Altar (The Graveyard)

Altar (The Graveyard) is a surface structure added by The Graveyard for Minecraft 1.21.1. It is a small ruin of dark deepslate, pedestals and fire braziers that generates in the overworld's cold biomes. Its altar block is the summoning site for the Lich, the mod's multi-phase boss. Summoning the Lich needs a Vial of Blood with at least 0.8 blood, the three bone staff fragments placed around the altar, and night-time in the overworld. Fear Nightfall places the structure among its horror structures, so it is part of the pack's night-time danger.

Generation

The structure generates on the overworld surface using a random-spread placement with a spacing of 21 chunks and a separation of 16 chunks. These are the in-game values, after the pack's structure spacing changes. In a sample of 26 km² of overworld terrain, four altars were found. The structure is placed only where the ground is level: the terrain check covers an 8-block area and rejects sites where the height varies by more than 3 blocks.

The structure can generate in 16 biomes, most of them cold, snowy or icy. The altar's biome tag contains only two vanilla biomes, Snowy Plains and Ice Spikes. The other biomes come from the biome add-ons that the mod supports.

From outside, the altar is a 16 by 16 block ruin of dark deepslate walls, ten blocks tall, with fire braziers and candles.

Layout

The altar is a single template piece with a footprint of 16 by 16 blocks and a height of 10 blocks. The floor and walls are built from deepslate blocks: polished deepslate, deepslate bricks and cobbled deepslate walls, with chiseled deepslate and deepslate tile walls as accents. Slabs and stairs form ledges and steps.

Four pedestals stand at the corners of the first level, and eight fire braziers are set around the room. Candles, mostly white candles, are scattered over the upper levels. Dark iron trapdoors and sea lanterns are placed higher up, and the sea lanterns form a small cluster at the room's centre. The room also has a leaning skeleton, a skull pile, a skeleton hand and a small cyan urn as decoration.

The altar block itself is not in the template. The structure is the ruin around the summoning site, and the altar block must be placed separately (see Altar (The Graveyard)).

Inhabitants

The structure places no mobs and no spawners. Monsters in the area come from the biome spawn lists that the mod adds to the overworld (see The Graveyard), not from the altar.

The altar is the summoning site for the Lich. When the boss is summoned, it appears on the altar, one block above it. During the fight, ghouls are summoned at intervals. The first summons come every 400 ticks, and after 6000 ticks of fight time the interval becomes 600 ticks. Summoning stops while 30 hostile mobs are within 35 blocks of the Lich, and no summons happen during the Lich's hunt phase. The Lich's phases, spells and hunt are described on its own page.

Loot

The altar template contains no chest or other container, so the structure's chest loot below is not rolled by any chest in the layout.

Biomes (16): Snowy Plains, Snowy Badlands, Cold Desert, Muskeg, Tundra, Cold Shrubland, Tundra, Snowy Coniferous Forest, Ice Marsh, Gravel Desert, Glacial Chasm, Ice Spikes, Spires, Snowy Cherry Grove, Rocky Shrubland, Icy Heights

Chest loot: graveyard:chests/small_loot

Item	Chance	Avg. stack
Cobweb	100.0%	4.5
Bone	46.3%	5.2
Rotten Flesh	44.7%	5.2
Gunpowder	41.7%	5.3
String	40.0%	5.2
Moss Block	32.3%	1.1
Amethyst Shard	25.3%	4.9
Copper Ingot	24.7%	2.6
Coal	23.3%	2.8
White Candle	22.3%	2.0
Golden Carrot	21.0%	3.0
Redstone Dust	20.7%	4.3
Leather Pants	20.0%	1.0
Melon Seeds	19.7%	3.6
Pumpkin Seeds	19.7%	3.4
Candle	19.0%	4.3
Raw Iron	19.0%	3.2
Iron Ingot	18.3%	2.7
Raw Gold	17.3%	3.2
Leather Cap	17.0%	1.0
Leather Boots	16.7%	1.0
Raw Copper	16.3%	5.4
Glow Berries	15.7%	1.1
Leather Tunic	15.0%	1.0
Enchanted Book	8.7%	1.0
Gold Ingot	7.7%	2.2
Iron Chestplate	7.3%	1.0
Iron Boots	5.7%	1.0
Iron Leggings	5.0%	1.0
Iron Helmet	4.7%	1.0

Tips

Come to the altar at night, when the summon is allowed. Bring a Vial of Blood with at least 0.8 blood, and collect the three staff fragments and place them around the altar before you start. A successful summon leaves the altar bloody until the Lich dies, and it removes the staff fragments near the altar, so have the fragments ready in the area beforehand. In survival, the summon gives the Darkness effect for about 21 seconds, so set up any light sources before you start. Keep food and healing ready, because the first phase is a casting phase with spells that can take health down quickly.

Obtaining

The altar cannot be obtained in survival. It has no crafting recipe and no loot table, the structure does not place it, and its hardness makes it unbreakable. It is available only in creative mode or through commands.

The three bone staff fragments (upper, middle and lower) are found in three ruin structures, the broken tower, the bloody hill and the campsite. Each ruin holds a different fragment. The Nameless Hanged, which is found at the dead tree structure, can also sell fragments for 64 Corruption.

The Vial of Blood is filled by killing villagers with the Bone Dagger while holding a glass bottle in the offhand. Each kill adds 0.1 blood to the vial, and the blood level is capped below 0.9. A vial must reach 0.8 blood or more to summon the Lich. See Corruption, Vial of Blood and Summoning the Lich for the full process.

Crafting

The pedestal is the only altar-related block with a recipe. It is made from five cobbled deepslate arranged in a T shape.

Pedestal · Crafting

Usage

Right-clicking the altar with a Vial of Blood holding at least 0.8 blood starts the summon, if these conditions are all met:

• the difficulty is not Peaceful;
• it is night in the overworld, or the current dimension has a fixed time of day, such as the Nether or the End;
• the altar is not already bloody;
• the three staff fragments are in place, unless the config setting summoningNeedsStaffFragments is set to false. It is true by default.

The three staff fragments must be placed in a fixed arrangement relative to the altar. The middle fragment sits in line with the altar, seven blocks away in the check's row direction. The other two fragments sit three blocks to either side of it, and either one may be an upper or a lower fragment. The rest of the area is not checked.

The pack's config also accepts a debug stick as an alternate trigger in place of the blood vial. The debug stick is not obtainable in survival.

When the summon succeeds, the altar becomes bloody, which starts its ambient sound. Staff fragments in the 16 by 16 block square centred on the altar, at the altar's level and one block above, are removed. In survival, the vial becomes a glass bottle and the player receives the Darkness effect for 430 ticks. The Lich appears on the altar. When the Lich dies, the altar's bloody state is cleared, so the altar can be used again.

Items

Notes on the items shown in the table below:

• Pedestal: a column one block tall and 12/16 of a block across. It is used as decoration and as one of the structure's four first-level pedestals.
• Altar: unbreakable, with a blast resistance of 3.6 million. It holds the bloody state that controls whether the summon can be used.
• Corrupted Deepslate Side, Corner and Center: the parts that make up the altar's visual design. The summon check tests only the altar block itself, not these parts.

Item	Hardness
Pedestal	1
Altar	-1
Corrupted Deepslate Side	50
Corrupted Deepslate Corner	50
Corrupted Deepslate Center	50