie's Mobs intellectual property that is distributed or made available to the public (via download, screenshots, video media platforms, etc) becomes subject to the constraints presented in this license.

Credit Constraints
All use of Mowzie's Mobs intellectual property must credit the original mod by name ("Mowzie's Mobs") with some form of access or direction to the official mod page on Curseforge (found at this URL: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/mowzies-mobs). Distributors may not claim authorship or ownership of Mowzie's Mobs intellectual property.

Profitability Constraints
Direct sale of Mowzie's Mobs content or assets is strictly prohibited. Ad revenue and download-link revenue is acceptable provided all other terms of this license are met.

Non-Compete
For projects utilizing Mowzie's Mobs ideas, code, or assets, direct competition with the original mod is not permitted. A project is considered in competition with Mowzie's Mobs if it offers to players gameplay features or interactive content from Mowzie's Mobs on the Minecraft Java Edition platform. Modpacks are exempt from this clause so long as they contain sufficiently large amounts of content to warrant the redistribution of Mowzie's Mobs files for ease of installation.

Non-Imitate
Projects not directly utilizing the complete original Mowzie's Mobs mod may not present themselves as affiliated with the official Mowzie's Mobs mod. Such projects must denote their status by including the phrase "Unofficial", "Fan-made", or any other equivalent language somewhere clear and readable to players on any platform showcasing the project.

Non-Manipulate
Alterations to the ideas, assets, and source code from Mowzie's Mobs are permitted so long as such changes remain faithful to the source material. This can include integration with modpacks or story-related changes for modpacks, adventure maps, and video content. Exceptions to this clause can be made on a case-by-case basis; please contact Bob Mowzie if you are planning more drastic changes to Mowzie's Mobs for a project.

The author of Mowzie's Mobs, Bob Mowzie, reserves the right to alter this license as necessary to protect his work in the future.

I wish I could respond to every comment from the community, but doing so takes up a lot of time and involves answering a lot of the same questions repeatedly. As such, I've listed my answers to popular questions here and will no longer reply to questions answered by this FAQ.

My game crashed! What do I do?
Thanks for reporting the crash! It's very important that I hear about crashes so that I can fix them in future releases. But in order to help you, I need to see the crash log. Please upload your crash log to a website like Pastebin and link to it in your comment or Github issue!

Are you going to release the mod for Minecraft 1.19?

Yes! This version port will come soon. I don’t know how long it will take. First, though, we will add the Sculptor NPC to the mod in 1.18.

Will you maintain the 1.12-1.16 versions of the mod after updating to newer Minecraft versions?

Porting forward takes a tremendous amount of work and time, and porting backwards will take just as much. I will continue to fix bugs in the old versions, but no new content will be added to it.

When will the update be ready?

I really don't know! I would tell the community if I had a date in mind. I work on the mod in my free time, which can be very unpredictable. I also don't know if I'll get stuck fixing a bug somewhere. I'm not a professional studio with a release schedule, I'm just a guy with a hobby.

Will you create a Fabric port?
No, sorry. This would require me to reprogram the mod from scratch. It would take far too long to do.

Will Mowzie's Mobs mobs spawn in modded biomes, like those added by Biomes O Plenty? Yes. Mowzie's Mobs uses Biome Dictionary to determine spawn locations. As long as the modded biomes are tagged correctly, my mobs will spawn in them.

If I add Mowzie's Mobs to a preexisting world, will the mobs still spawn?
Yes, but you will have to travel to new chunks to find certain mobs like the Wroughtnaut, Frostmaw, and Barako. These mobs spawn during world generation as structures instead of over time.