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This article is about the mob. For detailed information on trading, see Trading.
"Librarian" redirects here. For the achievement, see Achievements § Librarian.

A villager is an intelligent passive NPC that the player can trade with. A villager has one of six professions: farmer (brown robe), librarian (white robe), priest (purple robe), blacksmith (black apron), butcher (white apron), and nitwit (green robe).

Spawning

Natural generation

Villagers spawn inhabiting their villages, which spawn in several biomes.

A priest villager and priest zombie villager spawn locked up in the basements of igloos.

Baby villagers

Villagers will breed autonomously, but need doors in order to spawn baby villagers. After exactly 20 minutes, the baby villager will grow up to an adult. See this section for more information.

Curing

Villagers will spawn if a player uses a splash potion of weakness on a zombie villager and then feeds it a regular golden apple. It will then shake and turn into a villager within 5 minutes. During the change, the zombie villager can still burn in the sun unless it is a baby zombie villager.

Variants

Zombie villagers

Zombie villagers spawn when zombies kill villagers (depending on the current difficulty), and can also spawn naturally alongside regular zombies.

Illagers

Illagers are hostile villagers that spawn in woodland mansions. There are two kinds: evokers and vindicators. Illagers are considered to be outcasts from villages.[1]They will also attack villagers.

Witches

Witches are highly villager-like mobs which spawn either with the normal mobs, exclusively in witch huts, and when a villager is struck by lightning.

Drops

Villagers have no drops. They do not even provide experience.

Behavior

Movement patterns

Upon spawning, villagers will leave their homes and begin to explore the village. Generally, they wander aimlessly inside the village during the day. They may go indoors or outdoors. Occasionally, two villagers may stop, and turn to look at each other, in a behavior called socializing, in which they will stare at another villager for a few seconds at a time. In the case of players, they will continuously stare at them as long as the player is close enough, unless the villager tries to get into a house at night, farm food, or run away from a zombie. When a player attacks a villager, the villager will not run away, but anger particles will fly out from the villager if it is in a village.

Villagers, like other mobs, will find paths around obstructions and will avoid some harmful blocks and walking off cliffs. However, in crowded situations it's possible for one villager to push another off a cliff or into harm.

At night or during rain, villagers will run inside, closing doors behind them, staying indoors until the morning. In the morning, the villagers will head outside, fleeing from any remaining zombies. Once the zombies are gone, the villagers will resume normal behavior.

If a villager finds itself outside the village boundary, or a villager without a village detects a village boundary within 32 blocks, it will move quickly back within the boundary. A villager taken more than 32 blocks away from its village boundary will forget the village within about 6 seconds. Whether in a village or not, a villager is never prone to despawning.

Villagers cannot open trapdoors, fence gates, or iron doors.

There is evidence that villagers are prone to overcrowding certain areas of a village while leaving other areas completely empty. When moving inside, the AI prefers doors within 16 blocks (Euclidean distance). It also tends to prefer doors with fewer villagers nearby, however "nearby" in this case is only 1.5 blocks and, when moving inside, villagers prefer to move 2.5 blocks inside when the inside is to the south or east and therefore will be out of range of this check. During the day, it has been observed that villagers will tend to cluster near a trapped villager or any existing large cluster of villagers, likely due to the "socialize" AI routine overriding their inclination to wander.

Picking up items

Villagers have eight hidden inventory slots. Villagers will not intentionally seek out items to pick up, but they will collect any bread, carrots, potatoes, wheat, seeds, beetroot and beetroot seeds they happen to come within range of. These are the only items they are able to pick up. If a player and a villager are in the pickup range of an item at the same time, the player will always pick it up first.

Note: If the gamerule mobGriefing is false, villagers will not pick up items.

Sharing food

If a villager has enough food in one inventory stack (6 bread or 24 carrots, potatoes, beetroots, or 18 wheat for Farmers only) and sees a villager without enough food in one inventory stack (3 bread or 12 carrots, potatoes or beetroot for non-Farmers; 15 bread, 60 carrots, potatoes, or beetroot, or 45 wheat for Farmers), the villager may decide to share food with that villager.

To share, a villager finds his first inventory stack with at least 4 bread, carrots, potatoes, or beetroot or with at least 6 wheat, and then throws half the stack (rounded down) in the direction of the target villager. When wheat is shared, it is first crafted to bread which may result in 1 or 2 less than half the stack being shared.

Farming

Adult and baby brown-robed villagers, both farmers and other careers, will tend crops within the village boundary. Villagers far enough outside the boundary of any village will also tend nearby crops.

Farmland to be tended is found by seeking for certain blocks up to 15 blocks away from the villager in X and Z and up to 1 away in Y (a 31×31×3 area total).

  • If a brown-robed villager does not have enough food in one stack in his inventory (15 bread, 60 carrots, potatoes, or beetroot, or 45 wheat) and finds fully-grown wheat, carrots, potatoes or beetroot, he will move to the crop block and break it.
  • If a brown-robed villager has any seeds, carrots, potatoes, or beetroot seeds in his inventory and finds an air block above farmland, he will move to it and plant a crop. They will always plant from the first eligible slot in their inventory.

Note that if the gamerule mobGriefing is false, villagers will not be able to farm.

Baby villagers

ChildrenTag

A group of villager children playing a game of tag.

Baby villagers will sprint around, entering and leaving houses at will. They will sometimes stop sprinting to stare at an Iron Golem. If the Iron Golem is holding a poppy, the children will cautiously take the flower from its hands.

Unlike other breed-able mobs, the parents and child have no personal interactions other than socializing.

Zombies

Main articles: Siege and Zombie

Zombies will try to find and attack villagers within a 42 block radius (even when the villager is invisible), and will attempt to break down doors. Zombies will only successfully break doors if the difficulty is set to hard, though only a fraction of zombies spawned in hard mode have the capacity to break doors. This also applies to zombie pigmen if they path find through a door. Villagers will run away from zombies, sometimes hiding in houses. The villager's only "natural" defense are the iron golems, which attack nearby hostile mobs.

Zombies will try to kill villagers, or convert them to zombie villagers. The chance that the villager will become a zombie villager on death is 0% on Easy, 50% on Normal, and 100% on Hard. Baby villagers can be infected by zombies as well.

Villagers will also run from zombie pigmen.

Lightning

When lightning strikes between 3–4 blocks of a villager, it will turn into a witch.

Breeding

VillagerInLove

Two villagers mating.

Villagers will mate depending on the number of valid doors. Villagers will then mate until the number of villagers equals or is more than 35% of the number of doors, rounded down. The type of villager that the child is doesn't depend on what type the parents are.

A valid door is any door within the village radius where the number of "outside" spaces within 5 blocks in a straight line on one side of the door is not the same as the number of "outside" spaces within 5 blocks on the other side of the door. A space is considered to be "outside" if it has nothing but transparent blocks above it all the way to the sky.

The game engine periodically takes a census to determine the current population of the village. All villagers within the horizontal boundary of the village and within 5 vertical blocks of the center will be counted as part of the population to determine if continued villager mating is allowed. However, any villager within the horizontal boundary of the village and within the spherical boundary of the village will attempt to enter mating mode as long as there is at least one villager within the boundary. If two villagers simultaneously enter mating mode while they are close to one another, they will mate with each other and produce a child.

Willingness

Additionally, villagers must be "willing" in order to breed. After mating, they will no longer be willing, and must be made willing again.

Villagers may become willing when the player trades with them. Willingness is granted the first time a new offer is traded, or at a one-in-five chance on subsequent trades. Green particles will appear if the villager becomes willing by trading. This will not cause them to immediately seek out a mate, however.

Villagers can also become willing by having either 3 bread, 12 carrots, or 12 potatoes in one stack in their inventory. Any villager with an excess of food (usually farmers) will throw food to other villagers, allowing them to pick it up and obtain enough food to become willing. You can also throw bread, carrots, or potatoes at the villagers yourself to encourage breeding. Villagers will consume the required food upon becoming willing.

Professions and careers

Each villager has a profession, which can be identified by their clothing. Villagers also have careers specific to their profession. The player can identify a villager's career by reading the title at the top of the trading interface. Below is a table listing the various villagers, with their careers in relation to their professions, as well as the IDs specifying these.

Each profession has a 1 in 6 chance of occurring, so the probability for each career is as follows:

Career Probability
Farmer 4.16%
Fisherman 4.16%
Shepherd 4.16%
Fletcher 4.16%
Armorer 5.57%
Weapon Smith 5.57%
Tool Smith 5.57%
Butcher 8.3%
Leatherworker 8.3%
Librarian 8.3%
Cartographer 8.3%
Cleric 16.6%
Nitwit 16.6%

When transformed into a zombie villager, the profession of the zombified villager will remain unchanged however the career is reset and randomly picked again if turned back into a villager allowing for the player to get a villager with a new career with new trade offers. Old trade offers will disappear, even if the same career is chosen again.

Clothing Profession ID Career ID
Brown Robe Farmer 0 Farmer 1
Fisherman 2
Shepherd 3
Fletcher 4
White Robe Librarian 1 Librarian 1
Cartographer 2
Purple Robe Priest 2 Cleric 1
Black Apron Blacksmith 3 Armorer 1
Weapon Smith 2
Tool Smith 3
White Apron Butcher 4 Butcher 1
Leatherworker 2
Green Robe Nitwit 5 Nitwit 1

Trading

Main article: Trading
Trading paper clean GUI

The pre-1.8 trading interface displaying a trade of 28 paper for 1 emerald.

The trading system is a gameplay mechanic that allows players to trade emeralds for items and vice-versa with villagers.Their trades can be good or bad, depending on what the cost is and what items you might get. Trading is only available for adult villagers; the player cannot trade with baby villagers.

Right-clicking a villager will allow a player to trade with them, and display their career. Villagers will make offers based on their profession and career, and will only make trades based on whatever offers they are making. Different offers may be viewed by pressing the left and right buttons next to the currently displayed offer. Most offers involve emerald as a currency, and some item pertinent to the villager's profession and career. Trading allows the acquisition of uncommon items that would otherwise be fairly difficult to obtain, such as chain armor. It is also the only legitimate method of acquiring a Bottle o' Enchanting in survival mode. When villagers get a new trade, purple particles and green cross particles appear.

After trading a new offer once, the villager will open a new tier of trades after a short period of time. After 2-12 times an offer is used, the villager will lock the trade offer. When this happens, you will have to use another new trade offer in the villager's window once (or several times if it is already used once), and then wait for a short time. If green particles appear, all trades reopen. There is a maximum number of tiers each villager can possess, varying by career. Once the villager has unlocked all tiers, it will not open any new ones. However, you will still be able to renew all offers by trading.

When a villager gives off particles from a new trade, they get 10 seconds of regeneration I, which gives them 4♥♥.

Using commands or external editors, villagers can be made to give custom trades. These trades will not always involve emeralds and are not necessarily limited, nor will they necessarily unlock new trades.

The nitwit villager has no trades.

In Pocket Edition, trading is currently not available.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Villagers have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is villager.

  • Entity data
      • Additional fields for mobs that can breed
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all mobs
    • Tags common to all villagers
    •  Inventory: Each compound tag in this list is an item in the villager's inventory, up to a maximum of 8 slots. Items in two or more slots that can be stacked together are automatically condensed into one slot. If there are more than 8 slots, the last slot is removed until the total is 8. If there are 9 slots but two previous slots can be condensed, the last slot returns after the two other slots are combined.
      • An item in the inventory, excluding the Slot tag.
        • Tags common to all items
    •  LastRestock: The last tick the villager went to their job site block to resupply their trades.
    •  LastGossipDecay: The last tick all gossip of the villager has decreased strength naturally.
    •  RestocksToday: The number of restocks a villager has done in 10 minutes from the last restock, or 0 if the villager has not restocked in the last 10 minutes. When a villager has restocked twice in less than 10 minutes, it waits at least 10 minutes for another restock.
    •  Willing: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the villager is willing to mate. Becomes true after certain trades (those that would cause offers to be refreshed), and false after mating.

Villager type

Main article: Villager/DV
[edit]

Villager profession

Main article: Villager/DV2
[edit]

Video

Villager/video

History

release
1.0.0Beta 1.9-pre1Added villagers with same AI as pigs and had the name "TESTIFICATE" displayed over their heads as player names are displayed in multiplayer. They had 5 main professions, (0, 1, 2, 3, 4) and other profession numbers were a green-robed unnamed villager that only traded gold ingots for emeralds.
Beta 1.9-pre2Removed "TESTIFICATE" name above villager's heads.
1.111w49aAdded Villager spawn egg in Creative mode. Only farmer Villagers were spawned.
1.2.112w05aVillagers can now open and close doors.
Villagers will now go inside at night and detect houses.
12w06aVillagers can now socialize with each other and passive mobs.
Villagers are now attacked by and run away from zombies.
12w07aVillagers will now repopulate villages by the number of houses there are.
Villager children will sprint.
1.3.112w18aVillagers spawned via a spawn egg will now have a random profession.
12w21aAdded trading with villagers. Leaving a trading window open will cause villagers not to wander under normal circumstances.
12w22aVillagers will now reassign their profession if there is a lack of a specific profession or if the number of villagers in a profession is unbalanced (i.e., if there are many Farmer villagers and no Blacksmith villagers, one will change its skin, showing it has changed its profession).
Trading has also been changed where an extra input space has been added where tools can be placed for buying enchantments and/or repair.
12w25aVillagers may remove a trade option after it has been used at least 3 times.
12w26aAlthough requiring external tools or modifications to apply, monster spawners can spawn the previously unavailable Green Robe Villagers in unmodified Minecraft clients.
1.4.212w32aVillagers will like and dislike you, depending on how you react to them.
Villagers can be infected by zombies, causing them to change their appearance and attack the player and other villagers.
1.4.4Villager children can now be spawned easily by right clicking a villager with a villager spawner egg.
1.6.113w22aAdded sound effects for villagers. They have different sounds for taking damage, talking to villagers, successful trades, and canceled trades.
1.7.4A bug caused Adult Villagers killed by baby zombies to turn into baby villager zombies.
1.814w02aAdded careers to villagers, splitting up the trade offers within a profession. This career is shown in the trading interface.
Reworked the trading system to be less random; it is now tier-based instead, and several offers may be generated at one time.
Due to the changes in the trading system, attempting to trade with generic villagers will crash the game.
Villagers only breed when willing. This limits the amount of villagers and prevents infinite breeding villages.
14w02cVillagers that had professions more than 4 now repeat in 0-4.
Generic villagers can now only be spawned using negative profession numbers.
14w03aVillagers struck by lightning will turn into witches.
14w04aFarmer (profession) villagers now harvest fully grown crops
Villagers can be made willing using 3 bread, 12 carrots or 12 potatoes.
14w04bVillagers now have an NBT tag that allows control over getting Experience for trading (rewardExp).
14w20aThe generic villager is completely removed. However, the texture still exists.
1.8.11.8.1-pre4Villagers no longer ignore data tags or damage values.
1.915w31aFarmer villagers now harvest beetroot crops, but ignore the drops.
15w38aVillagers now pick up beetroot and beetroot seeds.
Villagers now use and share beetroot as food.
Farmer villagers can now plant beetroot seeds.
15w39aVillagers are slightly taller (1.95 blocks tall rather than 1.8, with babies 0.975 blocks tall rather than 0.9).
15w43aA priest can be found caged in an igloo basement.
1.1116w32bRe-added Generic Villagers called Nitwits as Profession 5, however it can no longer trade, because right clicking on a Generic Villager does nothing.
Changed entity ID from Villager to villager
16w39aAdded a new career for librarian villager called "Cartographer".
16w43aVillagers are now able to draw from their own loot tables.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.9.0build 1Added villagers. Same level of AI as PC version 1.0.0 - They cannot trade, breed or open doors.
build 2Villagers now have sounds.
build 3Villagers are now attacked by and run away from zombies.
Villager children will sprint.
0.9.2Villagers now have sounds on iOS and Fire OS.
0.10.0build 6Changed Villager walking animation.
0.12.1build 1Villagers can now open and close doors.
Villagers will now go inside at night and detect houses.
Villagers can now socialize with each other and passive mobs.
Farmer villagers now harvest fully grown crops.
Villagers will now repopulate villages by the number of houses there are.
Villager children will sprint.
Villagers will like and dislike you, depending on how you react to them.
Villagers can be infected by zombies, causing them to change their appearance and attack the player and other villagers.
build 10Villagers will always become zombie villagers in Hard difficulty.
0.13.0build 2Villagers will now open all wooden doors (rather than just oak).
0.14.0build 1Villagers struck by lightning will spawn witches.
Villagers are now slightly taller (1.95 blocks tall rather than 1.8, with babies 0.975 blocks tall rather than 0.9).
Upcoming Pocket edition
1.0build 1Villagers now spawn in Igloo basements.
Legacy Console Edition
TU7CU1 1.0 Patch 1Added villagers. Same level of AI as PC version 1.0.0 - They appear only as farmers and cannot trade, breed or open doors.
TU11Increased the limit for villagers in a world.
TU12Villagers can now open and close doors.
Villagers will now go inside at night and detect houses.
Villagers can now socialize with each other and passive mobs.
Villagers are now attacked by and run away from zombies.
Villagers will now repopulate villages by the number of houses there are.
Villager children will sprint.
TU13Added a limit to the number of villagers spawned by breeding.
Added the hearts display when villagers enter 'Love Mode'.
TU14 1.04 Added trading with villagers
Villagers are assigned random professions.
Villagers that are spawned from a Spawn Egg will have a random profession.
Villagers now make noises from being hurt, trading & wandering.
Baby villagers can now be spawned by using Left trigger on an adult form of that mob using a spawn egg.
TU31CU19 1.22 Patch 3Villagers have additional professions and trading schemes.
Villagers will now harvest crops.
Villagers will only breed when willing (and can be made willing by giving them 3 bread, 12 carrots or 12 potatoes).
Villagers will turn into witches when struck by lightning.

Issues

Issues relating to "Villager" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • The villagers were inspired by the shop keepers in Dungeon Master 2.[2]
  • Notch has agreed that villagers look like "cavemen squidwards".[3]
  • Originally, the mobs populating villages were to be pigmen.[4]
  • Name tags used on villagers will always name the villager instead of opening the trading interface.
  • Villagers can see invisible players.
  • After a zombie villager is cured, the villager gets Nausea for 10 seconds (indicated by the purple status effect particles).
  • When a villager is in love mode, it walks very slowly. However, when a villager runs indoors as the night falls, it runs extremely fast, even faster than the player's sprinting speed.
  • The 1.6 release poster showed a blue-robed villager in the background in addition to the green-robed villager. Such a villager has never been seen in-game.
  • In Pocket Edition, looking at a villager will make an Open interact button appear, but tapping the button does not do anything.

April fools

Main article: Easter eggs § 2014

On April 1, 2014, Mojang announced that villagers have taken over the skin servers and content delivery networks (CDN) as an April Fools joke. This caused players' current skin to turn into villager skins. This also caused users to be unable to change their skins. Different career villager skins were used, including the then-unused generic villager (green robe).

Many of the sounds were also changed, supposedly by the villagers. They seem to be similar to a villager talking (with words, rather than their normal sounds). The in-game music has also been altered to include villager like noises, and also features a villager version of the "Game of Thrones" theme on the title screen. The sounds originate from the sound resource pack created by Element Animation, titled The Element Animation Villager Sound Resource Pack (T.E.A.V.S.R.P), which is based on the villagers appearing in their fan videos. The villagers were voiced by Dan Lloyd, Director of Element Animation.

Gallery

References


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