The Johan Theory

The Johan Theory

-Introduction
-Part 1: The truth about Highblock Castle.
-Part 2: “Lagers here, undead there”. (page 6)
-Part 3: The Stronghold & The Ender Days.(page 12)
-Part 4: The Void's secret plan. (page 20)
-Part 5: Heart betrayal. (page 28)
-Part 6: Village & Pillage. (page 34)
-Part 7: The Arch-Illager. (page 40)
-Bonus part 8: Johan Fanart :D

Introduction:

There are many doubts about the history of Minecraft, where do the villagers and illagers come from and why illagers hate villagers? What are ravagers? What is the origin of the Stronghold? What is the Orb of Dominance? Why do you have to kill the Ender Dragon? These are doubts that are sought to be resolved based on Vanilla, many different theories can be made, but thanks to Minecraft Dungeons we can see beyond what vanilla offers us, since it is a game focused on the present and past story of villagers and illagers, and of the world of minecraft in general.

Minecraft Dungeons is full of secrets, in its game-files, in its levels, in its novel, even in its Arcade spin-off, but one of the biggest is the one that will be told below in this extensive theory created in collaboration with several people: the identity, actions and consequences of Johan, the first owner of the Orb of dominance, and how it changed the history of the world of Minecraft.

Part 1.The Truth about Highblock Castle:

Although at first glance it might seem that Archie built the castle when he became the Arch-illager, there are hints in both the game and its novel that this is not the case.

In the game, there are quite destroyed areas outside and inside the castle, this would not make sense if it was a new structure, but also, the part of the castle that does not have any broken bricks, is the gigantic head/statue of Archie, because that is in fact a new part of the structure.

There are also a couple of arenas from the Ancient hunts that are part of Highblock Castle, but let's remember that these are ancient, another hint that Highblock Castle being an ancient structure.

The arena of the Solemn Giant, a giant-sized gold armored pillager with 4 enderman as its minions.Minecraft Dungeons (Solemn Giant)

The arena of the vigilant scoundrel, a royal guard.Minecraft Dungeons (Vigilant Scoundrel)

The arena of The Barrage, an armored skeleton, with 20 skeletons as its minions. Minecraft Dungeons Barrage

The arena of the Ancient Terror, a Wraith.Minecraft Dungeons Ancient Terror

There are also 2 items that refer to illagers from Highblock Keep, but referring to the past. (the “???” is the mushroom island, which will be important later in the theory), also note that they are not achieved in the current Highblock, and the place where they should be (underhalls) is said to be abandoned and forgotten in the game objectives.

The evidence within the book is that Highblock castle is "built" by excavating the mountain where Archie finds the orb, this task is done by the redstone golems that were already in the cave, also, the orb decorated much of Highblock keep. Archie also doesn't know if the name he gave the structure came to him or the orb told him in his mind, and from the way it's written in the book we know it's the orb that told him the name. Archie also mentions that building it didn't feel like they were building it, but more like that structure was already on the mountain and they just discovered it.

There are also areas of Highblock that Archie didn't even know existed, like a treasure room right behind the throne, from where his crown came from.

Other evidence to further support this part of the theory, is the cave in the mountain where Archie finds the orb and from which he builds/excavates Highblock Keep.

The cave has huge doors as an entrance with bricks at the sides, inside there are 6 redstone golems in the entrance hall. Several stone bricks are seen, the ruins of a structure, along with the illager symbol(+). Those ruins, are the visible remains of Highblock Castle.

But then why was the orb left in Highblock Keep and told Archie to “build” it? Why did the Solemn Giant have endermans as minions? Why were there redstone golems which only the orb can bring to life? And even more importantly, why did Highblock Keep end up buried by a mountain...and who was its original owner?...

Part 2.“Lagers here, Undead there…”:

To answer this, we first have to analyze Highblock Castle and what role it served in the past. It was a castle, not only a fortress, and the royal guards imply that a royalty existed (corpses seen in other areas and statues as well), and that also implies 2 things, one is that there was some sort of sovereign, and second that there was a state ruled over, a monarchy. The ruler could have been a King or Queen. It could have been a more powerful sovereign (an Emperor or Empress) or it could have been a less powerful sovereign (a Baron or Baroness, a Duke or Duchess, a Lord or Lady, etc). To know what kind of state this was, this “kingdom” let's try to analyze what lands it ruled over in the past.

This ancient kingdom from what we know about Highblock would be from illagers, but also villagers (we will see why later), we will nickname this kingdom as “Lager Kingdom” (“Lager” is a word that we will use to refer to villagers , illagers, and also witches).

Evidence of this kingdom is on the one hand the (+) symbol or "Lager symbol" which is now used mostly by illagers, but also by villagers to a lesser extent as can be seen in Pumpkin Pastures and Squid Coast. This symbol was adopted and used by that castle, so whoever was under that same banner, was part of this state. Also, in the secret room of the Squid Coast church, there are statues of royal guards and decorations identical to those in Highblock Keep.

About the villagers, there are villager statues in the crypts of creeper woods and Pumpkin Pastures, as well as an outstanding villager statue in the stronghold, which is also filled with the (+) symbol and statues of royal guards. Keep in mind the Crypts and Stronghold things for later.

This Kingdom would have both illagers and villagers, and probably witches. The villagers would live in villages, they would probably have similar if not the same jobs as now, a relatively simple life, their town halls would respond to the highest authority that would be Highblock Castle, The villages on the mainland would be Pumpkin Pastures and Squid Coast.
As for the illagers, they would live mainly in mansions, the castle (there is the residential area that we can take as ancient by the damage and the ancient boss), and in "Arch-haven" (which is related to Pumpkin Pastures since its location is in a scroll in that village , and on its ancient arena we see the beginnings of the settlement).
The illagers of the kingdom performed "magical" and more government jobs, as well as military, such as enchanters, evokers, and royal guards to name a few, there are even robes that mention evokers who used those to "distinguish from the common guard", and the “first enchanter” ancient mob is found in the Arch-Haven settlements.

We have nicknamed the king of the “Lager Kingdom” as Johan, this is not an “official” name, but we decided to use that nickname to make it easier to refer to him. The name comes from some game files, where the decoration shield variant with the Lager symbol is called “Shield_Johan”.It is also worth mentioning that this kingdom could have been an empire due to its great extension, which would make Johan an emperor.

Squid Coast Village:

Pumpkin Pastures village:

A woodland mansion in creeper woods:

Arch-Haven, current and ancient-times:

part of the sprawling Highblock residential area:
:

But there were a couple of exceptions, the "Gale" Lagers (aka Galeans). On the island of the "Howling Peaks" DLC, there is a really old village inhabited by illagers mountaineers, iceologers, and windcallers (illagers that master wind magic).

Ever wonder where the villagers got so many emeralds? Well, Gale is the answer. This "country/village" is located in a high-mountains area and they even have mines in them, it is the perfect location to mine emeralds, and there are more indications that they were the ancient supply of emeralds for the whole kingdom, such as the luxurious emerald armours that can only be found in Gale, and the incredible economic power that this massive village had (as seen in the Gale sanctum) that even makes Gale seems like its own country.Gale minimap:

The Lager kingdom also extended to the island from the “Creeping Winters” dlc, we have nicknamed this place as Hibernia to make it easier to mention in the theory.

“Hibernia” minimap:

The Village in Hibernia:

There are many interesting things about this place, such as a village, and a castle-like fortress, now known as the lonely fortress. This structure is full of statues of illager enchanters, but there are also horse statues in the courtyards of the fortress very similar to the one in the village… but there are also villager statues in a crypt where there are also many stray skeletons… and there are some statues of humans in the fortress… And now it's time to talk about the relation between the Lager Kingdom with the other continent's ancient and now forgotten kingdom , The Nameless Kingdom.

If you have read the Voidborn Theory you will probably remember the mention of an alliance between the Nameless Kingdom and Illagers, since it is the same and deep alliance between the Nameless Kingdom and the Lager Kingdom, although, a relevant fact about this alliance in the The theory is that the Nameless Kingdom would still have both undead and living humans at the same time, and that's reinforced by the statues of humans in Hibernia that we'll see later.

To begin with there is the thing about the crypts, the Creeper Woods crypt is located in the ruins that look like the Nameless kingdom, the Crypt itself has images of human skeletons carved into the stone of the entrance, many green candles that are from the Desert Temple, many undead, and even when activating a door you can hear the damn laughter of the Nameless One himself. But, there are also tombs with statues of villagers, and a skeleton (presumably human, since Lager skeletons are different) buried wearing the helmet and shield of a royal guard.

But the clues of this alliance do not end here, in the other crypt of the Pumpkin Pastures village we can also see green candles like those of the Nameless kingdom. It is also worth mentioning the ancient mobs that inhabited the creeper woods crypt, the Grim Guardian, a zombie with 6 necromancers as his minions, and the Haunted Caller, a necromancer with 6 skeleton horsemen as its minions.

Minecraft Dungeons - How to fast unlock obsidian chest - Pumpkin Pastures

In Highblock Keep there is a secret, dirty, and hidden area, which everything indicates that it was not very affected when the mountain "covered" the structure, there aren't many illagers down there, it is full of undead mobs, and it even has mechanisms from the Desert Temple where the Nameless One lives Minecraft Dungeons - Underhalls Secret Level Walkthrough (No Commentary)

There is also the Pestilent Conjurer, an ancient witch in Cacti Canyon with 4 necromancers as her minions.Minecraft Dungeons Pestilent Conjurer boss battle

And about Hibernia, it also has a crypt with many stray skeletons, now it should be noted what was really a crypt for the nameless kingdom, the kingdom did not have a castle, its King lives in the temple that is full of sarcophagi, this temple resembles the Egyptian pyramids irl, which were basically where they buried the dead, in a way, the temple of the nameless is a kind of "Crypt" but it is also his center of government, which is not so far-fetched considering that much of the kingdom were un-dead, with this view in mind it can be thought that the crypts in Hibernia, Pumpkin Pastures, and Squid Coast, were bases of operations or "embassies" of the Nameless Kingdom. Although deep research must be done about the nameless kingdom in its future theory document.

In Hibernia there is also a wraith with ice powers in the throne room, and vanguard skeletons in the fortress (the personal guard of the nameless one), as well as a set of statues referred to as "chess pieces" in the game-files, where the statue of the Nameless One is right at the center under the chandelier, and there is also green fire characteristic of the nameless kingdom in the throne room.

and, in the Voidborn Theory it is explained that the lost settlement (in Hibernia) was the key point to create the end portal, since the illagers of that settlement learned to manipulate the "lost energy" and the necromancers knew about the safe routes. It is also possible that the necromancers also knew how to use this energy, to a lesser extent.

I could mention descriptions of items and where they are obtained, decorations, etc, but the connections between both kingdoms are too many to mention them all, and with what we have already mentioned along with the next part of the Stronghold, It is more than enough. And now, it is finally time to talk about the Stronghold… and the Ender Days.

Part 3. The Stronghold & The Ender Days:
The Strongholds in vanilla fulfill the same purpose, to keep the end portal hidden in the depths, in minecraft java a total of 128 Strongholds can be generated, although we do not know the total number of strongholds in-lore, dungeons indicates that at least 2 Strongholds exist, since while the heroes have to activate the portal of one Stronghold, there is a group of illagers constantly entering the end, apparently using another portal in other Stronghold. Also in the cinematic when entering the Stronghold the narrator says "in this abandoned Stronghold" meaning this is not “The” only stronghold, and that it is abandoned.

Minecraft Dungeons Echoing Void All Cutscenes & Final Boss & Ending

Although there are more than one Stronghold, the one the heroes visit seems to be the most interesting, not only is it ridiculously large, having several different areas, but it's also the one chosen by the orb shard to start its invasion. What this theory proposes is that this specific massive Stronghold is the "Prime-Stronghold" or in other words, the first Stronghold and the most relevant to the Lager Kingdom and the Nameless Kingdom.

A very outstanding detail in the Stronghold is the great amount of water fountains, there are large, small, on the walls, and they even have hand fountains. This is reflected in the end by the exit portals made from bedrock that are shaped like fountains.

This detail is accompanied by the fact that the entire stronghold is surrounded by water, probably because it was built in the cave/cavern of a relatively small island as seen in the minimap representation.

Back to the topic of the inhabitants of the stronghold, there are a lot of Lager symbols throughout the stronghold, there are also statues of royal guards and a prominent statue of a villager in a secret part (surrounded by pink fire torches), but, in one area you can find a redstone golem, this it is important as there is no illager activity in the stronghold currently, and only the orb can bring redstone golems to life, meaning this one is from the same era as the 6 that Archie finds in the ruins of highblock.

Regarding the presence of the Nameless Kingdom, in addition to the undead there are several necromancers in the stronghold, and mostly in a huge library, some are in pairs next to some thrones, indicating that these chairs/thrones are used by them, there are also areas of the library that are inaccessible except to necromancers as they can levitate.

Another of the interesting things about the Prime-Stronghold is a mechanism to lower the water level, allowing to reach a deeper area in which there are drowned zombies (as well as the armored and trident variant), and a drowned necromancer, who by its clothes is very likely to be one of those who inhabited the ocean.

Another important detail in the Stronghold is that there can be found the "Troubadour (armor)", indicating that there were troubadours in the Stronghold. In real life, the troubadours were medieval musicians and poets, who composed their works and performed them in the stately courts of certain parts of Europe. The presence of these troubadours reaffirms the existence of a nobility in the Stronghold.

Now about the end cities, we will call the time of these expeditions “Ender Days” where we should find references to both kingdoms, on one hand there are windows in the shape of (+), and there is the “Vexing chant” known in the archives as "lost evocation" that evokes 3 guardian vexes or “seravexes” (the voidborn vexes) indicating that there were evokers in the cities

On the side of the Nameless Kingdom, although the candles are not there, there is a lot of green illumination characteristic of it, and some special banners since they have the representation of the moon.

The representation of the moon could be an indirect reference to the nameless kingdom, since this was an important symbol for them, the sun burns the undead but the moon does not, the Nameless One even goes so far as to say that his power is related to the night, even in other theories it is mentioned how the moon benefits the undead, among other things.

But there were problems in the cities, since in the Ender Days there were rebellions and a high crime rate. This conclusion is reached by the descriptions of some items related to the end that mention thieves, and others are perfectly designed to be used by thieves or assassins and are their favorites, others mention abilities such as going unnoticed.

This idea is also supported by the fact that the shelves in the city are empty, but they are also destroyed in a way that does not seem "natural" but that there were thieves attacking the cities and stealing resources.

The internal problems in the cities were such that small cells can be seen in some areas of the city, which they most likely used to lock up the criminals they caught. (and currently used by the enderlings to catch illagers from the new expeditions)

As the cities maintained a connection to the overworld, it is likely that they brought the criminals they caught to the Stronghold's prisons, which are in a large area above a lava zone. And even in the Stronghold the Thief Armor can be found.

It is also worth mentioning an area at the end of the city, next to the exit portal (which is also where we fight the final boss) This place is very similar to a Roman coliseum, and fits perfectly into the context of the deplorable situation of the Lager kingdom/empire .

In ancient Rome, coliseums were used to entertain people so they wouldn't think about the injustices or things they didn't like about the government, that's why "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses). In this case it had the same function, to distract the citizens from the situation that the empire suffered with social inequality and a high crime rate.

But there is another interesting detail, which is seen in the description of the weapon “Call of the Void”

If a simple void-powered weapon made it possible to hear the voice of the void entities, could those entities communicate from the void blocks themselves?...and, could a malicious entity communicate with members of Johan's court to offer some "help" with their problems?...

And this is where the Orb of Dominance comes in, the orb calls itself as such, it was created for that purpose, there must have been a significant lack of dominance, order, and control over the citizens, therefore it was created to stop chaos, crimes and the possible collapse of the empire. Johan's regime couldn't control their own rebels in the city, so they decided to make a powerful artifact that holds a Void Entity. the Heart of Ender (HoE) that promised to give them order and control over their subjects. But what they did not suspect is that little by little the orb was going to manipulate Johan's desires... as how it now did with Archie…

Part 4. The Void's secret plan:
A part from the Jens Minecraft Design Book was leaked, apparently at the end, and thanks to RetroGamingNow and other users who read the book (it can be borrowed from the National Library of Sweden) they confirmed that the image is real.

The last part sounds kind of like a joke, but it fits with the real intentions of the entities of the void, like the Heart of Ender, but for that we have to dive into the origins of the End.
One of the questions that the Voidborn Theory left was how is it that the End is its own dimension but it is inside the Void but it is a habitable place? the generation of Voidborns is explained but… all the end flora are not Voidborns (nor are the shulkers). And there are also the origins of the endstone being a recomposition and recolor based on the inverted texture of the cobblestone, meaning that from the start the End was related to inversion and corruption. But how can this relationship be explained?

At the end of Voidborn Theory, the Beginning is mentioned, being the entire set of the void (+ the End) inverted (before the corruption), but, here is a better proposal, and that is that the “Beginning” was not always linked to the void , but was originally its own dimension, and this was consumed by the void, distorting and corrupting everything in its path until it became one with the Void itself. But to reach this conclusion, we must first talk about the 2 phases of corruption.
Corruption:
Phase 1: Several of the characteristics are inverted, starting with the color, for example the Warped Forest, a distorted Crimson Forest, the vines grow in reverse, the color of the wart block, the nylium, and most of the vegetation , is inverted. There is also a purple fog (which looks pink with night vision) indicating the energy of the void, there are also a lot of Endermans, that may be more of a consequence than the cause itself (like if they were attracted to those forests). In addition, in the cutscene of the warped forest of MCD, the voice of the narrator has a kind of distorted echo, while in the end wilds, is fully distorted .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWonisG6BhM Minecraft Dungeons: Echoing Void DLC - End Wilds GAMEPLAY WALKTHROUGH [ No Commentary ]

Phase 2: This phase is seen in a small proportion in the warped forest (MCD assets) and what it shows us is another stage of corruption, where in addition to inverting the colors, the distorted plants acquire purple and pink colors, this may be due to an "overload" of Void energy, and probably, one day, all warped forests end up like this, or at least a large part of them.

In the end there can be seen variations (many variations, too many) of the chorus plant, so much so that it could be its own separate category apart from fungi or plantae, but the important point now is that, in addition to the characteristic purple color, there is a lot of yellow vegetation related to the chorus .
The very interesting thing here is when analyzing a yellow plant of this family that grows in the form of roots, in the files it is called “Yellow root”, but there is a purple variant called “Corrupted Root”

Their textures are almost identical, plus the name indicates that everything we see purple in the Chorus is corrupted, in fact the color of the plant is after suffering that overload or total corruption, and that would explain why it has teleportation properties .

About the yellow plants themselves there are 2 options, one is that they are like a counterpart of the "crimson" for the nether, but in the end; or instead that they are a counterpart of the "Warped" in the nether, but in the end. Most likely the second option.

Imagine that all the Crimson Forests of the Nether succumb to corruption, including the netherrack itself, that crimson mushrooms continue to be generated would be very rare but not impossible. Now the only thing left is for things to enter their second stage of corruption, the purple, it would now be a bit rarer to see things warped, but not impossible.

Now think that's what happened in the Beginning becoming the End.

But there is still one question and is related to the endersents seen in the Echoing Void DLC.

The Heart of Ender sends 6 endersent to the overworld who steal the eyes of the portal to deactivate it and went to 6 locations to spread the corruption, but here are 2 very interesting things since on the one hand we are shown how the condensed void starts to leak and… that the endersent break bedrock… and the void is below the overworld? Is the world flat?!All Eyesent in Minecraft Dungeons (No Damage/Hits)

A couple of things need to be clarified, it is a fact that all the endersent locations are in very deep areas and that they are breaking the bedrock layer. But it's also a fact that the world of minecraft is simply not flat nor is it infinite, similar to how minecraft is not made of cubes in-lore (although we won't talk about that in this theory) the world being infinite and having a vertical generation limit is part of the gameplay, there are too many factors that indicate that the world is not flat, and the problem here is assuming that the endersent locations are a confirmation that the world is flat and the void is below, when if the first one is wrong the second doesn't make any sense, the void is the space in-between dimensions, and just as the devs said that dimensions are planes of existence and are not physically anywhere in relation to one another, the void cannot physically be under the bedrock.

One of the proposals was that the core of the planet is made of condensed Void, but an alternative proposal suggested by Lazlo ended up being the most accepted and the one that fits the most. The proposition is that the endersent are actually corrupting the core of the planet that is under the bedrock layers, and with doing so they spread parts of the condensed void outside, but then the question is why are they corrupting the core of the planet? There must be something special about the condensed Void, and the answer can be found in the "void barrels" that are in the cities.

(Fan-made representation of an endersent performing core corruption)

Void barrels are just that, barrels with condensed void, but what is so special about them?

oh, that… it turns out that in the right conditions condensed void has explosive properties… The blast range is less than a TNT in Dungeons, but it releases large amounts of void energy… and I don't want to imagine the explosion that the core of a planet filled with condensed void would cause…

Well there it is, the endersent's plan is to explode the planet from inside, although it sounds like it has no advantage for them, the conditions imply interesting results.

First, practically everything on the planet would be corrupted by the imminent and powerful void energy's "radiation", entering both phase 1 and phase 2, also the vast majority of living things on the planet would likely die, and finally, the energy will make the remains of the planet end up teleported into the Void itself.

But, destroy one by one all the planets of a dimension with that process? no matter how strong the voidborn are, it is almost impossible for them to do it with the gas giants, stars, or even the damn venus... But that's the point, they don't do it with all the planets, but rather the void is interested in those that have life, more specifically life with souls, since that is what feeds the energy of the void, its power is sustained by the souls, and when the remains of the planet end up in the void, a large part of the souls of the living beings that died would end up there

But have we ever seen anything like this? a place submerged in the void, a place that resembles a set of asteroids-like kinda floating islands, a completely corrupted place, where the only life that remains is the soulless flora, and where the void can operate peacefully…

As an additional fact, the End theme, which since its beginning is partly a distorted version of the overworld theme The End

That's the origin of the End, the dimension that fell before the corrupting forces of the void, and that shows us its true intention, the void is the place that is in-between all dimensions, it has evil entities and forces that corrupt objects and minds, that it is their goal, of the Heart of Ender, and of all the powerful entities like it in the void. Thus we see how that joke in the Jens Book makes more sense as a reference to the true intentions of the masterminds of the void that are beyond the Voidborn.

But what evil masterminds?

First we have the Heart of Ender, Orb of Domination, we already know it. Then there's the description of the “call of the void'', which mentions both the void “whispering” and “another voice in the darkness”, both of which could be void entities.
The Warped forest Mood 9 sound was also proposed as a reference to another entity of the void, the one that corrupts the nether, since it is a sinister laugh that is not the voice of an enderman nor is it from the fungi of the nether. Additionally, we could think of an entity leading the main piglin leader seen in the legend of MCL, and Foresight sensing it, but we will have to wait until the game releases.

And finally when entering the stronghold the narrator indirectly mentions HoE as a dark force that conspires, and also the feeling as the very void itself watching.

Then there is the most interesting, the Ender Dragon, it was tried to classify it as Voidborn but the closest thing gotten is that it was the soul of a phantom, but even so there were things that did not add up, the Ender Dragon is more special than a simple giant voidborn phantom, it regenerates with the crystals of the central island, the same placed on top of gigantic obsidian towers that from far away look like candles, in addition to being able to reappear infinitely with the ritual, it apparently uses its power to close the exit portal from the central island and "hide" the gateways, it is also the final main enemy of vanilla although at first it does not seem to be any direct threat to the Overworld.

This is where the theory gets interesting, since the Ender Dragon would be another entity that conspires with HoE, the difference is that it can manifest a physical body thanks to the ritual (in fact, if you do the ritual in java, you can hear its roars even before it is generated)

The Lager empire was in bad shape, especially in the end, and Johan needed something to fix this; luckily, the orb was there to help him...

The orb told Johan to have some pillars built on a central island in the end, along with an exit portal in the center and basically do this ritual that would summon a beast that would be under his control to spread terror over the empire , thus ensuring their political and military power while having such a weapon under their control. (like saying you have nuclear weapons irl)

Johan evidently was unaware of the orb's true intentions, so he went ahead with the plan and apparently it worked, as that beast became a symbol of power and terror of the empire,

appearing represented in doors of Highblock Keep and the now lonely fortress in Hibernia, fake heads of the beast are also found in most of the end ships.

Part 5. Heart betrayal:
There is a church in Squid Coast, inside there is a corridor with church seats on the sides (and paintings paying homage to the developers of the game as an easter egg), but the interesting thing is at the end of the corridor. A room with a spiral pattern on the floor, stained glass windows with images of humans, vases on pillars identical to those of Highblock Castle, and in the center of the wall, some illageralt runes that say the word "bovine path", next to a face that resembles the redstone monstrosity etched in gold.

This door in the church can be activated by finding all 10 runes and placing them in the “door”; these runes are hidden around the main continent.

Some are in Lager territory, these are the ones at Fiery Forge, Redstone Mines, Pumpkin Pastures, and the yards of Highblock Castle.

The others are in Nameless Kingdom territory, the Creeper Woods, Cacti Canyon, Desert Temple, and the Soggy Swamp ruins.
Although these doors are secret entrances, they do not lead to a secret room, but to a place that looks like some sort of a "Pocket Dimension", a large entrance, with long corridors, in the distance only infinite purple fog can be seen.

At the end of the path there is a structure similar to that of the church, that when activated, a void energy falls from the pillars, and reveals an object similar to an orb, with the rune inside it. All secret rune entrances point to a location almost identical to this, with the only difference being the type of rune.

This place being a pocket dimension and with void energy could have been created by the Orb of Dominance and Johan, but are there more clues to that?

Well, surprisingly there is! The last rune is found in Highblock keep.

In the obsidian pinnacle library, a dirty, ancient place, with cobwebs between the books, one of the least affected when the mountain “covered” the castle, and also one of the least restored. The secret entrance is behind a bookcase and is activated by moving a specific book.

But, the icing on the cake, is that this is the only rune that is not in the pocket dimension, but is directly in the secret room of Highblock Castle.

Once all the runes are placed in the church, the door can be activated, inside is a room with a couple of chests, statues of royal guards, and a map in the center with the secret location of a mushroom island.

But then why make a church with a door that only opens with runes that say "bovine path"(due mooshrooms) and hide those runes in secret entrances that lead to a pocket dimension, all for a map with the location of an island of mushrooms? Something even more suspicious is going on behind all of this, and perhaps more clues can be found on the mushroom island.

Apart from the fungi, mushrooms, and mooshrooms (aggressive in dungeons) there is a small trace of civilization, a small port at the entrance to the island along with a lantern, and inside the island a small abandoned house. These structures could have probably been built by order of Johan (and the orb)

But on the mushroom island there is also a redstone monstrosity that was infested by the mushrooms, this is probably not one of Archie's, because in the book he mentions that he doesn't know if he can make another one in the future, also in the game we only see 2 monstrosities, the one that attacks Squid Coast in the cutscene, and the one in the Fiery Forge (which may be the same one). The mushroom monstrosity is also stronger, but mushrooms don't make you stronger (mooshrooms don't have more health, for example) and the way archie builts the mold for his monstrosity could indicate that the original was a long process with thought put into it, while the one made by Archie was very spontaneous and probably unawarely lead by the orb.

Also, the design of the monstrosities did not occur to Archie either, as the gargoyles in Highblock Keep have the same design, and are destroyed (they are ancient) and thanks to the Solemn Giant setting we know they are ancient. Even in Gale there are drawings of the face of the monstrosity. And finally, the door of the church has a face very similar to the monstrosity engraved on it. And again the construction of Archie's monstrosity is very improvised, as if the orb had shown him the design as a fleeting thought that just came to his mind.
gargoyle Highblock Keep

The monstrosity's face on the door makes it very likely that the Church's goal in hiding the location of the mushroom island was to keep safe a redstone Monstrosity of Johan, and all this with a lot of the orb influence, but why?.
In the context of the empire at that time, that redstone monstrosity was the most potent weapon (apart from the orb and maybe the dragon), and remember the whole thieves and instability thing, basically society's discontent with the upper class and Johan's regime, in the book an evoker (Thord) can easily command his redstone golem to attack Archie, so it's not far-fetched to think that a group of rebels could steal the redstone monstrosity to start a massive rebellion against Johan.

The theory goes as the orb convinced Johan that the best option was to hide the monstrosity in a secret place that nobody knew about, the mushroom island, hence all the complicated paraphernalia to gather the necessary runes to find the location of the weapon that he would keep as an emergency resource. But in reality the orb's intentions were different, the orb wanted to take advantage of the unstable situation of the empire and get rid of Johan's best weapon... because the orb was planning to betray him.

One of the things that stood out the most about the Lager Kingdom was its alliance with the Nameless Kingdom, by this point it is very likely that The Nameless One already had his emerald orb since there were already many undead in the kingdom, and his orb is the source of necromancy.

Another thing to note about the Emerald Orb, is that it is theorized that it also has an entity like the Orb of Dominance. If you read the Energy Frequency Theory you might be familiar with that, but if not, I'll show the clues to that here.
The Nameless One not only implies that he knows Archie's orb very well, but also compares it to his own as "twins".

There are also those interesting lines in the book where the orbs apparently communicate with each other and their parallelism is emphasized. And there is also the symbology behind the Tower Keeper.

The specific origins of the entity of the emerald orb are not yet known or if it is related to the void (maybe in a theory of the nameless kingdom 😉)

It is likely that the orbs do not get along with each other, not to the point of hating each other and generating massive destruction , but enough that they don't like having to work together, maybe, and this is speculation, the emerald orb is willing to make an alliance, since it's a necessity that the undead don't get burned by the sun and that power is granted by HoE, on the other hand, for HoE it is not necessary to make an alliance with the undead since they are of no real help, and the orb is not interested in sharing its world domination, since after all the real plan is to invade into the overworld with the forces of the void, using Johan as a tool, and the Nameless Kingdom with the emerald orb and the undead and humans would just be a hindrance.
If a few heroes could find all the endersent and defeat them, imagine the entire army of humans and undead of the Nameless Kingdom united with the same goal, or even with the other illagers, HoE had to ensure total world domination (and that is later what he tries with Archie) and for that he had to get rid of the Nameless Kingdom.

The orb tried to convince Johan tto break the alliance and take all control, but his mind was not so persuasive, the Lager empire was not in its best state, Johan was not going to leave the alliance that assured him power and security against any threat. There the disagreement begins where HoE sees that its owner is no longer useful for the plain, so it decides to get rid of him, for this the orb first tricks him into getting rid of his greatest weapon, the redstone monstrosity, abandoning it on the mushroom island. The orb then "takes care" of Johan (murder him lol) and turns/covers/hides Highblock Keep into a mountain, thus ending with the collapse of the Lager empire.

Another thing that could have started an argue between the emperor and the orb: I like to think as Johan as someone successful in life, he was, after all, the ruler of a whole empire-wide kingdom, the opposite of Archie, in the book Archie doesn't care if he is the servant of the orb when he finds out, because "it gave him not just power but prestige." That's the huge difference between the 2 owners, If Johan was someone respected, with power, and prestige, before having the orb, then he will not be fool to fall to the lies of the orb that cause damage to his empire, in other words, eventually he will find out that the orb is a problem, there was people in the ender days who studied the end, people who heard voices from the bows, people who understood the nature of the void, probably they would have figured out the true nature of the orb entity, Archie finds out by himself that the orb is manipulating him, now just think about Johan finding out that as well plus the now evident evil nature of the orb... surely he won't want that thing around anymore, he will want to get rid of the orb... but we know that didn't happen.

After the death of Johan, a prophecy (probably seen or only known by the orb) will be made known to both kingdoms (rather the nameless kingdom and what remains of the Lager empire) and so the orb will wait countless lifetimes until the tiny helpless manipulable illager arrives who will follow its commands and believe in its words.

Part 6. Village & Pillage:
When Highblock Keep was built, villagers and illagers achieved a time of some peace and cooperation under Johan's leadership (at least before the Ender Days), hence the villager statues in the crypt and stronghold and the illager statues in the church, but then when Johan died and Highblock Keep fell, illager society on the mainland collapsed (this is when Walda tells that mobs killed them before they united into a tribe), eventually reorganizing into tribes that would steal and loot

The town halls of the villages responded to the highest authority, Highblock keep, but after the fall of Johan and disappearance of Highblock, the illagers would be resigned to seek home away, some trying to live in the mansions or settlements, they were the political figure with power in the empire, but the villagers decided to have an independence, they did not recognize the illagers of the mansions as true government authorities and they no longer wanted to have to work for them giving them a good part of their resources nor to be involved with their questionable activities, while villagers were passive in nature, illager culture was far more cruel in nature.

This is how the villages began to develop more independently of each other, maintaining trade within and between them, and instead of having a king, they would have town halls where the villagers themselves would make the important decisions for their village, and where Clerics are probably the most important figures left in the society of the empire (due being the more magical-related apart from librarians) and that is why we see them “speaking up” and leading their villages.

(In the Arcade version of Dungeons whose events fit in before each level in Dungeons. there is a clerc observing the attack from the town hall, in the Dungeons cinematic, at night after the first attack we see a cleric speaking up explaining something to a group of villagers, presumably the same one who witnessed the attack)

(When the raid on Pumpkin Pastures begins, a cleric rings the bell and the villagers enter the town hall.)

Now imagine the face of the illagers when their leader, most of the high class and castle fell, and then not being recognized as authorities by the villages. First, the illagers would have to live in the mansions, which would become independent institutions, and the illagers who live in these a "tribe" as it is said in the book, where the leader of the mansion would be the leader of the tribe and that charge would be passed from generation to generation to the strongest illager.

Similar to what happened with the villages, the tribes would have a relationship of exchange and cooperation between them, but they would never be all united in a single state.

The biggest problem for the illagers would be the replenishment of the resources, the illagers were warrior or intellectual people (evokers, enchanters, iceologers, etc), they did not produce resources because that was the work in the villages, but now that the villagers no longer wanted to be part of their state, they had to get resources from somewhere, that's how they decided to start raiding villages and turn that activity into the main source of resources for the entire tribe, not only looting villages but also any hero who was not careful enough.

That is why the illagers of today's new generations have this desire to steal even if they have everything they need to live.

and maybe that's why they use another banner in the raids and not the symbol of the empire, yet the fact they use a unique symbol for their raids, and that the (+) symbol is everywhere in the mansions could indicate that those existed from before the new generation of illagers.

If that happened in the mainland, imagine in the rest of the world, that is, the "Vanilla lands" where they were even more separated from the center of the empire.

Some mansions would even try to grow their own food (some we see in vanilla) and others, like Archie's, would not grow food.

All those long term events would transform the culture of the villagers and illagers, having what we have today, even in all that time, new villages, mansions and outposts could be created by those civilizations outside the main continent.

Along with all of this, things also happened in the Nameless kingdom, the undead mobs and humans separated, now the undead were enemies of villagers, humans, and also illagers. The humans will ally with the villagers,and so the illagers hated them. Again, this should belong to the Nameless Theory.

Although, in the island realms that were part of the empire, interesting things happened.

Starting with our dear Gale.

Gale was itself a village (a BIG one), the difference is that instead of a town hall there was a sanctum, in the same mega village/city/country that the illagers lived, that is, they were not in a separate mansion, but directly in Gale, and they were also a great economic, military, and technological power for the empire (they had windcallers, formidable squall golems, were the empire's source of emeralds, and developed wind technology).

When Highblock keep fell along with Johan and the empire, Gale would remain almost the same because it could and was not dependent on the empire, it did not have internal conflicts for power as with the mansions and villages, nor resource problems because either the Galean illagers, or mountaineers, or villagers, continued to produce resources (we see crops being maintained to this day in Gale), and who knows how long they would continue to export emeralds until they ran out.

Although, among all of this there is a dark secret about Gale, and it is strongly related to the origin of the Ravager.

It is said that a dev once said that the texture of the ravagers was made to resemble the fangs, although we have not found that quote, when comparing the textures the relationship is obvious.

And about the origin of the fangs, these are summoned by the evokers, that is, they come from nextworld like the vex? well... it's different, in dungeons a clear distinction is made between evokers evoking vexes and generating fangs, when they evoke vexes they use a pink energy with light blue touches, this makes sense since they are beings from Nextworld and are teleported to the overworld when evoked . But something different happens with the fangs, since the energy they use when summoning them is yellow, a color that, according to the Energy Frequency Theory, represents Radiance. According to a theory from Valentino-Ultimate, Radiance is also a "life" kind of energy that can give life or create life; what it seems here is that this energy can create some sort of organic matter, in the case of the fangs it is for a limited time, but we could assume that the same energy is used to create the ravagers, only that they don't disappear, but why don't they disappear ?

One of the most popular theories about the ravagers is that they are made with the souls of villagers, and it is something that makes a lot of sense, since their face is like that of a villager with a nose and unibrow, and their sounds are too similar to those of a villager and some are directly edited villager sounds.

So, we could say that the ravagers are beasts created with radiance and villager souls that would make them not disappear, nice. So the question that remains is who and why, and this is where Gale comes in.

In MCD ravagers can only be found in Gale, and it's an important detail, as they even have multiple stables within a cave (with a huge, exuberant cave entrance) dedicated to them, they also have llamas locked up, so perhaps the ravagers have some strange relationship with the llamas? The important thing is that everything would indicate that the place of origin of the ravager is Gale.

Ravagers have been related to many things, Golems (they are not because they drown), manticores, and even Yokais because of the Gale culture that resembles the Japanese.

But then, why did the Galeans decide to create the ravagers, and for what?

"Gale was a village, it produced resources" well... Here we have a problem, because if that was the case, sooner or later some illager tribe that arrived on the island of Gale could plan a massive raid to loot all its wealth and resources. The Galeans decided to... "take care” of the villagers and use their souls to produce ravagers which they would sell to the illager tribes in exchange for them not looting their country full of valuable treasures and resources. This would be the reason why there are no more villagers in Gale despite having a very large village, because after all, the rulers of Gale were illagers, with their evil nature that would do anything in exchange for protecting their legacy and riches.

Continuing with the other island realm, Hibernia:
Since Highblock did not exist anymore, in Hibernia they were going to continue waiting for the new leader of the prophecy, so they prepared their fortress to house a throne and a room dedicated to Archie with a representation of him similar to the prophecy of the jungle.

The wraith apparently took the place of temporary leader until Archie's arrival, and a certain peace was maintained among all Hiberians, be they villagers, illagers, undead, and humans.Minecraft Dungeons Secret Arch Illager Room

We'll come back to the room later in the theory, but the important thing to note here is that this place is pretty damaged, so it was created hundreds of years ago waiting for the prophesied new leader, as the Nameless One says in the novel “I have waited countless lifetimes”, that is a long… long time.

There is something very important about Hibernia, and that is the peace that remained between the Lagers, undead, and humans, but there is another thing that along with this connects dungeons with the events of Vanilla, and in part it has to do with the representations of the Ender dragon at the gates of the fortress that were shown earlier.

A thing about the "Broken citadel" doesn't make much sense at first glance, and that is the fact that it is destroyed, but as far as we know there are no climatic factors that can cause SO much destruction in the city, not even looting by the thieves, heck there are even broken bedrock pillars, then who in the end could generate so much destruction…? Well, nothing more and nothing less than the Ender Dragon.

After Johan's fall, the Ender Dragon began attacking the city and the citadel to get rid of the citizens left in the end, it was part of the plan with Hoe until the new illager arrived. The Dragon would also use its magic/power to close/hide the gateways that connect to the central island, to prevent attacks from citizens. And in some way the connections with the safe routes could have been affected, causing all the stronghold portals to lead directly to the central island, where any being would have a certain doom.

Meanwhile in the overworld, thanks to the survivors who managed to escape to the overworld, the Hiberians would begin to see the dragon as a monster that, when Johan disappeared, went crazy, indomitable, and killed its citizens in the End, of course, even if they suspected that the orb was evil, it would be harder to suspect that the dragon was working along with it.

Hiberia is the part of the empire that remained the most stable, and everyone in Hiberia wished for the death of that dragon, after all, they were the ones who controlled the lost energy in their settlements that made the expeditions to the end possible.

This is where the vanilla facts come in, we don't know exactly who, how, and why, but a human managed the unthinkable, defeating the Ender Dragon and freeing the end of that evil entity. Eventually, the distant lands of Hibernia would receive this news, and build 3 statues (2 on both sides of the throne) with their interpretation based on what they heard, commemorating the victory of that hero against the Ender Dragon.

The statue also uses Alex's skin, in reference to it being the placeholder for the vanilla character, the one depicted on the statues.

Part 7. The Arch-Illager:

Here we are going to highlight the events that relate to the rest of the theory, first the orb that was calling Archie to the cave like whispers, offered him power, and told him that it was his destiny.

The Nameless One tells Archie that he has waited countless lifetimes, the orb mentions his destiny again, but it is also interesting how the orb makes Archie distrust the Nameless One, and tells him not to give him all the power.

After the novel, in the game we see how Archie wants to claim the staff of the nameless in his tiny evil hands to have control over all the undead, at some point the orb would convince Archie of that, since it was not part of the deal that Archie and the Nameless made. It is not known for sure if the orb's plan was for Archie to have control over all the undead, as the old and forgotten nameless kingdom was weaker than it was in Johan's time, so stealing the staff could be an option. Or if the real plan was to destroy the staff or lead the heroes to destroy it by fighting the Nameless One.

How did Hibernia react to the arrival of the new leader?

First of all, the orb could not let Archie settle in Hibernia as if nothing had happened and risk its new owner to know all the context behind the orb he found in a cave, so the orb orders him to build Highblock Keep and rule from there, without Archie knowing about Hibernia.
But in the end, Archie was going to end up being weak and joining the heroes who killed hundreds of illagers from his empire, and when the Hiberians finally got the news... The Hiberians were really disappointed, mad, and frustrated, the Wraith who waited countless lifetimes for the new leader to sit on the throne... all that disappointment, frustration and misfortune of the wraith would cause it to be controlled by a fragment of the orb, condemning the entire world to an uncontrollable winter, and in the midst of despair, some houses in the village of Hibernia would burn down trying to light fires for the impending and unexpected creeping winter.

There are also seen in the room that was long ago made for him, his paintings with words written in illageralt ("Weak" and "Foe") Weak for losing the War, Foe for joining the “heroes”.Minecraft Dungeons Secret Arch Illager Room

About Gale:
Colossal Rampart level description:
FORMIDABLE FORTIFICATIONS — A formidable wall twists along the base of these mighty peaks, stretching endlessly in every direction. These impressive defenses, abandoned long ago, have now been claimed by Illagers who seek to control the entire mountain range. Drive the Illagers from their newfound fortifications while you still can

It is possible that the "lower" Galean mountaineers, that is, those of the "illage" (village of illagers), have a certain resentment towards the windcallers of the sanctum because they had much more power and luxury than them (and literally lived in a huge sanctuary in the top of the mountain) and that is why they not only allowed the passage of the foreign illagers further into the illage but some joined in their future excursion plan to the end that we see in Echoing Void (note that there are no windcallers in echoing void).

As we know, Archie would be defeated, ironically, it's partly the orb's fault, the orb had a strong but not dominable owner, Johan, and looked for one that was dominable, Archie, but this one was weak, and as we see at the end, it's the orb that no longer wants to work with Archie, the orb is destroyed and its fragments go to different parts of the world, one to the jungle, another to the ocean depths, another to Gale, one to the wraith of Hibernia, and the last and largest one returns to the End, to try again to fulfill its corruption plan, but once again, it is defeated by the heroes, finally and truly freeing the overworld from the orb's influence once and for all.

But hey! That's just a theory… A Joooohan Theory!
Thanks for reading.

Thanks to all the people who make this theory possible
-Fork(Azz) -Foquito Azul -Lazlo -NewNicklas
-Valentino -VoidVortex -Kingtorsten

Bonus part 8. Johan Fanart! :D
(secret easter egg at final doc page)
Maybe we don't know how Johan was physically, but here we have fanart of the Jo man himself :D
NewNicklas (Nicklas145) // Dr Mae (mae910do)

Foquito Azul
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-The Johan Theory