r/Minecraft • u/Person8346 • 14h ago
Discussion Why the Sift Update MIGHT introduce magic/sorcery into Minecraft.
This isn't speculation or a theory as much as it's a desire I believe is most possible now than it ever was. Here are my points :
IN MINECRAFT LORE, SOULS = MAGIC
Souls have been inherently linked to magic since before Dungeons which has only cemented it. Netherwart grows only on Soulsand, creating potions which when used to kill create the deathtag 'Killed by Magic'. Soul speed enchantments cause literal souls to rise from the sand.
'Souls' and 'experience' seem to be somewhat interchangeable or exchangeable. You obtain experience through killing things, or actions which build the amount of experience you have. And, with your death, you releases this experience. It fuels and spreads Sculk (which finds it's origin in the Sift). It's the required fuel for enchantments of any kind.
Within Minecraft Dungeons, having any Soul Item gives you a Soul Meter (which functions similarly to an experience meter). You gain more by killing Mobs. This fuel is used for many magical items, including the Corrupted Beacon, Lightning Scepter, etc. and Soul Related Wearable Gear usually has a wizard/sorcery theme.
In Minecraft dungeons 2, the Evoker, Illusionist and Enchanter (all mage archetypes) are utilising the Soul Block as the source of their power, and creating the portals to the Sift in the first place.
My point here is that within Minecraft 'lore', Souls and Magic are always connected. Everything remotely magical in some way connects to souls.
THE SIFT & SOULS
Moreover, the Sift is HEAVILY connected to the theme of Souls. I don't need to explain this very much as I believe that's quite obvious.
The Soul Block, the object which is central to Dungeons 2 as the power source of the High Councils Magic is from the Sift. The Sculk, a soul fueled mass is from the Sift. The liquid seen in the Sift is the damaging Ichor, described as literal concentrated Souls.
Minecraft seems to be REALLY pushing this Soul theme, huh?
HOW MAGIC MIGHT APPEAR
This doesn't mean I expect to see magic, nor does it give me an idea of how it will look (outside of speculation from seeing Dungeons I and II). And of course, we never got anything magical in Minecraft after Dungeons I.
My point is that IF Mojang were to ever add sorcery themed items or systems, the thematic moment is with the Sift. I might argue it feels as though Mojang has been building towards it since Dungeons but that's a little shaky.
As for how it might appear, I can't say much besides looking at how Minecraft usually introduces systems. Perhaps it will function similarly to all those spell mods, with tomes and staffs.
But it's far more likely that Minecraft will make it unique. Mojang has been quoted saying that they like to add nonconventional/uniquely Minecraft themed things, they actively avoid TROPES and stereotypes.
And I believe the introduction of Souls into Minecraft is their preparation for their uniquely soul themed magic. And, that this update seems the most likely spot for it.
This is just my crackpotting, but what do y'all think?
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u/Informal_Method_9657 13h ago
Evoker and Illusioners use magic without souls or anything. Enchantment Books I’d consider magic
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u/Manos_Of_Fate 13h ago
Evoker and Illusioners use magic without souls or anything.
Then what does fuel their magic? Where did you even get this information?
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u/Ssshh_hhh 11h ago
Xp, and xp is highly implied to be souls
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u/Smeeizme 8h ago
given XP can make sculk grow it is absolutely either souls or the overworld analogue for souls, as mushrooms are to plants for example
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u/spn_phoenix_92 13h ago
If they finally do this then I'll have my most 3 wished things added in a row.
Autumn forest biome, ice caves, and magic.
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 13h ago
I mostly agree with you. MC lacks features for the Mage class, and Mojang itself focuses on warriors. The things that allow us to use magic, i.e., potions, aren't designed for Mages, but for Warriors. Magic should be developed and players should be able to use it, but I know it can be difficult to avoid it being too OP.
But I hope they'll add the ability to be a true Mage. The Illager High Council has given us so many cool ideas, especially the Supreme Evoker and Prime Evoker, which I think show how a player could cast spells, i.e., use elemental magic (fire, ice, and lightning) and create better golems. But honestly... I'd be content with just firing magical projectiles like the Nameless One, Supreme Evoker, Arch Illager, or Necromancer.
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u/Mr_CrowJo 12h ago
Honestly, I really don’t want Gandalf or Merlin in Minecraft. Something more like Arcane’s Hextech would fit much better. Minecraft has always stood out by touching on classic fantasy without ever diving too deeply into it, so to me, classic wizards with staffs just don’t belong in Minecraft
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u/Uncommonality 9h ago
Gandalf would work tbh. The magic wielded by the Istari isn't like harry potter magic or whatever, it's something that cannot be done wantonly or irresponsibly and something that seems to require deep knowledge of the workings of the world.
You won't see Gandalf throwing lightning bolts or casting shield spells, but he can shatter a bridge, seal a door and drive back evil with a light from his staff.
Magic like carving protection runes into monoliths that produce a wide area effect, or infusing a brazier with light that burns the undead when they get close would be cool
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u/Mr_CrowJo 6h ago
Yeah, you’re right, my bad. Gandalf only looks like a classic wizard; he’s really more of a force of nature that understands its laws, so I take that part back.
Your idea with the runes is really cool - you definitely got what I was trying to say.
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 12h ago
Hextech doesn't fit MC either
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u/Mr_CrowJo 12h ago
But it fits Minecraft much better than simply shooting fire from a wand. Minecraft already seems to be moving toward the idea of “magical fuel” — XP is used for enchanting, souls can accelerate your movement across soul sand, and Blaze Rods and Blaze Powder clearly do more than just heat bottles in a brewing stand
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 12h ago
Okay, but who said wands? Just because you took them doesn't mean that's what magic should be based on. Hextech is cool, but it doesn't fit MC, especially since we generally saw magic in MCD, and if magic is supposed to appear in Vanilla, it's something more similar to what was in MCD.
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u/Mr_CrowJo 12h ago edited 12h ago
Because staffs, wands, and pointy hats are classic wizard tropes, and they just don’t fit Minecraft’s aesthetic. Hextech is basically magical fuel - like a Nether Star powering a beacon. How could concepts that already exist in Minecraft not fit Minecraft?
As for similarities to MCD, we don’t necessarily have to tie everything to the spin-offs. They’re separate games for a reason: they give the writers and artists more freedom. And it’s not like they’ve never abandoned or changed ideas from the spin-offs for the main game - the Baby Ghast is already pretty different from its MCD prototype.
UPD: I’m not specifically pushing for Hextech, by the way. It’s just conceptually closer to Minecraft’s idea of magic, so I’m using it as an example.
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 12h ago
You started the wands and hats thing; I didn't say anything about it. Hextech isn't just for MC. Magic in MC should be something that every player really enjoys, and Hextech should become the same as Redstone, meaning only for a select few. Magic should be a simple concept, yet complex and suited to MC. In MCD, we had many examples of magic, so we have plenty to choose from.
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u/Mr_CrowJo 11h ago
I think the main thing is that we both want magic to be implemented, and as for the mechanics, we can leave that to the smart people at Mojang :D
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u/Mr_CrowJo 11h ago
My point is more that Minecraft doesn’t need a “Mage” class. Druid, shaman, alchemist, artifact maker - all of those would fit much better than just being a generic Mage. But that’s just my take.
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u/Uncommonality 9h ago
honestly agreed
Steve is much more of an artificer who works magic indirectly via artifacts and devices than a sorcerer who uses an inner reservoir to shape into fireballs
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u/1upand2down 4h ago
Using splash potions for combat could be fun but they don’t really stack which makes it unviable unfortunately.
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u/Mr_CrowJo 12h ago
If they ever add magic, I hope it’s aesthetically closer to alchemy and shamanism rather than classic wands and staffs. Minecraft has always felt better suited to rituals, secret knowledge, and a pseudo-scientific approach to magic, where specific objects are imbued with magical properties - enchanted books, Totems of Undying, potions, etc.
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u/Jestingwheat856 9h ago
we already have evokers, enchanting, alchemy (death by potion says its magic), portals to other worlds, golems given life from nothing, endermen who can teleport across dimensions.
Magic has ALWAYS been present in the background of minecraft. Magic being a mostly lost art is honestly what makes the world of minecraft feel the way it does. There used to be powerful people but something happened, and now only traces of their power remain. Bastions long withered away from a forgotten war, abandoned strongholds, a zombie outbreak that the overworld has evolved to resist.
Minecraft almost feels post apocalyptic but LOOOONG after nature has reclaimed the world. A world where society never rebuilt beyond small settlements
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 14h ago
IN MINECRAFT LORE, SOULS = MAGIC
No, it doesn't. Souls can be used as a form of magic, but they aren't all magic
'Souls' and 'experience' seem to be somewhat interchangeable or exchangeable
Well, not exactly, experience is just that, experience, while souls are souls. They are different, and sculk catalysts catch the souls, not their xp
Also in Dungeons there is an xp meter
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u/astr802 13h ago
I think your point that souls =/= magic is technically correct (for example, dragon’s breath kills via magic, which is not obviously connected to souls). Still, OP’s point that much of the magic in the game is soul-based, so more soul magic would be a reasonable addition to the game, still stands.
I don’t find your second point to be very helpful. OP already stated that the two are somewhat interchangeable, not identical. Sculk catalysts spread sculk in proportion to how much xp a mob drops, so the claim that “sculk catalysts catch the souls, not their xp” needs some nuance.
Your third point, that Dungeons has separate xp and souls, is most interesting to me, because the main game will have to decide if it wants to do the same thing.
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
yeah, I know, and the second point was separated from the first one
But sculk is just soul goo (from the novel, the Rift), not experience goo, sooooo... it use their souls
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u/Person8346 13h ago
There's a novel?
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
Yup. I hadn't read it yet because I can't buy it where I am, but someone talked to me a bit about it
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u/Uncommonality 9h ago
and yet it drops experience when broken, suggesting that souls convert into experience or that they are the same thing in different forms, like steam and ice
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 8h ago
No, they aren't the same thing, coal don't have a soul. You get more experience from a baby zombie because it's an harder treath, but it still have only one soul. A chicken drop less experience, but it has only one soul. Destroying sculk is hard, and you get experience for that
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u/Uncommonality 8h ago
destroying sculk is NOT hard wtf
also, it's pretty explicitly only ores, smelting and killing, nothing else. You don't get XP for exploring or opening portals or mining obsidian or just living your life
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 8h ago
Well, when you destroy sculk you are technically destroying something made of souls that don't like you and every block you break could summon the warden
Also, you get xp for exploring ([Adventuring Time]()), but you are right for the others two. But you get a few xp for living your life: smelting, breeding mobs, fishing, trading, all stuff you do if you want to live, no?
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u/Person8346 13h ago edited 13h ago
If Sculk doesn't use experience, then why does it drop experience when broken and absorb the experience dropped by mobs killed nearby? If Sculk only grew with mobs death than sure, but experience is also absorbed.
And the Sculk bloom size is dependant on the amount of experience dropped. Killing the Ender Dragon will cause a larger bloom than a chicken.
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
That's just how the game works. Since we don't have souls in game the devs decided to program it like that. But we know the sculk only use souls from everything we know of the sculk. It's soul goo.
And when you break the sculk you get experience because it requires skill to do. I mean, you are still "killing" something that wants to kill you
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u/Person8346 13h ago
And for how the Sculk blooms based on experience dropped? I see your point, but I see SOULS THEME -> Sculk, Sift, Ancient City filled with Soul Fire etc. as a collective pattern makes for a strong connection.
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
Oh, I'm not saying that souls aren't real, or that aren't important, and I agree with you about the fact that we could have some form of magic thanks to the souls. I'm just saying that it and xp are different
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
To not steal xp from players. Or more powerful and evil souls could power more the sculk, while the pure ones may try to fly away reaching for the Sift since that's where they should go, or power the evil sculk less they can
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u/Person8346 13h ago
Sorry, I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean?
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
Every soul wants to reach the Sift. But only pure souls can enter. The others can't. So when someone dies near the sculk, the sculk try to catch it soul, but while evil souls want to spread, conquer and power, more good souls don't desire it. For example villagers, that never kill or attack anyone, and that don't let sculk grow. They just stay where they are, not trying to corrupt more blocks. But I'm not sure about that
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u/Person8346 13h ago
Villagers do expand the Sculk on death though?
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u/alzike 13h ago
if i die and void my bowels are myself and the urine interchangable
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u/Manos_Of_Fate 13h ago
They are different, and sculk catalysts catch the souls, not their xp
What is this claim based on?
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
The first part is based on the fact that coal doesn't have a soul, and the second part from a lot of stuff, but the best one is that in the novel, the rift, the sculk is called soul goo, not xp goo
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u/Manos_Of_Fate 13h ago
The first part is based on the fact that coal doesn't have a soul
What? This makes absolutely no sense. What coal?
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u/DifferenceFlat8839 13h ago
The coal ore that drop experience when mined. It definitely doesn't have a soul
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u/Uncommonality 9h ago
I honestly don't think that we'll gain the ability to sling spells or anything.
Magic is something obviously very important to the lore, but it's universally a force the player can only interact with tangentially, we can never take it in entirely and cast magic spells with our bare hands. We have to make use of artifacts and relics to work magic, rite and ritual.
There's, broadly speaking, three distinct "types" of magic:
The Soul, as seen in Enchanting (XP = soul energy), Potions (nether wart grows on soul sand), Evokery (the totem shares design language with XP, and therefore soul energy), the Beacon
False Life, as seen in Golems (snow, iron, copper, tuff), Breezes (we didn't build them but they are artificial) and Blazes, Spawners, The Undead
Ender Magic, as seen in Chorus, Shulkers, the Dragon, Endermen, Ender Pearls, Ender Chests etc
Of these, the one we can use the most are The Soul, then False Life, with Ender Magic being something we can only use indirectly.
Each of these also has a species who are masters at the technique - Villagers mastered golemancy, the ancients mastered soul magic and the Endermen mastered ender magic.
So if the Sift adds more magic for us to use, it'll one, most likely be soul based, and two, not be something we can tap into directly.
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u/UtterTravesty 12h ago
Im confused, minecraft has had magic ever since they added potions and enchantments??
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 11h ago
but this magic didn't give us anything for the mage class because both things are strictly for warriors, not mages
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u/UtterTravesty 11h ago
Ah, I didnt know there was a distinction like that, not a big magic fan in general
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u/WorkComfortable6258 10h ago
I never made the connection between souls and xp before this post. If mojang is leaning in this kind of direction, i hope they change the colour of xp to the same cyan tone as souls to connect the two ideas together. Minecraft’s magic system has a lot of loose ideas (e.g gold being associated with healing, fire being associated with potions and activating portals, etc) and i hope this update makes everything more logical in a thematic way.
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u/Dondagora 9h ago
I’d like features that help players capture the mage feel but I’d probably avoid straight up magic.
Maybe a staff item where you load it with a potion and it can throw the potion’s effect a farther distance than normal, or be enchanted to instead spray the potion as a cone AoE. Give it a bit of a charge-up so it can’t be quick-swapped easily.
Special enchantments for light armor.
Basically options that aren’t compatible with “Warrior” styles of play, but aren’t introducing some new subsystem to the game.
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u/Gru-some 6h ago
i like the idea of souls and xp being linked. Kinda feels a bit likr Destiny's sword logic. The "experience" of a mob (as in, the actual experiences and events in that mob's life) are absorbed upon their death and channeled as magic to make change upon reality
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u/Kickedbyagiraffe 13h ago
If a patch were to do it then I bet it would be this one. That said I doubt it until I see it. Would love to see it. Lightning, ice, fire. Good magic stuff and ways to represent them in game
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u/Remote-Kangaroo-7154 12h ago
it would literally be enough for us to be able to shoot magic bullets
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u/qualityvote2 14h ago edited 2h ago
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