#but instead of fire breathing they're lightning conductors

[otiksimr]

This is the closest to fantribe territory I will ever get.

Notes below cut

Stormwings, a subtribe that lives semi-independently to Skywings.

They live in iron rich areas but tend to migrate towards higher altitudes after certain periods of time.

They have special organs and scales that allow them to both conduct and store electricity, and to also redirect it. But they also have the tendency to coat their scales with layers of iron in order to better conduct electricity. Typically, it is either done alone or with close family or lovers.

They do contain a lot of Skywing traits, as they are a subspecies, not an entirely different species. But they tend to be far darker in color than Skywings, and are much more heavily scaled. The beak remains but is reinforced.

Individual: Thunderbird

Just an old veteran from the Great Sandwing Succession. After the war he works as the Subtribe's Queen's personal advisor.

[knightpixie]

I'm still not entirely sold on all of this though I do love the speculation. but.

while irl gold has strong antimicrobial properties it's also an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. and the other way to get a zombified piglin is striking a pig with lightning. it's also worth noting that while zombified piglins are fireproof their unzombified siblings are not, despite living in the nether- a world filled with lava where fires burn indefinitely. so why do they want a material that would carry that heat so badly?

also while piglins will rarely drop a gold sword or piece of armor they're wearing zombified piglins always carry a gold sword and drop gold nuggets so frequently that they're the go-to method of farming the metal. zombified piglins have vastly more gold on them than unzombified ones, but it doesn't seem to have been much protection from the virus

the only other mob that drops gold used to be the drowned- another zombie variant- until their gold drop was replaced in the 1.17 update with copper. the metal that's probably best known for its electrical conductivity. in fact in game copper ingots are used to make lightning rods. drowned are also the only mobs that can use tridents, which can be enchanted to call lightning, though it can't function in the nether due to its roof and lack of rainfall

and on the topic of lightning in minecraft its transformative abilities apply not only to pigs but it also turns villagers into witches and charges creepers into more explosive monsters. from a metagame viewpoint creepers are even related to pigs, being the exact same model with the torso rotated vertically instead of horizontally, originally due to a bug, then made into their own mob

witches meanwhile are brewers, hurling potions of poison and harming at players and drinking healing, water breathing, and fire resistance potions. water breathing and fire resistance? aside from just being prepared for a murderous player-god trying to kill them why would they need those two kinds of potions specifically on hand? one for surviving the murky home of the drowned and the other for exploring the burning hellscape of the piglins. the nether also happens to be one of the only places to find nether wart, the ingredient used to make the base for almost every potion, and as of the result of the most recent mob vote the sniffer will later be added, whose eggs can only be found deep underwater. it'll come with new plants, which may possibly mean new potions in the near future, but that's just speculation

gold, zombies, lightning, pigs, the vast oceans and the depths of the nether

I really have no idea how they all fit together but it's a lot of fun piecing together the connections

Minecraft Piglins fuck me up. Like, they’re one of two/three seemingly sentient species, but there’s clearly something wrong with them.

They’ve got bastions throughout the nether, huge buildings that at one point were clearly lovingly constructed. Not only were these buildings functional (apartment complexes, hoglin stables), but they created art. Not just carvings, but music. Not even villagers have created music discs, only piglins. Piglins also had access to the overworld at some point, they have a number of items (carrots, water bottles, string, iron) that could only have been obtained from the Overworld.

But… something happened. At some point in the past, something happened, and Piglins lost the ability to maintain their buildings. The buildings fell into ruins, and even though the Piglins stayed with the ruins, they couldn’t salvage them. They just wander the broken hallways.

What happened? Well, we don’t know for sure. But… Piglins are afraid of Zombie Piglins. Even though Zombie Piglins won’t attack them, Piglins still try to get away from them. Despite this, Zombie Piglins don’t appear infectious. Piglins don’t even turn into them when they die. Instead, Piglins turn into Zombies when exposed to the Overworld. The Overworld infects them, and unlike Zombie Villagers, there is no cure.

It can’t have always been this way, Piglins would’ve needed to be able to access the Overworld at some point to get materials. But something went wrong. And here you are, exploring the ruins of a society and left wondering what happened. Or maybe more importantly, are you next?