Ancient Rituals of the Warden | Minecraft Deep Dive

It an entire city dedicated to XP farming.

Y'Know?

I Never Thought Of It Poke That?

Experience Is Essentially Just Mana

no. the warden is a being that the sculk biome creates and sends out to defend itself. the entire sculk is a living creature you could say.

the editing on this has really jumped upwards in quality! i have some doubts about some details of the theories, but you did point out some things i hadn't realized, like the illagers repairing the cities and the soul sound effects produced by the sculk. great video!

I think the sculk souls ARE the warden, and they are mearly trying to add more souls to the sculk (wardens kills mob near a catalyst, and wardens actually have a catalyst it drops on death)
Or the warden is literally a warden that is meant to patrol a prison and keep any creatures that escape as a sculk creature from getting out (would explain why wardens will go back under ground instead of searching around for more mobs to consume), or maybe there is some kind of tie between many ideas?
One comment suggested the sculk is a hive mind of souls and their knowledge.
MAYBE THE CATALYST RELEASES A SOUL IN ORDER TO HARVEST MORE ENERGY FOR GROWTH AND THATS WHY THE WARDENS EXIST (SO SOULS ARE BEING USED INSTEAD? OR THE SOULS KICK ONE OUT TO GAIN MORE ENERGY AND INFORMATION?)

This was really good

I’m thinking something about this might have led to the undead virus that extinguished the ancient builders

Can you do a video on the bones in Soul Sand Valley

I don’t often comment, much less of this nature, but I wanted to thank you for speaking about the I’m Glad you Stayed Project at the end of the video. I, myself, am a survivor of a suicide attempt, and, much like Dylan, I spent four days in the ICU; only half of which I was awake and semi-conscious, let alone coherent. My heart breaks hearing Dylan and Abby’s story, because I know what it was like to be in the shoes of both Dylan and Abby. Suicide is a horror that no one should go through on either party.

If you are struggling, remember that there are people who care, and will always care; family, friends, strangers. I know it’s a difficult thing to hear and accept; I know how hard it is to hear that there are better days ahead, that you’ll get through this time and time again, so much to the point where it seems like the affirmation feels like it comes from a place of societal custom rather than from the heart. But, I promise, every single time you hear those affirmations, they’re true.

You are loved. You are cared for. You are strong. You are good.

I don't think the Ancient City was biult to harvest xp I think its actually the Ancient Biulders attempt to escape the zombie plague and just like with the ender dragon instead of opening a way out they brought something in the warden and thus began the sculk infection

His voice is so mysterious it makes me interested in this 37 minutes long video

Now can you explain why the pigs turn into zombie piglin when strike by lightning but piglin too turn into zombie piglin when brought back into the over world like hoglin turning into zombie hoglin ?

Bro is Matpat byt smarter

can you make your deep dive sires into a podcast?

I think they made the deep dark for people who finished the game. Somehow killing the ebderdragon seems not that hard compared to killing the wardon. Maybe you could create a structure for yourself that could protect you from it while forcing it into view so you can kill it. Kinda like a mob farm, but for the wardon.

Imagine Mojang adds a block of Souls. Like a glowing blue block with occasional faces inside of it that could maybe be used for enchantment. It might even confirm lore! Idk a recipe for it tho. Maybe......
A soul item? Somehow you'd get one, it would probably require an entire update tbh.

Later update : Another theory for illager part. I was thinking that, maybe the piles of wool are actually representations if Clothing for the old builders? And maybe the illagers just took some old clothing they found somewhere that once belonged to the builders, to use it for magic like in the illager vid.

It is funny to think that these cities basically just existed as really convoluted XP farms.

I think the skulk is a highly evolved slime mold. It found a very efficient and nourishing food source and took off from there

I wonder… an iron golem + skin probably looks like the Warden… maybe Bruce Banner is the Iron Golem and the Hulk is Warden?

I have a theory about creation of the ocean monuments:
The guardians are entities made of prismarine. They have theirs laser-like atack, which is a physical energy (something like telekinesis) and they fight with it. When some of them die, They use the prismarine left from their dead mates and build a building in which they live (like people in the castles, because it also serves as their defence system). They even have a treasure in it (gold blocks) which propably was taken form the shipwrecks.

What if allays are the result of illager’s expedition and they somewhat controlled those allays and made them as their weapon since vex and allay are the same

Idle thought, the Warden is a golem that turned on the builders.

makes sense yeah, but i will say i suspect the goal of the experimentation was not entirely for enchantments and whatnot- i feel like its possible that these cities were not created before sculk became so prevalent, seeing as they are so overgrown- rather, that perhaps the cities were some sort of large scale laboratory, intended to develop sculk artificially- perhaps sculk was not so infectious until the place deteriorated and became unstable . seeing as the warden is a resilient killing machine, i could actually believe that the sculk developments were intended to create a weapon of mass destruction, something which could have helped elevate the overarching narrative to the point of mass extinction. i also feel like the religous undertones of the walkway and centerpiece could imply cult esque or just plain religion centric undertones- there are, after all, warden head shaped altars . i feel like maybe there was a devastating cataclysmic outbreak of sculk as everyone in thte cities died, which created so many shriekers and such in such a dense area; the sheer force of which could also be the reason that only those naturally generated shriekers will spawn a warden. after all, if you pick up and place a shrieker, or generate one with a catalyst, it will be inactive , the souls inside moving slower and colored less vibrantly. any ways , i think that sculk is a deadly infection, possibly manufactured for warfare, while sensors were also being utilized for technology - the placement of the city, hidden underground, everything about it so dark and secretive; the hidden redstone area; the watch towers, the defensive walls, the barracks- it implies a level of tension or expected aggression . it also would make sense of the moat's placement, if the main experiments were done around the centerpiece- that way, it would be more hard-pressed to reach the rest of the city . the wool and such almost feels less defensive than.. preventative, like its trying to keep something in, keep it hidden, keep others out more than be guarded against wardens. the three forms of sculk, too- the leaps in advancement dont make evolutionary sense, how could sculk go so quickly to sensors and directly to shriekers? it seems unnatural, intentional, artificial . i feel like the centerpiece was more likely a sort of religous structure or portal than an artifical catalyst; the individual reinforced deepslate would make enough sense, but why is it in that form? why imitate a warden when it spreads the reinforced deepslate out that much? wouldnt symmetry make more sense? it reminds me of the shape of a nether portal, but on its side. the end portal , not so much. which is a point against my ideas, but... the way you create nether portals, the way ender portal frames can only be found within strongholds... the way the ender portal frames cannot be broken, and the reinforced deepslate takes longer to break than obsidian yet never drops...it feels like a sort of mix between the two known portals in mimecraft, but larger and more ominous, heh. perhaps it would be to a dimension swirling with immeasurable amounts of soul energy, perhaps to a world overtaken by sculk, perhaps to a man-made dimension to hide from the world after they released their sculk weaponry; perhaps it was only ceremonial and for the sake of creation . such is the magic of minecraft :]

in conclusion, Ancient Cities were Failed xp farms

So that explains how he can take down many mobs in one shot. Because it's powered by the Soul energy.

Idk if the catalyst only enchants things. The enchantment table is way easier to make and even villagers can sell enchanted gear.

Well, whenever a player dies with 100 levels, Minecraft only lets them retrieve 7 levels. Is that experience destroyed or does it go someplace else?

This is a kids game mind you

Maybe the Ancient city was warshipping the Warden, perhaps like the Aztecs when they worshipped the sun. Maybe they were trying to find out where the Warden came from and got very close but managed to not be able to finish their plan. The Warden killed them.

Maybe the ancient builders were somehow trapped by the sculk when they died near it, it absorbed their soul and turned it into soul energy making them unable to respawn. The Warden could be Steve and Alex's first discovery of being able to being back their kind by releasing the souls so they can respawn? Idk, it still kinda doesn't explain the Nether though.

It would be really cool if this was the key to help us understand why we are the only crafting and mineable human in the game. To see why our kind went extinct.

The Warden could be the remnant of the ancient gods from the Mincraft Legends game. 😮

See, what makes sense to me, is that catalysts convert the soul of a creature into skulk, and when its broken, you get the xp still which sort of proves that the skulk uses souls. Since skulk is a very foreign block with a theme, it makes me think that it is from another dimension. Somehow the "portal" in the city was activated and skulk spread through, along with a warden, which decimated every living thing in that area, hence why there is SO MUCH skulk spread around, I haven't worked everything out, but that could be the extinction event that wiped out ancient builders, and what created the undead mobs. Only thing im skeptical about is the undead being a bi product because Im not sure if they have their souls or not, as they would have to not have a soul since the skulk would've taken it

Notice the word ancient these were probably built by the ancient builders

I thought maybe if the huge structure was a portal that something dangerous came through and killed everybody and that’s why there’s sculk everywhere. I thought once maybe it was the Warden, but the city was made for it, so maybe it was something else. Or maybe it was just to revere the Warden, who was like an iron golem at one point and kept the city safe from monsters. But Illagers invaded one day and started killing everybody and the Warden killed them, stopping the invasion, but the damage was already done. Maybe the Ilagers knew to sneak, so when the Warden did spawn it was too late to save most of the city’s inhabitants. But maybe some of the ancient city dwellers escaped and survived, going on to make villages on the surface, which is why the track for the ancient city is called “Ancestry”.

I went into creative mode and tried to light the huge catalyst because I thought it’d be cool if it wound up being a portal, but lighting it didn’t do anything. I used soul sand and soul soil but that didn’t do much either. I also wondered if it was possible to get the whole thing covered in sculk but I haven’t tried that yet.

What if the ancient builders created the city and frame, not as an artificial catalyst. but as a portal? I noticed that the end portal frame blocks have a similar bone-like component, and it does match what we know about interdimensional travel: hard blocks (reinforced deep-slate is indestructible) and heat (soul fire is twice as hot as normal fire). Perhaps the builders tried to create this portal as a way to escape the plague before they went to the endermen? We know they wanted to go to another dimension, and that the ender dragon originated in that dimension as well. Perhaps that is the origin of sculk? The ender dragon and the warden are two incredibly powerful mobs, maybe they adapted to the harsh conditions of their home dimension? It could explain why the illagers traveled there too: they are always interested in more power, and the warden is the most powerful boss in Minecraft! Magic might be stronger in this dimension as well, which is why the dragon drops so much XP and why the warden can easily bypass enchantments. Additionally, the chests in the city are filled with magic stuff which maybe could have come from the other dimension? Perhaps surviving builders managed to travel there centuries ago, but the experiments went wrong after they transported sculk to the overworld. They infested the deep dark with the sculk, causing the life cycle we see now. Could help explain which came first, warden or catalyst?

RGN I'm dying for your take on the trail ruins

A) ancient cities used to be on the surface, but they are ancient and have sunken in the ground like dinosaur fossils
B) illagers are descended from the ancients, and are trying to reconnect the dots like we do with ancient Egyptians
C) the ancients who studied the soul magic became the sculk and are the wardens. They are protecting the knowledge from others to stop another cataclysm from happening.

I kind of made my own theory where basically an Ancient Builder made the Wither(A bunch actually), but they malfunctioned and started killing everything. The builders in the Nether were trapped, and the ones in the Overworld split into two groups: One went to the End, and the other went to the Deep Dark, and made the Warden, in case the Withers ever found them. I kind of forgot about the zombies and skeletons though... Oh and there's more to it, but that would take a while to type. I guess I could copy/paste it if people want to...

Also I know it's early(Like 4:30 AM) But I can't sleep sooo...
Maybe that's from staying up late finishing my summer reading

Wow. That final message and sponsor was really beautiful

This is way better than MatPat's Warden video lmao

I dont really watch many minecraft theories or really read anything either. and im definitely not versed in minecraft lore. But i've yet to come across someone with the similar mindset that Vexes are Allays that have been transformed

How to kill warden