Structures

The goblin camps, wizard totems and abandoned castles the world generator scatters across the land, the guards that appear when you come near, the loot left behind, and what they are built of.

Structures are built by the world generator as it rolls each chunk — at most one per chunk, never on the spawn plaza — and are as much a part of the landscape as the trees: deterministic in the world’s seed, persisted with the chunk, and mineable block by block. Each one keeps a clearing around itself free of trees and undergrowth. Camps and totems sit on one flat chunk; an abandoned castle is rolled afresh for every site — the Demon King’s castle plan, smaller and moatless — and spans several chunks, raised on a cobblestone plinth wherever the ground under it is level enough.

They are landmarks, so they are kept well apart: a chunk that rolls a structure only builds it if no other chunk within 8 chunks rolled one too, and a structure keeps its distance from the world spawn as well — the starting lands are yours to find your feet in, and finding a camp, a totem or a castle means going looking for one.

A structure stands empty until a living player comes within its trigger radius; then (within 1.5 seconds) its garrison appears around it, posted to guard the place — they wander only a little way from it, though they will chase you as far as any mob does. Guards that despawn while nobody is near are replaced on your next visit. Slay them all and the site stays empty for its respawn time before a fresh garrison takes up the post. Garrisons ignore the world’s mob cap and never appear in peaceful or no-mobs worlds.

Nobody guards an abandoned castle. Its loot chests were filled when it was generated: right click one to open it and take what you like, or break it to spill everything inside. The chests, the stairs and the stone are all yours to carry off and build with. The lord’s treasure chest is where an abandoned castle keeps its magic: now and then a wand, sometimes a grimoire.