Just Lomba

- The End is a devastated, fragile dimension, meant to balance out the lively abundance of the Overworld and the enclosed stability/stagnation of the Nether.

- It exists as a final boundary between the World (Overworld, Nether and End) and the Void, on the very edge of existence.

- The only way to reach the End is though hidden, abandoned portals, none of which are functional.

- And the only way to leave the End is sealed shut, guarded by the life of a dragon.

- The World itself doesn’t want the End to be found.

- While the End is necessary to the balance of the World, it is also the most dangerous of the three dimensions, and that’s due to one thing; the Void.

- The Void is both the beginning and the end of all Worlds, every World that has - and ever will - exist spawned from the Void, and they all will inevitably return to it.

- The bedrock barriers at the bottom of both the Overworld and Nether are vital to keeping the Void at bay, without them both dimensions would share the Ends fate, or worse the World would simply be consumed entirely.

- This is why there are no surviving civilisations in the End, just the hollow cities that have been left behind by those brave or foolish enough to try and claim the dimension.

- Any attempts to build upon the scattered islands will risk the Void lashing out and consuming it.

- This isn’t due to the Void being malicious, it can’t be, because it isn’t sentient.

- The Void is a neutral force of nature, always trying to reclaim the world and all that is in it.

The Ender Dragon

- Living embodiment of the Voids hunger, consumes any material brought to the End.

- Every World will have a dragon, spawned from the Void itself, and able to have a single egg.

- Like the Void, the dragon isn’t evil, but it is driven by an instinctual need to consume everything around it.

- The dragon is the reason there’s a large circumference of empty space around the ‘central’ nest island, it destroyed the surrounding islands, reaching further out the more it grows.

- The dragon could theoretically continue to grow indefinitely.

- It also feeds on the energy of the Overworld portal, that’s why they nest on it, and why it doesn’t activate unless the dragon is slain.

- The egg is placed on top of the portal in case of the dragons death, if left long enough it will drain the energy of the active portal until it can hatch and grow into a new dragon (takes a very long time to hatch). The teleporting ability of the egg is meant to protect it from being removed from the End.

Philza Hardcore S4 things

- The main change to general End stuff is the fact the Enderking exists.

- He spawned into existence and immediately started fighting the resident dragon for control of the End.

- Because this World managed to spawn multiple gods, the dragon that spawned from the Void was massive, due to the Void responding to the power of the Enderking.

- He manages to kill the dragon, but in this World the battle between them is the reason for the empty space around the main End island. Highly destructive fight.

- The Enderking begins pilfering from the other two dimensions, and he starts building up his hoard of stolen resources and biomes.

- The defeated dragons skeleton is used as a decoration/trophy to try and show off his strength.

- Didn’t want to deal with the egg possibly hatching into another dragon (it was a rough fight the first time), so he tossed it into the Void. (I know Philza kept it, but due to the fact he just hides it in the Enderchest to avoid losing it I don’t think it has any lore relevance)

- The more stuff he brings to the End, the more he throws off the delicate balance with the Void.

- He actually spent a lot of energy trying to suppress the Voids reaction to everything he’s doing, similar to how the Blaze Empress tries to contain Nethervoid.

- He never made the connection of him bringing large amounts of matter to the End being the cause of the Voids agitation, he just believed more dragons were trying to spawn in order to fight him again.

- Of course after he dies in the Flooding of the End, two more dragons do end up spawning. The Voids attempt to correct the severe imbalance of material in the End.

- Unfortunately for them, there’s never meant to be two dragons at once, so they spent as much time fighting each other as they do eating parts of Endlantis.

- The fact they were distracted by fighting each other and that the island is fully enclosed in water, causing them to be a bit confused (water isn’t exactly something they normally come across) they struggled to cause too much destruction.

- That’s what Philza ends up finding when he finally arrives, two dragons and a flooded End island, with chunks missing from the island, the stolen biomes and even the Enderkings corpse.

- (Due to the lore of S4 being Philza finding all these locations, not building them, it didn’t make sense for him to do a typical ‘go to End, fight dragon’ situation, so I’m imagining the Battle for Endlantis, with the two dragons, being Phil’s introduction to the End)

- Philza successfully kills both dragons, allowing him to properly explore and learn about the area.

And I think that covers all the End/Void/Enderdragon interactions I’ve been coming up with, and how they interact with S4.

Hope it all makes sense, and as I’ve said in previous post, some stuff might not match with info Philza has mentioned that I missed or forgot, but this is just me trying to get the brainworms out of my head and move on to other ideas.

Unlike some other interpretations where Hardcore is something that affects Phil specifically (causing him to have one life/can’t respawn), this idea is the world itself being so fragile that a significant (player) death will destroy it.

(This also helps explain why he could die/respawn in other worlds/servers like QSMP)

But first we need to cover why the world is so fragile to begin with; The God War.

Rough timeline of the God War (before Philza arrives):

- World begins existing. Standard Minecraft layout with 3 dimensions; Overworld, Nether and End.

- The various Gods form in their domains (Blaze Empress = Nether, Rose = Overworld nature/plants, Ocean Overlord = Overworld Oceans, Enderking = End, plus some additional Gods Phil has implied exist but hasn’t yet given any details)

- Initial time of peace, everyone’s happy except Enderking who is growing jealous of the other Gods vibrant, lively domains, while he is stuck with the desolate End.

- Enderking begins exerting his power, stealing bits and pieces of Overworld and Nether (Like how Endermen steal blocks, he can steal whole biomes) and bringing them to the End.

- Other Gods eventually notice the theft, start turning against Enderking.

- Enderking becomes angrier at their rejection, he feels he’s just claiming what should rightfully be his, because his world has nothing but he has the power to change that.

- Enderking begins targeting the other Gods domains. (Blaze and Ocean)

- The Gods try to repair the damage he caused with their own powers.

- Nethervoid and Flowerfall are created.

- Rose reinforces her own domain as a preventative measure against Enderking.

- Greater Spawn Islands are created.

- Enderking plans to use his power to fuse both the Overworld and the Nether with the End, giving himself full control over the whole world.

- This leads to the Flooding of the End, and the death of Enderking.

(- Phil has mentioned a few causes of the flooding, but I’m uncertain what the official take is, or if Phil has even decided there is one. Either Enderking simply fucked up his world takeover attempt, the other Gods interfered with his plan, or the Gods actively caused the flooding as an attack on the Enderking. Honestly doesn’t matter which is correct for this, so pick your favourite.)

- Endlantis is created.

- World is left in disrepair, the remaining Gods try and keep their domains safe as the damage just continues to grow.

- The Gods eventually become weaker and weaker, until they are barely active in the world, their creations falling to ruin around them as a very long period of time passes (Centuries? Millennia?)

- Philza finds the world.

Quick Overview:

- The main cause of the worlds fragility is the war between Enderking and the other Gods.

- Enderking is the main culprit of the damage, but the other Gods haven’t helped the situation.

- Every time the Enderking used his power to steal a piece of the Overworld or Nether it left behind damage that the Void could then enter and spread. (Nethervoid is the obvious example of this)

- He also caused further problems by bringing the stolen matter to the End, further details below (The Void).

- As a result the world is on the brink of destruction, it can’t be saved.

- None of the HC deities know the extent of the damage their world has suffered, they don’t realise they are doomed.

- When Philza found the world it basically latched on to him, the fact he’s the Angel of Death means he can just barely stabilise the world.

- He is fully aware of the state of the world, and he’s the only one that knows.

- But he can’t fix it, only pause its deterioration.

- And when he does eventually, inevitably die, the world will be consumed by the Void and vanish.

- The Gods will also die with the world, as they are essentially the living embodiment of their parts of the world.

- Philza will be the only thing to survive, just moving on to a different world, like he always has.

The Void:

- The Void is eternal, unending and exists between all worlds.

- It is not malicious, it isn’t even conscious in any way, it is simply a force of nature.

- No God has dominion over the Void, but Kristin - as the Goddess of Death - has the closest connection to the Void.

- The Void could be viewed as a gateway to Kristin’s realm (Death) due to it destroying/killing all that it consumes.

- In normal circumstances both the Overworld and Nether have a layer of solid bedrock shielding them from the Void below and preventing it from affecting them, but due to the Enderkings actions this is no longer the case.

- The Void now has easy access to both realms and has begun to spread and disrupt the fabric of the world.

- The End doesn’t have the security of a bedrock barrier, it is always floating above a hungry Void.

- The dragon is linked to the Void, that’s why it’s able to destroy blocks. (I have other hcs about the dragon, but they aren’t really relevant to the Hardcore lore)

- A careful balancing act of empty, desolate islands are all that can safely exist without agitating the Void below.

- When the Enderking started bringing massive amounts of matter from the Overworld and Nether to the End it disrupted that balance.

- Even though he shrinks his stolen prizes down, it doesn’t counteract the sheer amount of material he has pulled into the End.

- All 3 dimensions are actively being targeted and consumed by the Void, and nothing can undo the damage.

Nethervoid:

- Nethervoid is the most blatant sign of the damage the world is suffering, it also demonstrates how the Gods don’t realise how serious the damage is.

- The Blaze Empress has used a massive amount of power to try and restrain the Void and its reach, and on the surface she seems to have been successful.

- The Quartress and its surrounding islands make it appear that the Empress has everything under control, but to maintain the Nethervoid she has to constantly expend energy just to keep it stable.

- The reality is that Nethervoid is a drain on both energy and physical matter (it is still consuming the Nether, while Blaze has slowed it significantly she can’t stop it), and it is a one way system.

- Everything that is consumed in Nethervoid is irreversibly lost to the Void, further adding to the worlds deterioration.

Special mention for Nethervoid part 2:

- I was happy with part 2 because it works really well with my ideas.

- To be specific it shows the how the Void is spreading beyond Nethervoid itself, despite Blaze Empress doing her best to contain it.

- Each window to a distant biome is an ominous sign of the Void consuming the Nether, all those locations are now at risk.

- I imagine the windows began to appear after the War, in the very long period of time between the Enderkings death and Philza finding the world, during which all the surviving Gods begin to grow weaker and less active in the world.

- While I’ve been writing this all out, Philza just had a recent stream where he mentioned the formation of a river passing between two of the windows, and how Blaze saw it forming and did nothing about it… could interpret that as she couldn’t do anything about it as she looses her ability to keep the Nethervoid stable. (I was excited when he mentioned that little idea haha)

- The windows are a sign of the Blaze Empress losing her strength and grip on Nethervoid.

Overworld:

- The damage to the Overworld is less obvious than the Nether (at least in the locations we have seen/Phil has built) due to there being more gods in the Overworld to try and maintain appearances (Rose, Ocean Ovelord to start, and Phil has hinted at there being more he hasn’t revealed yet).

- Or that’s how things seem on the surface, the truth is that the Enderkings actions have fractured the Overworld just as severely as the Nether.

- It should be noted that in Enderkings lair we can see a collection of places he has stolen, this includes the Ocean Overlords original temple and a piece of the Nether we can assume is what originally sat in Nethervoids location.

- But there are more than just those 2, multiple Overworld biomes are on display alongside them, and it’s safe to say that the others didn’t all have a dedicated God trying to salvage the damage done to the region following the theft.

- The presence of the Void at some of these locations rivals that of Nethervoid, if not worse due to lack of Godly interference.

- These biomes are scattered across the Overworld, out of sight for most of the Gods, but they are seriously damaged, and that damage is spreading unchecked.

Endlantis:

- Most info about the damage done by Enderking has already been covered in above sections, but I should once again mention how bringing large amounts of matter to the End makes the Void lurking below more voracious.

- Especially considering how the War ended with the flooding of the central island, with an oceans worth of water being brought to the End in a single moment.

- That addition of a literal fuckton of water really didn’t help the whole balance thing the End needed to stay stable and keep the Void calm.

- Depending on what version of events caused the flooding of the End (Enderking messed up his world fusing plan, or the Gods did something to cause the flood) means either the Enderking has yet another thing to be blamed for, or the other Gods unknowingly threw their whole world even further towards oblivion.

- Admittedly stopping the Enderking was definitely necessary, considering his ultimate goal was combining all 3 dimensions, a plan that would have absolutely plunged the world straight into the Void and killed them all if he actually went through with it.

- Not that any of them know that.

Special mention for the Battle for Endlantis:

- Specifically the fact 2 dragons showed up and messed up part of Endlantis.

- As mentioned before, dragons are connected to the Void, hence the block destruction.

- The instability of the End basically summoned 2 whole ass dragons to consume some of that stolen material.

- Philza eventually kills both, but not before they take a few good chunks out of the various stolen biomes, structures, and even the Enderkings own corpse.

- This situation wasn’t so much an attack, more like an instinctive drive to correct an imbalance.

Philza:

- So, the man (Angel? Bird?) that’s keeping the whole world from being Yeeted into the Void.

- He’s an immortal wanderer, you know, standard Philza character lore.

- He travels to different worlds, exploring and learning about them as he goes, occasionally staying long enough to leave his own mark on a world before pressing onward again.

- Then he found this world; a fragile, fragmented mess that was hanging on the very edge of existence, quite literally teetering on the edge of the Void.

- He could recognise the world clinging to his presence - he was something new and strong enough to provide at least a little stability - and realised he was the only thing that could stave off the inevitable destruction. At least, as long as he avoided dying.

- He saw the God-made structures, fallen into disrepair, and took it upon himself to try and restore them, at least for as long as he could remain in the world.

- He eventually came into contact with the remaining Gods, weak and sleepy as they are, and began to learn about the worlds history, about how it came to be in such a state.

- The surviving Gods like him, they see him as a new, curious little mortal, helpfully cleaning up their domains and listening to their stories, because all Gods are a little vain and like to be acknowledged.

- They don’t realise the reason he’s so careful, so focused on removing any dangerous pests (mobs) from their homes and making them safe (spawn proof), is because he can’t risk dying.

- None of them realise Philza is the only thing preventing their deaths.

- And Philza has no intention of telling them.

The Inevitable:

- Ultimately, Philza will eventually die. He’s a fantastic survivalist, but not perfect, and it will happen eventually.

- When he dies it will send ripples through the delicate fabric of the world, and those ripples will finally tear it to pieces.

- The Void will roar through every dimension and consume everything in its path.

- The Gods won’t even realise what is happening when they die. It’ll be too quick.

- And Phil will move on to a new world, the only remnants of this one being the memories he carries, and whatever stories he shares in the future.

I’m pretty sure that’s all the details I have for this concept now, at least the ones specifically about just the S4 world.

A story about Gods unintentionally destroying their own reality, and not a single one even realises it’s happening. Only a solitary wanderer stumbling into the world understands the dire situation they are in.

I do want to clarify I am but a simple crow, I don’t know everything Philza has shared on this world, and maybe some of these ideas do conflict with some detail he has mentioned and I missed/forgor. These are just some fun headcanons I dreamed up over the last few months that make the world itself a bit more angsty.

It’s also probably obvious, but these ideas aren’t going into detail about the Gods themselves, mainly because both Phil and the community have created so much lore for them that trying to include all that here would likely triple the length of this post, at the very least. So I’m intentionally not going into detail on that aspect of lore, just my ideas of how the world itself works.

I do have a few thoughts about how this all interacts with the QSMP lore Phil did, and how things might change a bit to work with what we saw on Quesadilla Island, and how it might have progressed if the server hadn’t ended (some of which is a bit evil) but I’m gonna leave this for now.

Essentially the God war between the Enderking and the other Gods put immense strain on the very fabric of reality. Between Enderpookie literally tearing chucks out of the Overworld and Nether and pulling them into the End, and the other Gods (Blaze and Rose) expending huge amounts of power to change/sustain the afflicted areas, by the end of the war (flooding the End/death of Enderking) the world is hanging by a thread.

This is one part caused by the loss of matter in Overworld/Nether causing the Void to push into areas it should never be - the most obvious example being Nether Void - and the second part is the sudden increase of matter in the End (even if Enderking used his power to shrink the stolen pieces it’s still a huge amount of matter).

For the purposes of this lore idea, the Void is separate from the world, more like an inter-dimensional glue that exists between all worlds. An all consuming abyss that is eternal and never ending. The only being that has any kind of claim on it is Kristin - as goddess of death - because to fall into the Void is the closest the living can get to Her, if only briefly.

Normally both Overworld and Nether are firmly separated from the Void, both have solid bedrock to keep it at bay, but the Enderkings abuse of his power unwittingly created new openings in both realms. This has allowed the Void to gain a strong foothold and caused the whole world to become unstable.

In Nether Void there is additional problems. In order to maintain her seat of power in the Nether, the Blaze Empress has used a massive amount of power to hold the Void at bay. This has worked, as seen with the Quartress, but she is also unintentionally draining even more energy and matter from the Nether (and herself) into the abyss, where it will never be recovered. It is a one way system that she (and the world as a whole) can never regain what she puts forth.

The other side of the problem is the End. A realm that should normally be on the brink of existence, quite literally floating over the Void with no barriers, filled with nothing but barren islands and abandoned cities. But when the Enderking first came into being, when he first began using his power to claim pieces of other realms and pull them to his side, he disrupted an ancient, careful balancing act that the End had been keeping with the ever hungry Void.

It’s not obvious, like in Nether Void, but this change in the End has also agitated the Void, further adding to the instability of the world as a whole. As time passed and the remaining Gods grew weaker and less active, the world they lived in became more and more fragile, drawing closer and closer to the limit it could take before it all shattered into nothingness.

And then Philza found the world.

A fragile, beautiful world filled with the creations of Gods. Crumbling ruins they may have been, but still beautiful, still existing. For now.

As the Angel of Death his presence alone is just barely enough to still the Voids ravenous destruction… but only barely. The moment he entered the world it clung to him, his life in this world is the final thread, the last thing holding it together, but if (When) he dies… that will be the end.

And Philza knows.

He knew it the moment he arrived.

And he’s the only one who knows.

None of the gods know how close they are to complete destruction, none realise the true cost of their ancient war.

The Gods that are still awake, still aware of the world, see Philza as a curiosity, nothing more than a strange, friendly little mortal that tends to their creations, who listens to their stories and travels the land. He is kind, and helpful, but doesn’t hold any true power or importance.

They don’t realise he is the last thing between them and oblivion.

And in the end, when Philza does end up losing that single precious life to this world, the Void will be swift and merciless.

It will consume all in its path, the Overworld, the Nether, the End.

Not even the Gods will be safe.

They won’t have the chance to realise what is happening, when their world and lives end.

The only thing that will survive from this place will be Phil.

With a single death he will slip away, the dying world will lose its grip on him, and he will continue to wander the worlds, stepping from one to the next with the ease of waking from a dream.

And yup that’s a pretty good summary of my brainrot idea for Philzas Hardcore world lore.