My Kingdom for a Deepslate Emerald Ore
Part 36 ~ 6 June 2025
Posted: 15 February 2026
Today I learned that "Kingdom" is a gender-neutral term for a domain ruled by a monarch, despite the clearly masculine root of the word. Well, I sort of knew this, considering how the real world has kings and queens but not "queendoms". What didn't occur to me is that this, in principle, extends to leaders of other genders but equivalent status. The things you learn as a writer! Here I am reaching for a new "genderless" title, when the one in common usage works just fine. So, as the entity with total authority over this Minecraft world, I may crown myself Sovereign Ela – or whatever the heck I want really – but the land itself is my kingdom.
And, oh my Ghast, I was ready to torch the whole place to find a single block for my trophy case.
Here's the chart of ore generation in Minecraft 1.18+. I've heard various complaints about how they did it... I dunno, I reckon it's pretty good, but that's a separate discussion. Right now, I just want you to look at that little sliver of green that just barely cuts into the deepslate layer. That's our target. Why is it striped like that? Because you only find it in mountain biomes – of which there are eight by my count, up to nine in 1.20 with cherry groves splitting off from meadows. And by the way, if a cave biome cuts through your mountain at deepslate level? No more emeralds. And to cap it off, emerald ore "veins" are only a thing in the high mountain peaks. It's single blocks only underground. The net result is a block so rare that it may as well be an easter egg.
So, where to begin my search? The one nearby mountain biome, of course! This is Keyhole Peak, just across Allay Bay, and named for the little forest valley that gives this landform the appearance of a keyhole when viewed from above. I mined in, and about 40 blocks down encountered a cave – where, to my dismay, I found that in all directions, the deepslate was covered in a horrifying blue growth. Craaap. My mountain biome ran out before I even got down to negative y! I tried skirting the border of the mountain where the sculk didn't reach so high, but I found that I only had a small area to mine out between the deep dark and the neighbouring forest biome. SAD FACE. At least I figured out the optimal y-level to mine thanks to a chart on the wiki (it's -2).
Attempt #2: The Cornflower Meadow. Pardon the lack of cornflowers; I swiped them to decorate my house lol. This one got off to a promising start as I found a 13-vein of deepslate coal on the way down. I've had people tell me that deepslate coal is so rare that they keep it as a trophy. BAH to that, I say! This stuff is dirt-common compared to its green counterpart. Unfortunately, my hunt was thwarted again, this time by dripstone caves. I'll be honest, I don't know if meadows spawn emeralds at all – I searched all the nearby spots and didn't see a single green ore at any level. Do they stop being meadows below a certain altitude?
At this point, I remembered that Windswept Hills (formerly Extreme Hills) and its variants count as mountains for emerald ore spawns, so I flew out toward the northwest swamp where a few such biomes are. On the way, I passed by a couple of villages that up to now had been on the fringe of my map. The first was precariously placed on a mountain side, and had only one villager, a baby with 2hp left. I'm baffled as to how this place has been ruined already, even if there are spots where mobs can spawn in daytime, because this place would have been loaded for SECONDS while I flew by. Anyway, I called this place Llamamount for the single llama living on the peak, and resolved to repopulate it someday.
Just across (and on) the river lies Northwind, a relatively normal taiga village standing at the edge of the great Mitosis Swamp to the west, and a combination Windwswept Hills and Windswept Forest region to the south – hence the name. To avoid further endangerment to villagers, I hopped over to the opposite side of this range to unload the village chunks before starting my excavation. And, while I did have a decent caving session, I once again came up empty. Much of the underground was dripstone cave again, but a lot of it wasn't. I guess the ore is just that rare? I did have this hilarious run in with a glow squid that clipped up through the floor into my tunnel :P
After three fruitless expeditions, I called off the mission for a bit and turned my attention to other projects. Like, for example, launching this website! (Wow, so meta!) But then I had an idea. Chunkbase lets you see the biome for a location at three layers: surface, cave, and deep underground. What if I could find a big patch of land that's a mountain biome at all three levels? Is that even a thing? I gave it a go, and... well, the spots I'd already mined were all wiped by cave biomes, which figures. BUT – not far from my slime hunting spot, there's a strip of Windswept Hills that stays put all the way to bedrock! With newfound excitement, I headed back out.
This is the spot, and with it, another village! I manifested my desired block – and confess to you my childhood love of Sonic the Hedgehog – by naming this region Emerald Hill. A little torch spam to protect the locals, then back to work with the pickaxe. Just as I hit deepslate level, I splashed down into a flooded cave... and a mere few blocks forward and to my right, I spotted a gleaming green treasure!
YIPPEE! You have NO IDEA how happy I was to see this! And so soon too, after all the tunnels where I didn't find one. Gotta Go Fast, I guess :P I don't care if there's more ores in this cave; I've got my trophy and I'm outta here! And so, with my "Chaos Emerald" in hand, I made a beeline back to Pony Springs, and booked it through the nether tunnel back to base – where my collection of rare treasure steadily grows :D
