Saguaro Desert

The Saguaro Desert is an arid overworld biome added by Regions Unexplored. It replaces part of the vanilla Desert biome, sharing that space with Joshua Desert, and is distinguished by its dense cactus growth, many saguaro cacti and a large set of farm animals. In Fear Nightfall it is one of the hotter, drier biomes that stays mostly normal rather than horror-heavy, but its monster spawn list still includes several of the pack's horror mobs from Born in Chaos.

Description

The Saguaro Desert is a flat sand plain with the same climate as the vanilla desert: temperature 2.0 and downfall 0.0, so it never rains and snow golems melt in it. The surface is sand. Where the terrain forms a cave ceiling or overhang, the surface rule places sandstone instead. Grass and foliage use the desert-yellow colours #bfb755 and #97ae29, the fog is #c0d8ff and the sky is #6eb1ff. The biome plays the desert music track and the cave ambience.

The biome has no open lakes. Its only water comes from spring water and spring lava sources, so the water colour rarely shows.

Cacti are the biome's signature plants. Dense cactus patches and single barrel cacti cover the ground, and tall saguaro cacti stand among them. Sparse sandy grass, dead bushes and patches of sugar cane fill the gaps.

Generation

The Saguaro Desert takes 50 of the 100 weight that vanilla desert uses when Regions Unexplored replaces biomes, which places it alongside Joshua Desert. It accounts for about 0.42% of the overworld surface and about 0.19% of the cave layer at y=-30.

Because the pack's Fear Nightfall weighting raises horror biomes (for example Dark Forest, Blackwood Taiga and bayous) to 6× weight, the Saguaro Desert is not one of them. Deserts stay close to their normal spawn rates in this pack. Outback, a separate Regions Unexplored desert, replaces the vanilla desert in the low-erosion part of its climate range.

Features

• Saguaro cacti. Saguaro cacti are placed as a tree group with a noise-based count (noise factor 75) and grow only on dry ground that is not under water. Each trunk has a minimum size of 7 blocks with a size variation of 2. Branches are redwood branches, and the tops carry saguaro cactus flowers. Saguaro cacti hurt entities that touch them, dealing 0.25 damage, as vanilla cactus does. See Cacti (Regions Unexplored) for the full cactus family.
• Dense cactus patches and barrel cacti. A dense cactus patch and single barrel cacti are added on top of the vanilla desert cactus patch.
• Sandy grass. Sparse sandy grass covers the open sand.
• Desert features. The biome keeps the vanilla desert wells, dead bushes, sugar cane patches and pumpkin patches. Farmer's Delight adds patches of wild tomatoes, and Supplementaries adds wild flax and cave urns.
• Geology. The biome has an amethyst geode, fossils (upper and lower), a monster room and a deep monster room, lava lakes above and below ground, and a standard overworld ore set. Born in Chaos adds infected diamond ore and black argillite, and Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks adds mithril ore.

Saguaro cactus flowers dye items magenta, and saguaro cacti dye items green, so the cacti are a source of dye as well as a hazard.

Mobs and structures

The Saguaro Desert has a large monster spawn list. Spider, skeleton, creeper and slime each have a weight of 100, and zombie has 95. The horror mobs from Born in Chaos appear at lower weights: slime golem (25), skeleton creeper (20), Necromancer (18), decaying zombie (15), Decrepit Skeleton (10), Barrel Zombie (12) and the rarer Nightmare and Dread Hound (7 each). Mother Spider (6) and Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin (Mr. Pumpkin 7, Mrs Pumpkin 6) also spawn, and Nightmare Stalker spawns at weight 2. Passive farm animals (sheep, pig, chicken, cow, horse and donkey) spawn alongside them. Bats and glow squids appear as ambient and underground water creatures.

Vanilla desert structures such as the desert pyramid and desert wells can generate, along with several Regions Unexplored, Terralith and Born in Chaos structures. The full structure list is in the table below.

Monster

Creature

Ambient

Underground Water Creature

Water Creature

Water Ambient

Structures (167)

Desert Pyramid, Mineshaft, Ruined Portal Desert, Stronghold, Trial Chambers, Village Desert, Sand House Medium 1, Sand House Medium 2, Sand House Small 1, Sand House Small 2, Sand Castle Small 1, Sand Pyramid 1, Sand Underground Castle 1, Skeleton Dungeon, Small Dungeon, Spider Dungeon, Zombie Dungeon, Mineshaft Desert, Stronghold, Catacombs, Shrine Combat Tier 1, Shrine Combat Tier 2, Shrine Combat Tier 3, Shrine Combat Tier 4, Shrine Combat Tier 5, Shrine Tower, Village Desert Oasis, Village Desert Oasis, Village Desert Oasis, Desert Outpost, Bunker, Desert Ruins, Ruin Town, Wild Ruin, Evoker Fort, Desert Shrine, Firewell, Desert Houses, Farmland Field, Hobbit Hole, Wagon, Copper Spire, Stone Ore Spikes, Large Temple, Mesoamerican Temple, Small Statue, Small Temple, Stone Tower, Tower Remnant, Well, Fortified Desert Village, Small Desert Grave, Small Desert Graveyard, Small Savanna Grave, Illager Hideout, Village Desert, Campsite, Fire Camp, Horse Campsite, Mine With Campsite, Barn, Duck, Haystack, Horse Pen, Shed, Wheat Grain Bin, Windmill, Wooden Wheat Farm, Floating Islands, Large Floating Island, Azelea House, Deepslate House, Desert House, Diorite And Deepslate House, House, Lil House, Tall House, Warped House, Small Oak Lantern, Blue Stall, Cart, Cartographer Tower, Large Cart 1, Large Cart 2, Orange Stall, Pink Stall, Red Stall, Castle Ruins, Crystal, Log Ruin, Ruined Beacon, Small Ruin, Statue Ruins, Stone Pillars, Arena, Calcite House, Castle Ruin, Castle Tower, Desert Pyramid, Desert Well, Diorite House, Large Tower, Nether Portal, Small Deepslate House, Small Oak House, Small Tower, White House, Leaf Hollow, Red Sand, Small Pond, Tree 1, Tree 2, Tree 3, Tree 4, Tree 5, Tree 6, Tree 7, Tree 8, Volcano, Diorite Tower, Large Warped Tower, Dead Tree Oak, Tree Monument, Bench, Cathedral, Desert Pump, Gallows, Lamp Chest, Mushroom Pond, Paths, Pile, Railway, Small Oak Pond, Sunzi Gate, Villager Statue, Desert Well, Rare Well, Small Copper Well, Small Tower Well, Small Well, Stone Fountain, Well, Mound Of Hounds, Village Desert, Village Desert, Village Desert, Illager Camp, Pillager Outpost Desert, Pillager Outpost Desert, Pillager Outpost, Pillager Outpost, Remnant Big Remnant 2, Remnant Big Remnant 3, Remnant Big Remnant, Remnant Bridge Remnant, Remnant Desert Remnant, Remnant Medium Remnant 2, Remnant Medium Remnant, Remnant Miner Hut, Remnant School Remnant, Rubble Desert, Mirage Outpost, Pillager Lookout, Desert, Tavern Desert, Mimic Desert, Road Sign

Tips

• Stay out of cactus patches at night. Monster density is high, and cacti damage you if you walk into them while fighting.
• The biome does not rain, so it is a poor place for mob farms that rely on rain, and snow golems melt here.
• Saguaro cactus flowers and green saguaro cacti are a reliable source of dye, and the dye recipes are listed on the cactus pages.