Mob Menagerie: Elder Guardian

Exploring an ocean monument is not for the faint-hearted. As you approach its prismarine walls, you’ll be swarmed by guardians – hostile aquatic mobs, covered in spikes, which fire laser beams at intruders. But deep in the briniest corners of the monument lurks an even greater threat – one with the power to prevent players from destroying its home. Today, we’re getting acquainted with the ELDER guardian, the elder guardian, our mob of the month.

Elder guardians were added to Minecraft in the Bountiful Update, way back in September 2014. This patch brought lots of new features for mapmakers, but it also added new stone types, rabbits, armor stands, and the ocean monument structure that the elder guardian calls home. 

Elder guardians aren’t as zippy as their young progeny – they won’t flee as you approach. Instead, they’ll turn their big, baleful eye towards you and stare. Before long, you’ll see a targeting laser which charges for a few seconds, going from purple to bright yellow. Once charged, the elder guardian will fire it and it’ll flash green and deliver up to 12 damage points. Pro tip: try to swim out of range while it’s charging.

You’ll also see that elder guardians are covered in spikes which extend when the creature is threatened. Hitting it with a melee weapon when the spikes are extended will hurt pretty bad, so try to either wait until they’re retracted or use a ranged weapon instead.

Don’t try to dig your way out either – elder guardians will inflict Mining Fatigue III on any player within about 50 blocks, even underground, even if the player is invisible. This reduces attack speed a bit and mining speed a lot, making it almost impossible to tunnel your way out. 

Here’s Jens explaining how the creature was created:

If you can defeat one, you’ve got a chance of getting some decent loot – including prismarine shards, sponges, and tide armor trim, as well as some random fish and some experience orbs.

Image credit: Throast // CC BY-SA 4.0

We know a fair bit about what lives below the waves on Earth, and no-one has found an elder guardian yet outside of Minecraft. Assuming that continues to be the case, the closest thing we’ve found is an enormous and mysterious creature called the Colossal Squid.

These strange creatures live in the oceans around Antarctica, and grow to at least 10 metres long and half a tonne. I say “at least” because we don’t actually know very much about them – catches are extremely rare, and even then it’s usually not adults that are caught.

What we do know, however, is that they have the largest eyes of any known creature to have ever existed – and that’s where they share a kinship with the elder guardians. Colossal squid eyes have an estimated diameter of up to 40cm – making them up to twice the size of a standard bowling ball.

I’m pretty sure elder guardian eyes are bigger than that. But it’s still impressive! Next time you go bowling, imagine an eye that’s twice as big, and then – if you haven’t fled in terror – how much easier it would be to knock over pins with it. Maybe this is why they no longer let me into the local bowling alley?