How to Find and Raid a Woodland Mansion

Wandering until one appears rarely works. Mansions generate only in Dark Forest and Pale Garden biomes (not the Dappled Forest added in 26.3), and the game rolls at most one mansion spot in each 1,280 × 1,280 block region, then keeps it only if that spot lands in the right biome. Most regions have none, so get the coordinates before you set out.

Three ways to locate a mansion

• Buy a map. The reliable survival method.
• Use your seed. Enter it on the seed map to plot every spot where a mansion can try to generate. The map has no biome layer yet, so treat each marker as a lead: a mansion stands there only if the spot is Dark Forest or Pale Garden. The best seeds list has worlds with a mansion close to spawn.
• Use a command. With cheats on, /locate structure minecraft:mansion prints the coordinates of the nearest one.

Getting the Woodland Mansion Map

A Cartographer sells the map at Master level for 14 Emeralds and a Compass, up to 12 times before it restocks. To get one, place a Cartography Table near a villager with no job. Master level has only two possible trades, a Banner Pattern (Globe) and this map, so a cartographer that reaches it offers both, unless no mansion lies within the map's search range.

Each trade adds villager XP. The quickest climb repeats one trade per level:

Each level offers two trades from a pool, so the Glass Pane and Compass offers may not appear; any other trade counts too. Craft five Compasses (four Iron Ingots around one Redstone Dust each) before you start: four sold at Journeyman carry it to Expert, and the map costs the fifth. The villager trading guide has the XP thresholds, restocking and discounts.

The target is fixed when the trade unlocks, so it may not be the mansion nearest to you. Before 26.3 the map was called Woodland Explorer Map. Hold it and walk until your marker reaches the mansion icon, and copy it with an Empty Map before the trip, as the maps guide shows.

Since 26.3 there is a second source: some Abandoned Camps hide an Oxidized Copper Chest that rolls one of seven explorer maps, so 1 in 7 is a Woodland Mansion Map. The abandoned camps guide shows where to dig for it.

What to bring

• Armour with Protection. Evoker fangs deal magic damage, which ignores your armour points but is still reduced by Protection.
• A Shield. Blocking a Vindicator's axe disables your shield for 5 seconds, and it does nothing against fangs, so block one swing, then back off until it recovers.
• A bow and arrows. Evokers run from you when you get within 10 blocks.
• Torches, a stack of them. Most rooms are dark, so ordinary hostile mobs spawn inside or wander in through the open entrance.
• A Diamond Pickaxe and building blocks. One hidden room buries its prize in obsidian, which needs a Diamond Pickaxe or better.
• A Water Bucket, food and a bed. Place a wool bed outside and use it. That sets your respawn point, even in daytime. A Straw Bed does not.

Vindicators, evokers and vexes

At range, an evoker sends a line of 16 fangs toward you. Within 3 blocks it rings itself with two circles of fangs instead. Fangs do not steer toward you once cast, so step sideways out of the line. Its other spell summons three Vexes, and it keeps casting while fewer than eight are within 16 blocks of it. Vexes fly straight through walls. Each starts taking damage 30 to 119 seconds after it appears and soon dies on its own.

Every evoker drops one Totem of Undying, whatever kills it. Evokers and vindicators also drop 0 to 1 Emerald each when a player gets the kill, with more from Looting.

Clearing the mansion floor by floor

1. 1.Ground floor. Light the foyer the moment you enter. Open each door and fight from the doorway so vindicators reach you one at a time. Torch every room you clear: illagers never respawn, so after that only ordinary mobs can appear.
2. 2.Second floor. The giant staircase in the foyer leads up. Evokers start here, in some of the large rooms, with vindicators beside them. Take the evoker first: a bow shot as it retreats, or a sprint into melee range. Once it dies, no new vexes come.
3. 3.Third floor. About half the size of the floors below, with more large rooms that can hold evokers.

Finding the secret rooms

Secret rooms have no doors. Look for gaps between rooms on the first floor, peer through the upper-floor windows, or cut open the roof to see the third floor layout, then mine in.

• Obsidian room. An octahedron of obsidian hides a Block of Diamond.
• Lava room. A glass case full of lava hides a Block of Diamond. Have your Water Bucket in hand before you break the glass.
• Attic room. The hidden upper tier has a chest at each end.
• Clean chest room and X room. One chest each.
• Spider room. Cobwebs and a spider spawner. Break the spawner or skip the room.

The fake End Portal room has a Trapped Chest holding 2 Ender Pearls, and opening it sets off TNT that breaks infested blocks and releases silverfish. Jail cells have a 50% chance of holding 1 to 3 Allays. Give an allay an item and it follows you.

What the chests hold

Mansion loot chests all roll the same table: one to three rolls on the valuables, one to four on supplies, three on mob drops, and a separate 50% roll for the trim template.

The rest is iron, gold, redstone, coal, bread, wheat, seeds, a bucket, bones, gunpowder, string and rotten flesh. There are no loose diamonds or emeralds, so the hidden diamond blocks are the real haul. The Vex template is the one item worth opening every chest for, because it generates nowhere else. At a crafting table, seven Diamonds and a Cobblestone turn one template into two. The armour trims guide shows how to apply it and what each trim material looks like.