Savage & Ravage is a mod that updates the Pillagers of Minecraft to expand the challenges and difficulty they pose as well as adds several new creeper features and overall random enemy encounter upgrades. The Pillager Outposts have been fully redesigned and the Pillagers themselves are a bit more aggressive. The outposts are much more dynamic and sleek while maintaining the core Minecraft aesthetic. This mod definitely hones in the concept that these pillagers are well established in their outposts and makes them appear more natural in the areas they spawn in.

So this mod makes some changes with the standard triggers and behaviors players might be used to in these scenarios. To start off, you won’t as easily get the bad omen buff by just killing the patrol leader anymore but instead you’ll get it by burning their banner. That will trigger the buff and you can remove it by drinking milk or just letting it run out on its own.

This mod does delve deeper with enemy abilities and surprises by giving the creepers a big update. As opposed to standard creepers these new ones no longer destroy blocks when they explode but instead they will release a cloud of spores and “creepies” which are mini, very hostile creepers. These creepies will then attack you as normal creepers would except there are many more of them and they will then cause a secondary explosion as they continue to chase after you.

But with the negative effects being boosted for these mobs seeming like there isn’t a positive aspect to installing this mod, there are benefits to overcoming these new challenges. When the updated creepers drop their spores. there is a brief window where you can use their spores against them in your favor. If you take a dropped spore and throw it at the attacking creepies that spawn they will then think you are their mother and will now follow you around.

So now you can turn the tides and use your new army of little creepers to fight for you! They will be bonded to you and will attack any hostile mobs that you come across until their health runs out. This mod may enhance the danger of one of the most elusive and unassuming mobs in the game but in turn gives you the power to fight back and now utilize those same green meanies in your favor.

But that’s not all you can use those dropped spores for. You can craft griefer ingots by combining three spores with two gold ingots and then using those to craft a full set of griefer armor. The griefer ingots are infused with the ability to craft blast-proof armor that significantly cuts down damage done by explosions. So now you can truly turn creepers and griefers against themselves by using their own drops to command a tiny army of them while also wearing a suit of armor built specifically to block their only attack ability.

And the armor isn’t the only upgraded material the spores can improve upon. Now you can use griefer ingots to craft blast-proof plated blocks with similar protection against creeper and TNT explosions!

There are a few other minor updates that are added with this mod like entire villages inhabited by more “civilized” skeleton mobs as well as updated animations for creeper explosions and overall creeper/creepie behaviors when becoming hostile. So if you want an expanded Minecraft universe with more challenging random encounters with unsuspecting mobs then Savage & Ravage is perfect for you. This mod does also require the Blueprint API to be installed alongside it and can be found here.