Trails & Tales

Trails & Tales is a major update released on June 7, 2023 as Java Edition 1.20 and Bedrock Edition 1.20.0.^[1] Its theme is "creativity" and "self-expression through representation and storytelling", focusing mostly on decorative blocks, customization options and resources for player-driven in-game storytelling and roleplay. It introduces armor trims, trail ruins, mobs like the camel and sniffer, the archaeology system, the cherry grove biome, and other features. The name of the update was revealed in Minecraft Monthly on March 2, 2023.^[2]

Experimental features for this update have been released prior to the finalized release as part of 1.19.3 and 1.19.4 on Java Edition, and as part of 1.19.50, 1.19.60, 1.19.70, and 1.19.80 on Bedrock Edition.

Bamboo wood set:

• Block of bamboo and block of stripped bamboo
  • Crafted using nine bamboo.
  • Cannot be turned back into regular bamboo.
• Bamboo planks
  • Bamboo stairs
  • Bamboo slab
  • Bamboo sign
  • Bamboo button
  • Bamboo door
  • Bamboo fence
  • Bamboo fence gate
  • Bamboo pressure plate
  • Bamboo trapdoor
• Bamboo mosaic
  • Crafted using two bamboo slabs.
  • Bamboo mosaic stairs
  • Bamboo mosaic slab

Calibrated sculk sensor

• Crafted using a sculk sensor and three amethyst shards.
• Can be used to filter vibrations.

Cherry wood set:

• Cherry sapling
• Cherry leaves
  • Produces cherry petal particles.

    

• Cherry log and stripped cherry log
• Cherry wood and stripped cherry wood
• Cherry planks
  • Cherry stairs
  • Cherry slab
  • Cherry sign
  • Cherry button
  • Cherry door
  • Cherry fence
  • Cherry fence gate
  • Cherry pressure plate
  • Cherry trapdoor

Chiseled bookshelf

• Crafted using six wooden planks and three wooden slabs.
• Must be mined with Silk Touch to get the item itself.
• Can store books, enchanted books, written books, and book and quills.

Decorated pot

• Crafted using bricks or pottery sherds.

Flowers:

• Pink petals
  • A new type of flower which grow in cherry groves.
  • Four can be placed in one block.
  • Can be crafted into pink dye.
• Pitcher plant
  • Obtained by growing a pitcher pod.
  • Can be crafted into cyan dye.
• Torchflower
  • Obtained by growing torchflower seeds.
  • Can be crafted into orange dye.

Hanging sign

• Crafted using six stripped logs and two iron chains.
• Can be placed on the wall or ceiling.
  • Wall hanging signs don't collapse when the supported block broke.

Piglin head

• Obtained from piglins killed from charged creepers.
• Its ears move when worn by walking or trigger by redstone.

Sniffer egg

• Found by brushing suspicious sand in warm ocean ruins.
• Takes 20 minutes to hatch.
  • Place on-top of a moss block speeds up the hatching.
• Hatches into snifflets.

Suspicious gravel and Suspicious sand

• Contains loot that can be obtained by using a brush on it.

Brush

• Crafted using a feather, a copper ingot, and a stick.
• Used for archaeology.

Pitcher pod and Torchflower seeds

• Obtained from sniffers.
• Has to be grown like a crop.

Pottery sherds

• Obtained by brushing suspicious sand or gravel.
• Come with sets of 20 patterns:
  • Angler pottery sherd
  • Archer pottery sherd
  • Arms up pottery sherd
  • Blade pottery sherd
  • Brewer pottery sherd
  • Burn pottery sherd
  • Danger pottery sherd
  • Explorer pottery sherd
  • Friend pottery sherd
  • Heart pottery sherd
  • Heartbreak pottery sherd
  • Howl pottery sherd
  • Miner pottery sherd
  • Mourner pottery sherd
  • Plenty pottery sherd
  • Prize pottery sherd
  • Sheaf pottery sherd
  • Shelter pottery sherd
  • Skull pottery sherd
  • Snort pottery sherd

"Relic" music disc

• Obtained by brushing suspicious gravel in trail ruins.
• The music was composed by Aaron Cherof.

Smithing templates

• Netherite upgrade
  • Found in bastion remnants.
  • Can be duplicated with seven diamonds and one block of netherrack.
  • Used to netherite tools, weapons and armor.
• Armor trims
  • Found in various structures, including the trail ruins.
  • Can be duplicated with seven diamonds and its corresponding material.
  • Used to decorate armor.
  • Come with sets of 16 patterns:
    • Sentry armor trim: Duplicated using cobblestone.
    • Vex armor trim: Duplicated using cobblestone.
    • Wild armor trim: Duplicated using mossy cobblestone.
    • Coast armor trim: Duplicated using cobblestone.
    • Dune armor trim: Duplicated using sandstone.
    • Wayfinder armor trim: Duplicated using terracotta.
    • Raiser armor trim: Duplicated using terracotta.
    • Shaper armor trim: Duplicated using terracotta.
    • Host armor trim: Duplicated using terracotta.
    • Ward armor trim: Duplicated using cobbled deepslate.
    • Silence armor trim: Duplicated using cobbled deepslate.
    • Tide armor trim: Duplicated using prismarine.
    • Snout armor trim: Duplicated using blackstone.
    • Rib armor trim: Duplicated using netherrack.
    • Eye armor trim: Duplicated using end stone.
    • Spire armor trim: Duplicated using purpur block.

Spawn eggs:

• Camel spawn egg
• Sniffer spawn egg

Camel

• An uncommon passive mount that spawns in desert villages.
• Can walk on fences and walls.
• Can be bred with cacti.
• Ocassionally sits on ground.
  • Cannot be pushed in that state.
• Supports two riders.
  • Its size makes most of the hostile mobs unable to reach the rider.
• Has the ability to dash.

Sniffer

• A six-legged ancient passive mob that hatches from sniffer eggs.
• Adults will search and digs out torchflower seeds or pitcher pods occasionally.
• Can be bred with torchflower seeds, in which drops the sniffer egg.
  • Baby sniffers are called snifflets. Unlike adults, they don't search the seeds.

Bamboo raft

• A boat that is crafted from bamboo planks.
• Bamboo raft with chest

Cherry boat

• A boat that is crafted from cherry planks.
• Cherry boat with chest

Note block

• Mob heads can now be placed on top of note blocks without sneaking.
• When placing a mob head on a note block, that note block now plays one of the ambient sounds of that mob when played by a player or powered by redstone.

Cherry grove

• Generates with cherry trees and pink petals.
• Rabbits, sheeps and pigs spawn here.

Cherry tree

• A tree that generates on cherry grove.

Trail ruins

• A buried structure found in taiga, snowy taiga, old growth taigas, old growth birch forests, and jungles.
• Four armor trims, seven pottery sherds, and a music disc can be found here.

Archaeology

• Allows the player to find artifacts from suspicious sand or gravel.

Four new ambient tracks from Aaron Cherof were added; all would play on the main menu until Tricky Trials.

• "Echo in the Wind"
  • Plays in cherry groves, flower forests, lush caves, old growth taigas, and badlands.
• "A Familiar Room"
  • Plays in any biome that does not already have a corresponding set of biome-specific music.
• "Bromeliad"
  • Plays in badlands, bamboo jungles, cherry groves, flower forests, forests, jungles, old growth taigas, and sparse jungles.
• "Crescent Dunes"
  • Plays in deserts and badlands.

Players can now sneak underneath slabs and crawl on one block underneath to avoid suffocation for Bedrock Edition.

Block of amethyst

• Added a new behavior called vibration resonance when it is placed adjacent to sculk sensors.
  • If that sculk sensor receives a vibration, the block of amethyst re-emits its frequency as a separate vibration at its location.
  • Sculk shriekers and wardens are triggered by vibrations emitted by a resonating amethyst block.

Sculk sensor

• Vibration frequencies of many actions in the game have been tweaked and greatly simplified to prevent unwanted interference, as following:

Action	Frequency value
Movement in any medium (land, water and air)	1
Landing on any surface (land or water)	2
Item interactions	3
Gliding with an elytra or unique mob actions (ravager roar, wolf shaking, etc)	4
Dismounting a mob or equipping gear	5
Mounting a mob or interacting with a mob	6
Mobs and players getting damaged	7
Consuming items (drinking and eating)	8
Blocks 'deactivating' (door close, chest close, button unpress, etc)	9
Blocks 'activating' (door open, chest open, button press, etc)	10
Blocks changing (cauldron water level rising, adding food to campfire, etc)	11
Blocks being destroyed	12
Blocks being placed	13
Mobs and players teleporting or spawning	14
Mobs and players dying or an explosion	15

• Default redstone output has been modified to be more reliable for distance calculations.
• Now strongly powers the block they are placed on.
• Can now be activated by sniffers digging.
• If a vibration is scheduled to be received by a sculk sensor, it stays queued until all adjacent chunks are loaded and ticking.
  • This prevents vibration resonance setups from breaking when unloading their chunks from a distance.
• Now lasts 30 game ticks when in "Active" phase instead of 40.
• Now lasts 10 game ticks when in "Cooldown" phase instead of 1.

Sculk shrieker

• Scream sounds are no longer heard if block is waterlogged.
• If a vibration is scheduled to be received by a sculk shrieker, it stays queued until all adjacent chunks are loaded and ticking.
  • This prevents vibration resonance setups from breaking when unloading their chunks from a distance.

Signs

• Sign text can now be edited by interacting with it after being placed in the world.
  • Previous dye and glow ink sac effects are kept after editing.
  • Signs can not be edited by players in Adventure mode.
• Both sides of the sign can now have separate text and colors.
  • By default, a sign prompts the player to input the front side's text when placed.
  • To apply text to the back-side, the player must walk to the other side and interact with that face to edit it.
• Signs can now also be waxed with honeycomb, preventing any further edits to its text.
  • Signs with non-text chat components can not be edited, even if the sign is not waxed.
• Signs save text even if the edit screen is closed by the player being moved far away.

Armor

• Now can be visually customized with a variety of unique trims at the smithing table.
• Purely visual with no gameplay benefits.
  • All trim patterns are visually the same on an armor's item icon, but the color still changes based on the trim material.
  • The name of the trim pattern is displayed on the item's tooltip.
• Armor trim has 2 properties: pattern and material.
  • Pattern: Defined by the smithing template used to apply the trim, and represents the visual pattern of the trim.
  • Material: Defined by what ingredient is used to apply the trim, and represents the color of the trim.
    • Available ingredients:
      • Amethyst Shard
      • Copper Ingot
      • Diamond
      • Emerald
      • Gold Ingot
      • Iron Ingot
      • Lapis Lazuli
      • Nether Quartz
      • Netherite Ingot
      • Redstone Dust

Shield in Bedrock Edition

• Can now be decorated using banners.
• Previously exclusive to Java Edition.

Elder guardian

• Now drops tide armor trim when killed.

Desert well

• Now includes suspicious sand underwater.
• In the suspicious sand, the player can find:
  • Brick
  • Stick
  • Emerald
  • Suspicious stew
  • Arms up pottery sherd
  • Brewer pottery sherd

Ancient city

• Chests now contain ward armor trim and silence armor trim.

Bastion remnant

• Chests now contain netherite upgrade and snout armor trim.

Desert pyramid

• Chests now contain dune armor trim.
• Now includes a new room filled with sand and suspicious sand.
  • Some sand appears exposed, and can be found at the same height as blue terracotta.
  • Suspicious sand is visible on the top layer of the newly added room.
• In the suspicious sand, the player can find:
  • Diamond
  • Emerald
  • TNT
  • Gunpowder
  • Archer pottery sherd
  • Miner pottery sherd
  • Prize pottery sherd
  • Skull pottery sherd

End city

• Chests now contain spire armor trim.

Jungle temple

• Chests now contain wild armor trim.

Nether fortress

• Chests now contain rib armor trim.

Ocean ruin (cold)

• Now include suspicious gravel blocks.
• In the suspicious gravel, the player can find:
  • Emerald
  • Iron axe
  • Coal
  • Gold nugget
  • Wheat
  • Wooden hoe
  • Blade pottery sherd
  • Explorer pottery sherd
  • Mourner pottery sherd
  • Plenty pottery sherd

Ocean ruin (warm)

• Now include suspicious sand blocks.
• In the suspicious sand, the player can find:
  • Wooden hoe
  • Emerald
  • Coal
  • Gold nugget
  • Wheat
  • Sniffer egg
  • Angler pottery sherd
  • Shelter pottery sherd
  • Snort pottery sherd

Pillager outpost

• Chests now contain sentry armor trim.

Shipwreck

• Chests now contain coast armor trim.

Stronghold

• Chests now contain eye armor trim.

Woodland mansion

• Chests now contain vex armor trim.

Smithing table

• Redesigned: it is now a workstation for physical equipment upgrades and modifications.
• Added a slot used by smithing templates to the left of the old 2 slots.
• Smithing templates define what type of upgrade is made to equipment.
  • It specifies both what type of items that can upgrade, and which ingredients are valid to customize the upgrade.
• Netherite equipment crafting now also requires a netherite upgrade smithing template.

• 1.20.1 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.
• 1.20.2 was released to add the "Villager Trade Rebalance" experimental toggle and the /random command, and fix bugs.

• 1.20.1 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.0.
• 1.20.10 was released to bring more parity from Java Edition and fix bugs.
• 1.20.12 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.10.
• 1.20.13 was released to fix a crash in 1.20.12.
• 1.20.14 was released exclusively on PlayStation to fix a crash in 1.20.13.
• 1.20.15 was released to fix a crash in 1.20.13.
• 1.20.30 was released to add experimental changes to the villager and wandering trader trades (named "Villager Trade Rebalancing"), bring more parity from Java Edition, and fix bugs.
• 1.20.31 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.30.
• 1.20.32 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.30.
• 1.20.40 was released to bring more parity from Java Edition and fix bugs.
• 1.20.41 was released to fix critical bugs related to 1.20.40.

In promotion of Trails & Tales, a free map was released on the Marketplace. Produced by The Hive, the map tells the story of an archeologist, who is able to travel through time during the night and recover artifacts during the day, visiting a Desert Bazaar, Cherry Grove, and Ancient Caves in the process. Along the way the player is able to learn various new mechanics featured in the map, including archeology, camels, armor trims, chiseled bookshelves, and growing the sniffer's plants.

In promotion of Trails & Tales, a free event server was released. Open from 10 AM PST June 23rd to 10 PM PST June 25th, players could explore many regions with their own minigames, including the Cherry Grove, Camel Canyon, and the Lost World, and earn many exclusive items.

Aaron Cherof - "Echo in the Wind" (view on YouTube)

Aaron Cherof - "A Familiar Room" (view on YouTube)

Aaron Cherof - "Bromeliad" (view on YouTube)

Aaron Cherof - "Crescent Dunes" (view on YouTube)

Aaron Cherof - "Relic" (view on YouTube)

• 
  Logo.^[4]
• 
  Update logo with background.
• 
  Key art.
• 
  Key art 2.
• 
  Cherry tree valentines artwork.
• 
  Decorated pot valentines artwork.
• 
  Sniffer valentines artwork.
• 
  Animation of Steve and Makena riding a camel.

• 
  Clay pots.
• 
  Ceramic shards.
• 
  An excavation site.
• 
  A sniffer with an earlier texture and model.
• 
  An early sniffer laying down.
• 
  An early sniffer at sunset.
• 
  A sniffer with its final texture and model. This image is horizontally flipped.
• 
  A sniffer in a desert. This image is horizontally flipped.
• 
  A sniffer lying down.
• 
  A sniffer in a swamp.
• 
  A sniffer in a snowy biome.^[5]
• 
  A sniffer in a plains village.^[6]
• 
  Trail ruins
• 
  Calibrated sculk sensor
• 
  Hanging sign
• 
  Armor trims
• 
  Many of the features added in the update

• 
  Concept art of archaeology.
• 
  Concept art of the camel showcasing the different coloring and face shapes considered during development.
• 
  Concept art of the camel showcasing the many designs of its face.
• 
  Concept art of the camel showcasing the camel's height next to a player and three blocks.
• 
  The 2 dimensional pixel art of the sniffer shown at Minecraft Live 2022.
• 
  The 2 dimensional pixel art of the snifflet shown at Minecraft Live 2022.
• 
  The 2 dimensional pixel art of the sniffer egg shown at Minecraft Live 2022.
• 
  Sniffer concept art with rascal and tuff golem.
• 
  Colorized sniffer concept art.
• 
  Sniffer's beak sketch.
• 
  A sketch of a centipede walking which was the sniffer's walking animation inspiration.
• 
  Sniffer's walking animation sketch.
• 
  Watercolor art for the sniffer.
• 
  Ditto.
• 
  Ditto.
• 
  Ditto.
• 
  Ditto.

• 
  Trails and Tales trailer concept art.
• Animatic of Steve, Ari, Alex, and Zuri's scene in the trailer.
• Animatic of Steve fighting the elder guardian.
• Animatic of Ari recovering a sherd.
• Timelapse of building Zuri's house featured in the trailer.

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• Minecraft Trails & Tales Update | Minecraft (Archive)
• Trails & Tales Update Features – Minecraft Help Center