Better Nether Wiki

Better Nether (mod id betternether) is a large nether overhaul. It fills the nether with more than twenty new biomes, each with its own terrain, plants, fog color and atmosphere, and layers survival content on top: new mobs, structures, foods, building materials and equipment, so you can live in the nether without ever returning to the surface.

The original mod is by paulevsGitch and the BetterX team (quiqueck). The code is released under the MIT license (the bundled art assets carry the team's CC BY-NC-SA terms), and this build's source remains available under the same terms.

Better Nether requires two libraries from the same team: WorldWeaver and BCLib - both are linked in the post's Requires box.

1. Install the mod together with its two libraries (WorldWeaver and BCLib - see the Requires box on the download page).
2. Create or load a world and enter the nether. The new biomes generate throughout the nether alongside the vanilla ones.
3. Explore. Each biome brings its own plants and materials - gather everything you find; most plants can be replanted and farmed.
4. Settle in. Craft equipment from nether materials, farm nether crops for food, and activate a respawn statue so dying no longer sends you back to the overworld.

Better Nether adds over twenty biomes to the nether, including:

• Crimson glowing woods - crimson terrain under a pale mist with glowing plants.
• Crimson pinewood - a forest of crimson pines.
• Nether jungle - dense growth under a green haze, littered with giant bone skulls and ribs.
• Bone reef and sulfuric bone reef - turquoise-hazed reefs of exposed bone formations.
• Magma land - orange-lit caverns dotted with lava and fire.
• Gravel desert - a barren stretch of netherrack and gravel.
• Flooded deltas - gray basalt columns over open lava pools.
• Soul plain - flat soul-sand expanses.
• Nether grasslands (and a poor variant) - grassy nether plains.
• Mushroom forest (with edge variant) - towering nether mushrooms.
• Swampland (with terrace variant) and old swampland - misty nether swamps.
• Old fungiwoods and old warped woods - mature fungus forests.
• Wart forest (with edge variant) - nether wart growth.
• Upside-down forest (with cleared variant) - trees growing down from the ceiling.

Finding a biome: use the vanilla locate command from inside the nether, e.g. /locate biome betternether:nether_jungle or /locate biome betternether:bone_reef - every Better Nether biome uses the betternether: namespace.

• Firefly - a small glowing insect that drifts through the darker biomes and lights them up.
• Hydrogen jellyfish - a large floating jellyfish that hovers through the air.
• Naga - a hostile serpent that attacks with projectiles.
• Flying pig - a winged nether pig.
• Jungle skeleton - a skeleton variant found in the nether jungle.
• Skull - a small flying skull that hunts in the dark.

• Respawn statues - statues found (and craftable) in the nether. Activating a statue sets your respawn point in the nether: when you die, you respawn at the statue instead of your overworld bed.
• Ghast hives - massive hive structures where ghasts nest.
• Cities - large ruined city structures with multiple buildings to explore and loot.

Nether farming works entirely on nether ground - no dirt or water needed. Most Better Nether plants can be harvested and replanted, giving renewable supplies of building material and food. The mod adds nether-grown foods (fruits and stews from nether plants) and medicine items that restore health with a regeneration effect, so hunger and healing are both solvable without leaving the dimension.

• Building blocks - several new nether wood types with full block families (planks, stairs, slabs, doors, signs), brick and stone variants, glass in many colors and assorted decorations.
• Boats - the nether woods and reeds can be crafted into boats, usable on lava-free surfaces like any boat.
• Equipment - armor and tools made from nether materials such as cincinnasite and nether ruby, letting you gear up entirely inside the nether.

Nether portals no longer have to be the vanilla rectangle. Blocks tagged as portal frame blocks (obsidian and Better Nether's frame blocks) can be arranged in any closed shape, and the portal will light and work normally. This makes decorative portal builds - round, angled or irregular - fully functional.

Better Nether reads its settings from JSON config files in the config/bclib/ folder (the config system is provided by its BCLib library; WorldWeaver keeps its own files under config/wover/). Edit the files while the game is closed, then restart for changes to apply.

Why is nothing new generating in my nether? Make sure both required libraries (WorldWeaver and BCLib) are installed alongside Better Nether, and explore newly generated nether chunks.

How do I find a specific biome? From inside the nether run /locate biome betternether:<biome_id>, e.g. /locate biome betternether:magma_land.

Can I respawn in the nether? Yes - activate a respawn statue and it becomes your respawn point.

Can portals really be any shape? Yes - build the frame from portal-frame blocks in any closed shape and light it as usual.

Does the mod add chat commands? No - it only uses vanilla commands such as /locate biome.