No real ideas for this yet, but it should be quite involved (and not in the "complicated/expensive crafting" sense).

I've recently found this mod and, being vegan irl, would love to suggest a bunch of features, so I may or may not be bumping the help wanted issues, sorry in advance xP

I always thought that the dragon laying an egg after it dies is weird.

Immediate solution: add another dragon and breeding mechanics. That'd be a lot of work, especially considering that the dragon is really jank in vanilla atm (end update soon? one can only hope). And then there's the issue of whether or not it's actually vegan - you don't eat it, but you do use it?

More thought through answer: well, boss fights in general are inherently non-vegan-friendly so, unless you're willing to change Minecraft lore and say the ender dragon is actually an android (like blazes? thanks matpat), perhaps replacing the End's battle with some other kind of "task" would be the way to go? Not entirely sure what that could be though. Maybe navigating some kind of sky-village inhabited by dragon-villagers, and you help them with something and they reward you with an egg or smth like that.

See you in the next issue!

@erima Your thoughts of "enderdragon egg having no usage" is wrong. You are only thinking with vanilla. But you have to consider mod integrations too. Pretty cmmon mod; in Witchery dragon eggs can be used to boost altar power, and there are crafting recipes which require an dragon egg in Draconic Evolution Mod (okay that mod lets you revive the dragon but still)

@jawsawn I was looking at it more from a balancing against vanilla perspective, but yeah, that's true.

I like the appeasement idea. I have a couple more that I came here to jot down:

• Going to the end is still possible with VO, but getting back is impossible without a boss battle.
• What's the point? Is there a use for the dragon egg in VO beyond being a trophy?
• Perhaps the thing that the dragon wants is a way out of its prison (The End).
• Letting it free grants you the egg but on the flip side there's a fricking dragon loose in the Overworld that can cause destruction if provoked.

• True, didn't think about that.
• The point would be twofold: 1) to make the mod include alternatives for all animal products, and 2) to provide a method to trigger the credits screen (these could be achieved by totally separate things, though)
• Seems interesting, will think more about possible avenues for that

One possibility:

• Some interaction with Ender Rift's allows teleportation to a new "The End"-like dimension
• This new dimension would have a dragon egg in it, but you'd have to get past a difficult obstacle course to retrieve it (would need to disable all forms of flight in this dimension); something like Castlevania 64's Tower of Science/Tower of Sorcery, perhaps?

From Baf on a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article:

Of course, the endgame itself can’t be passed without killing the dragon. But maybe they’ll put in an alternative for that at some point too — throw gold at it until it’s satisfied and flies away, or something.

This is something I somehow hadn't considered: an alternate method of 'defeating' the dragon that involves some sort of appeasement.

I got an idea. But before...
"Killing an animal leaves blood and food, but making it by the vegan way doesn't leave blood, it needs blood (aka hard work and well thinking).

So This is my idea,

• Create an ender rift
• Throw an plastic egg into the rift
• And sacrifice 100 levels of experience (its an example, you can decide less or more) in the rift (also either by dropping the xp orbs or player standing in the rift takes the experience from the player)
• cool explosions? Nearby stones/cobblestones turn into endstone? (possible way to gather endstone btw!)
• And then the ender rift forms an egg holder (like the ones gen after you beat the dragon) but obsidian instead of bedrock