Special Areas

Some interesting locations in Minecraft aren’t common parts of their biomes. These places aren’t 100% unique, but they’re pretty close. You might go days or weeks without finding some of these, so they’re awesome treats when you uncover them.

Abandoned Mineshafts

These pre-existing tunnels are found underground in the Overworld. They’re useful because they often let you travel quickly through an area, finding spare Railways, Coal, Iron, perhaps Cobwebs, and such. Chests of both common and rare treasures are located in these shafts, so search them thoroughly. You might find Diamonds, special Seeds, Saddles, Horse Armor, or Enchanted Books.

While you search, remember to keep all Torches on one specific side of the shaft. This ensures that you know how to get back to the entrance when you decide to leave.

Monster Spawners in these shafts create Cave Spiders—they’re poisonous, so be careful when you fight them. Keep your health high, and bring Milk if at all possible. It’s nice to have as a backup after a close fight.

Dungeons

Huge cave complexes often have a small Cobblestone room with a Monster Spawner inside them. These rooms are called dungeons. They contain Chests of treasure, so they’re excellent to find, and you can build deadly trap rooms to farm experience from the Monster Spawners if you have the inclination to do so.

Dungeons are found in the Overworld, and the best way to raise your chances of seeing them is to dig through areas until you find ravines or caverns. Follow these all the way to their end, while looking for high concentrations of monsters; that’s sometimes a tipoff that a Monster Spawner is there. If you dig in an area and hear monsters, always search for the cavern that houses the beasts, and you may find a dungeon.

Dungeon Chests can hold Golden Apples, high-quality Horse Armor, Name Tags, Music Discs, Saddles, and other decent goodies. It’s always good to loot these locations!

Nether Fortresses

These monster bastions are located in the Nether. They’re made of Nether Bricks and are well defended by Blazes, Wither Skeletons, Magma Cubes, and a Monster Spawner (which makes even more Blazes). You can’t find Nether Wart anywhere else in Minecraft, so that alone is a good reason to search for a Nether Fortress. Nether Wart is required for any real brewing, so finding a source of this rare herb is amazingly good news.

If you find a Nether Fortress and don’t get everything you want out of it, search directly north or south from there to find more fortresses. They’re always aligned in this way, so looking east or west will get you off track. On the other hand, if you can’t find any fortresses, travel east or west in the hopes of finding your first one.

As with most special locations, Nether Fortresses have Chests of loot as well as rare resources. Diamonds, metal, Golden equipment, Saddles, Horse Armor, and Nether Wart are all possible rewards here.

Don’t assume you’ve seen all of a Nether Fortress once you’ve explored the areas above ground. These massive complexes can be buried in the ground, requiring some serious excavation to dig out.

Villages

Happy towns of peaceful Villagers exist in the Overworld. Search plains, desert, and savanna biomes to find them. Once you do, talk to the Villagers by approaching them and interacting with each person. They have different professions and items to trade. They request specific items and give Emeralds as payment. These Emeralds can then be traded for items that the Villagers create.

Look for rare items in town. Chainmail armor, Bottles of Enchanting, and a few other fun toys are available this way.

If you cause too much trouble in a Village, the Iron Golems that defend it become aggressive toward your character.

Things That Influence Your Popularity in a Village

If you want to trade and walk safely around town, avoid hitting any Villagers, and run away from them if you get into any trouble. Don’t fight your way out, and don’t attack the Iron Golems even if they come after you.

Village Blacksmiths often have cool loot. Search their buildings for Chests, and trade with the Blacksmiths to see if they have anything fun to offer.

If you’d like to expand a Village, add Doors to its buildings. This causes even more Villagers to spawn. You’re also free to add physical defenses so fewer Zombies can reach and attack the Villagers. Zombies are a major threat to towns. Wall off remote areas to provide some defense. Zombies spawn within town limits, so there’s only so much you can do, but building good walls is a start, and they make Villages look even more exciting.

Also, use Iron Golems for additional Village defenders. Either fight aggressively to protect townsfolk during the evening, or run away before sunset and keep your distance from town to prevent it from being attacked. Zombies won’t siege a Village unless you’re nearby.

Strongholds

These large, dangerous complexes are major features in the Overworld. They can appear in any biome, and they’re always somewhat closer to your starting point. In other words, you won’t find them hours away from home. They’re a critical part of the game’s progression, because you can only reach The End and face the Ender Dragon by finding a Stronghold and activating its portal.

Use Eyes of Ender to locate strongholds. These special items give you a direction to the nearest stronghold. They’re often deep underground, but they may bump into ravines or other special terrain features.

Once you find a stronghold, be careful. Monster Eggs are common, so Silverfish are major threats. They attack in large groups if you trigger them, and strongholds contain Monster Spawners that deploy even more Silverfish to hassle you.

Once you find the heart of the stronghold, destroy its Monster Spawner and look for the End Portal. Activate these with more Eyes of Ender and explore The End.

Treasure Chests in strongholds feature a huge range of rewards. Storage rooms have Chests with a chance to yield metal, food, and an Enchanted Book. Rooms with Slabs may have Ender Pearls, metal, food, Iron equipment, Golden Apples, Saddles, Enchanted Books, or Horse Armor. Library rooms can have Books, Paper, Maps, Compasses, or Enchanted Books.

Temples

Desert, Ocean, and jungle biomes have the potential to host temples. These neat land features are normally found at ground level and are quite fun to explore. They often hold considerable treasure, so everyone loves to look for them.

Don’t relax while you wander through these structures. They often have traps, and you don’t want to get yourself killed and lose so much potential treasure in the process.

Explore carefully and look for traps before triggering them. Be willing to dig around hallways and come in from the side or rear of each chamber to avoid trouble. Or disarm traps by finding their Tripwires/Pressure Plates; break those to disable the traps.

Witch Huts

Most often located in swamp or plains areas, Witch Huts are small residences that may have Witches in them—Witches don’t spawn there forever, so any that have fallen out, left, or been killed won’t reappear.