What if the rascal isn't rewarding us for playing a game with it, but rather is being mugged by us? Imagine if you were the rascal. You're wandering around in a cave, minding your own business, when a strange creature comes up to you. You try to hide in fear, but it finds you. You try again, it's still there. You hide one last time but the creature refuses to go away. Terrified, you drop your tool and run away, hoping it will leave you alone. Weird, isn't it?

I love how the sniffer was implied to be canon, even if it doesn't win (the voice at the end says "will the sniffer roam the overworld AGAIN") if it doesn't end up appearing in the game it'd just be bc it went extinct!

A potential theory about why sniffer eggs are in underwater chests. Whoever built the ruins was looking for buried treasure and in their desperation, could have potentially tried to use the sniffers to find it.

the lore is honestly the most interesting part of these new mobs

i think the rascal lore is: "the last surviving member of a group of ancient builders that ran away from the deep dark apocalypse and after years of evolution without the sun became pale and hunched in order to fit in small holes in the caves"

The mobs in the mob vote are "not removed from the game forever", they just get put to the "ideas shelf".

If we're going by the same theory you proposed that the Builders may have enslaved the Piglins then maybe the Rascals were a race of sapient humanoids that the Builders also enslaved and forced to mine deep in the Overworld. And when the Builders went extinct, the Rascals were freed and now play games, giving their old tools as rewards.

I have a theory about the sniffer: the ocean ruins were ancient incubation rooms(bec magma block) that the ancient builders used for farming the sniffer

Interesting! I find the Sniffer far more fascinating from a lore perspective than the Rascal. For me, I'm more invested in the history of the world itself than whatever humanoids could have been existing with the builders and villagers. And also why did they become extinct in the first place? How are we bringing them back? I saw some people comparing the Sniffer's color palette to the warped forest in the Nether, but considering we find them underwater in the Overworld, I don't know how much that's reaching as a theory. It's a nice concept, though! Outside of that, finding a Rascal 3 times exclusively in mineshafts for early to mid-game loot seems like it'll get tiresome quickly in terms of game mechanics. I want an army of giant turtle dog things in my village instead. 💖 But still, anyone can vote for whatever they want! I like all of them. That's just my take on it.

I'm sorry to hear that the Rascal's lore will all be thrown out of the window since the Sniffer is going to win. I would have really liked seeing what it actually is!

The interpretation of the rascal sounds like gollum from LOTR…which is an interesting paralell

It’s also confirmed from a dev that the rascal after found will teleport to a new location meaning they have a ability similar to enderman and may even be a remnant of what they were before

Maybe Rascal could be a failed experiment of the Illagers that escaped.

From a lore perspective I like the Rascal, from a gameplay perspective I would choose the Sniffer, since I build a lot with plants and the Sniffer implies us getting more plants even if they're just for decoration.

I'm voting for the sniffer. Mostly because I want to know more about how Minecrafts ecosystem has evolved over time, and we can do that by watching how sniffers interacts with the animals that we have now. Seeing how it interacts with animals such as wolves, foxes, sheep and bunnies we can sort of get a glimpse into that ancient past. Of course we can get as much lore with the other candidates, but this is what I personally am more invested in.

Can we stop thinking about The Builders as one society? They were propably more like ancient city states.

Like everyone else, love ur lore-series for Minecraft. You've done really well with crafting a cohesive narrative for the game. I'm looking forward to a full deep-dive episode for the vote winner.

When they add Archeology, that should be another way to find Sniffer eggs

Love your lore, RGN. Thanks for doing what you do.

Hope we don’t mess up this year

Despite liking the Sniffer more as a candidate mob, I'm really interested in the Rascal, lore-wise, they really remind me of the Morlocks from "the Time Machine" written by H.G.Wells, a species which were originally men, but spent so much time under the depth of the underground they evolved (or retrograded depending on how you view it) into different species, with different anatomy and less intelligence. Really interesting if you think it this way.

I like the rascal but it seems like most people are voting for the sniffer so it’s probably gonna win but if the rascal somehow does win I hope it’s not disappointing well that can be said about all of them

The Rascal sounds pretty cool I'd choose him

I think knowing more about the bones could help alot, knowing what died to make the bones apear could introduce several new ideas and/or mobs. the sniffer is dinosaur-like, and could give us an idea of what it was like back then: before the player arrived. the moss on the sniffers back could tell us where it lived, maybe the azelea biomes. if so, sence the azelea biomes are land masses, but the sniffers are underwater when first born- this could show the oceans werent always there. the drowned could be zombies after a flood. Summery: I think the sniffer would help the lore from the azelea biomes to what the acient builders had to deal with during exteintion.

I think that Rascal is one of the Ancient Builders. When apocalypse happened, he was just one of the miners, workers. Everyone just forgot about him. Also because of his love for hide and seek in mines, no one couldn't find him. So he lived there, so long that his skin became grey, without sun. No nose, because he is not a villager, but one of the ancient builders himself, maybe long living immortal. But years, without anyone to talk to, did some damage to his mind. Also carrying backpack with mined ore (pretty heavy), made changes to his back bones, that's why his head is so below, with humpback. Even his clothes, they are exactly look like steve's, blue shirt and purple (darker) pants, but through years in mine they just got less colorful and got ripped in some places.

I'm definetly voting for the Rascal, I hadn't thought that it'll most likely bring so much lore to the game! Although I also like the idea of having an explanation to those fossils, @gamingguidesde has also thought about a possible connection between the fossils and the Sniffer.

This is the most interesting thing I have heard about the Rascal. I hadn't thought much about it's lore before, but now it's kinda like a gnome or dwarf of some kind that digs mines. Maybe it plays hide and seek because it's bored or lonely. Maybe it gives you mining stuff because that's all it's got or maybe it wants you to help it mine

I see where you're coming from on the lore perspective about the rascal. As someone who spends years in the post-lategame stages of the game, I find another golem more interesting from a game play perspective, because it's something that will be at home in longterm builds to add life and movement. This is why I'm probably voting tuff golem

The rascal is by far the most interesting mob in the vote, I feel people are avoiding it because they’re ‘jaded’ against blue mobs and mobs with interesting gameplay features winning and being annoying or a waste. But I really wish they’ll win the game.

After watching this video I hope more people give the Rascal and Tuff golem a chance.

I would also like to add that the woodland mansions have rooms with blocks shaped as if they were trying to create a type of golem. Also this would be the first golem to be customizable with different colored clothes. Also there stackable. P.S I like the Tuff golem.

It feels like the last mob vote was like 4 months ago.

your videos are able to hold my focus until the end which is astonishing because i have ADD lmao

5:50 I'm surprised that tiny Jen's face here hasn't become a meme yet

the vote is now open!

Just watching this, I realized both the rascal and the tuff golem are extremely short, humanoid mobs with gray skin that carry items. Probably no connection, but interesting.

Your deep dives are literally my favorite videos on youtube

I was originally going to vote for the Sniffer but after learning the new plants it will discover are purely decorative, the potential lore the Rascal may bring won me over. The Sniffer is still my second choice though

For people that have been arguing that the Sniffer adds so much lore, that's only because it'll be handed right to you. Minecraft's never been about easy lore. You're supposed to interpret the past about the mob, Mojang shouldn't even be telling us that it was extinct in the first place. It really leaves nothing to the mind in my opinion.

You should introduce these as "a dip beneath the waves" instead of "a shallow dive beneath the waves" it just seems a bit more uniform. Other than that I really love all of your lore videos and they are my favorite thing to watch when I want to see something minecraft related. Thanks for sticking around

I've been waiting for this video and now it's here

They should just add the winner now, and the other 2 later, and that's how EVERY vote should be in my opinion, because it's not extremely difficult to add in mobs to mc, Alex's Mobs mod is proof of that, it adds like 80 mobs.

i love these videos, loooking forward to the next deep dive!! in fact. i cant wait

My ideas: The sniffer existed before the extinction, or the ancient builders were trying to revive them before they went extinct. In an effort to save their work, they hid them away in the ruins (before they became ruins, but maybe the oceans had already swept them up.) Maybe the rascal came to being similar to that movie, the Descent? But uh, more family friendly! They tried to hide from the extinction and evolved into a cave dwelling being? I also have a theory that we, as the player, are a form of golem that was a 'backup' plan of the ancient builders. We're not human, but we're intended to carry on their legacy? So having more golem types helps that theory, I guess lol.

Funny, I was thinking (like I did last year) 'What would RetroGaming see in/do with, these mobs' when MC announced the vote. The possible lore is interesting for sure. The new plants promised with the Sniffer are tempting. The Tuff Golem is kinda useless in game tbh. The Rascal has some real possibilities. For starters a reason to go back to the mines after looting them, especially if the Rascal offers something unique that can only be obtained by playing with it. Like how the Swift Sneak is only found in the Ancient Cities. I hope so otherwise it could wind up an even dumber version of the Wandering Trader. But I'll vote Rascal, for all the good it will do against popularity of the Sniffer.

the Sniffer looks like it could be an invertebrate, or something of the likes. It has 6 legs, which is something that has never happened in vertebrates, but is common among invertebrates, like insects. I think it's not too unlikely that it'd be affected by the _Bane of Arthropods_ enchantment. The Sniffer's body's red colouration looks a lot like the red on the Strider, and its feet have the same (or almost the same) colour as a Strider's feet. It also has long ears on its head, which is a lot like the hairs on the side of the Strider's head. I think the Sniffer could be a distant relative of the Strider, or the Sniffer could have its origins in the Nether, like the Strider. Perhaps portals to the Nether have been around for long enough that some species of plants and animals were able to spread outside of the Nether and evolve into new species in the Overworld (i'm thinking that the Sniffer and the plants that the Sniffer can find originally came from the Nether, but later adapted to the Overworld), or maybe more animals that now live in the Nether, other than just the Pigs, originated in the Overworld too (i'm thinking that the Strider originated in the Overworld alongside the Sniffer, but Striders later moved to the Nether)

i love all 3 of these mobs, they bring interesting lore to the game, but my personal favorite is the sniffer! pretty much the closest thing we get to dinosaurs!

Honestly I hate the mob votes. I would rather wait 3 times the length to get all 3.

I'm all for golems but like, why can't they give us what we really want, like another golem that can buff us or help us in combat, but no instead they want to give us golems with niche purposes. If mojang wants to give us golems with niche purposes then why don't they give us some that organizes chests or moves other mobs around, maybe one that even moves blocks around? It would be an interesting way of having an alternate automation system without using Redstone.

My theory for the sniffer eggs being in the underwater ruins is because the sniffer was domesticated by the ancient civilizations in the places that are now oceans, then the cities got flooded

The sniffer is a hexapodal vertebrate like the end dragon. The sniffer obviously is not closely related to it, but it existence shows that hexapod vertebrate were diverse in minecraft's world at some point.

Right on time for the actual vote! Nice.

I think that the sniffer is actually a relative of the enderdragon. This is because the enderdragon technically has six limbs, two of which are wings. So, the sniffer is definitely related to the enderdragon since it also has six limbs. This has huge implications for the origins of the enderdragon, the most obvious of which is that it originated from the overworld and somehow entered the end, and eventually evolved wings to be better traverse the long stretches of empty space of the end.

I was just thinking yesterday about how cool it would be to have a video like this from rgn

8:07 Your prediction is that the Sniffer wins? And yet, the Glow Squid won because a certain green man in a mask entire community was children...

Now imagine what the sniffer could probally bring into the game Like a pre-historic update with extinct animals or pre-historic tools for example: throwing knives, spears, old types of medicine, a type of system where you can upgrade the leather armor where you can fuze a leather armor with iron armor and it would give you advantages like extra speed, a hunter sense where you can hear sounds if a cow or pig is nearby or if creepers and witches are near. And even old ancient temples and mobs

That's why I loved the rascal more. Even though I know the sniffer will win. The rascal is odd in a good way.

Something that intrigues me a lot is the fact that fossils only spawn in certain biomes (Desert, Swamp, Mangrove Swamp), and what that means for the prehistoric seeds the Sniffer might bring.

Excited to see what lore comes out of the winning mob!

I am also voting for the rascal, their really interesting

I'm gonna vote for the Rascal, I wish we also had the Iceollager and the Cave Dweling Glare along aide the Glow Squid and Cave Dweling Allay (I theorized they originally came from Caves) :)

Your RGN Videos So Good.

Cant wait to hear what you come up with

I wish all of them were added, all of them have a very interesting lore. I agree that Rascal is the most intriguing. The behaviour of this mob is very specific and unusual, it's not hostile but it hides only to give us a gift later. And there is a question: Why it behaves in such an unusual way? Why play hide and seek instead of just trading? Sniffer on the other hand is very well designed and again, it is very interesting that its egg is located in such a specific place. Not in a underwater cave or nest but in ruins. Was Sniffer so important that it was decided to protect him from extinction? Did it exist long before ruins were build or perhaps it was alive at the same time and the egg was placed there when the ruins were not ruins? And lastly the golem seems to be the lest interesting from the lore perspective. Or it depends, I believe you mentioned it while talking about copper golem. It depends if we will be able to find it existing somewhere. The only downside of this mob is that its function seems a little strange, I would love if it was carrying items and following the player instead of just randomly walking around. It's just my speculation, but all the mobs have some connection with a past, the Sniffer being ancient mob, Rascal giving loot which may also be ancient and golem (maybe) being another invention of Ancient Builders. Could it suggest "Past Update"? Perhaps new ruins will be added and the old one remade? And maybe we will finally get and archaeology. Can wait to see the final result and the theme of 1.20 update.

Lore reasons they are all cool but functionally wise I’m going sniffer it’s pre historical and it’s honestly amazing in terms of how we could have more prehistoric mobs and I don’t have to use mods anymore to do a Minecraft vanilla “Jurassic Park” with prehistoric creatures and fossils

Love your videos :)

You're the first sane person I know who talked about Sniffer's lore its relation to fossils without saying that one of the fossils resemble Sniffers (cuz there's no fossil resemble Sniffers), breath of fresh air.

the tuff golem can be also related to the pillagers and other mobs with gray skin, considering it has a villager nose,arms that are not like the villagers arms. It also has the capability of holding items and that is a thing that villagers can't do. also I am the person that said I was going to go to a cube comp

I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS

Love all your video

I know the sniffer is gonna win but damn if the rascal won, it would be scary if you're mining in a cave and in the corner of your eye you see something move like the rascal

I have a crazy suggestion... how about instead of voting for one mob, Mojang just adds all 3 into the game to make it more interesting? I know it's an insane idea, but I think it would be nice to have more variety in the game.

I am excited for the controversy!

I voted for the sniffer on the bedrock server, because it's the closest thing we'll get to dinosaurs (or just extinct animals in general) and it's just really cute (:

Throwing some ideas out there ~~- Sniffer, links to warden with ancient, sniffing - and also a potential sinking event with the underwater cities and the deep dark cities (which have features very advantageous to a civilisation in a tall mountain, where they are more common) - and also looking very alien compared to their environment in distinct ways (that more aesthetically fit with the nether and end respectively) Tuff golem - as you said perhaps soul energy, but also to be examined is the fact tuff comes from the deep areas of the world - possible links to previously suggested deep dark experiments with overflowing energy? V. dependent on references added to other parts of the game etc. And I feel the rascal's clothing is itself fairly interesting, as it visually looks a bit like some sort of raincoat whilst also having an underlayer, but the "raincoat" part looks quite a lot like the sniffer's back in texture? (could also say that it's colour mimics the tuff, it is kinda visually an in between mob) Although the raincoat-ish clothing itself is relevant considering as it is now the only 2 cave biomes are very wet in nature, being the dripstone and lush caves.

I'm voting for the sniffer because of its lore. The sniffer has obvious resemblances to the fossil and I think it looks like warped nylium. Could it have originated in the nether? If it did not originate in the nether, but the fossils in the overworld are from the sniffer, how did the nether fossils get there? How did it go extinct? When did it go extinct? Why/who put its egg in the ocean ruin chest and why?

I don't know if you noticed but in the details they posted recently it literally says "After it rewards you, the rascal will *teleport away* " possible end connection perhaps?

The lore is in the words, tuff is a volcanic rock, reminiscent of the nether where there is soul sand and it has blue eyes like a soul

Sniffers are evolved to camouflage to warped nylium

The lore possibilities for the Rascal are super interesting, it's got my vote!

I'll vote for the sniffer

I'm glad someone else is voting for the Rascal

Oh yes, minecraft lore.

Nice Video!

The first things i thought of when i first saw each of these 3 mobs was thier potential lore. As i do with all new thing they have been adding to mc. Love the dark hidden history behind minecraft and so far almost everything they have been adding for the last so many years has only made that dark history more and more clear.

2:18 One theory I have about the sniffer is that it is related to the ender dragon, considering they both have a somewhat reptilian apperance and have six limbs in total, maybe the sniffer is an early species of dragon, maybe even a direct ancestor to the ender dragon.

It's possible the sniffer grew to massive sizes before it went extinct but now it has to adapt to the current world and that would explain the giant fossils but that's a long shot

The rascal reminds me a lot of the allay, it's humanoid, loves playing games, and can only be found in certain structures. What if there might be other fairy like creatures?

great video

maybe the rascals are from the ancient cities? like either as creations that escaped over time/when the city was abandoned or they were used to find items in the mines (hence the trading and knowledge of monetary values)

Yooo nice vid in advance

I'm thinking Sniffer. The Rascal mainly seems like an annoyance, and the idea of playing mad scientist bringing an animal back from extinction is more appealing than the a(admittedly cute) glorified statue that the Tuff Golem will turn out to be.

I'm your new viewer and do like your content and videos

He always goes with the one no one else is voting for because of the lore, j respect that

On thing I find interesting about the Rascal potentially being a devolved remnant of the ancient builders is its grey skin. One thing that has irked me so far about your otherwise sound theories surrounding the illagers and witches is that for some reason zombies are not hostile towards them, which means there must be some physical difference between them and normal villagers. Of course, we can see a pretty clear physical difference; all the illagers have bluish grey skin, and even witches have a slightly greyer tone than normal villagers. Since your previous theories have established that witches likely know the cure to zombification and that the illagers are in contact with them, we can assume that both parties know the potentially anti-infectious properties of the weakness potion, which is also grey. However, witches and illagers clearly don't have the weakness effect at all times, so it might be valuable to investigate the actual ingredients of the weakness potion, namely the fermented spider eye. In your previous theories you have speculated that the immunity of spiders to zombification may have something to do with their usage in the curing process. I find this interesting because the effect of a plain spider eye on it's own is just poison, meaning the other ingredients of the fermented spider eye must be responsible for altering the effect to be weakness. This ties into your theories around mushrooms, namely that they essentially feed off of magical energy from living mobs. If this is the case, one could assume that the weakness effect is a result of having the brown mushroom in the fermented spider eye "steal" the victim's energy. However, other consumables not only include brown mushrooms without inflicting weakness, but even seem to outright use the brown mushroom as a source of magical energy (such as in the suspicious stews). This is where the spider eye comes in. Spiders can spawn naturally with potion effects, particularly during full moons when other mobs are more likely to spawn with enchanted gear. You have theorized that this is because full moons radiate more magic onto the world, but since no other mobs recieve potion effects from this, it implies that spiders are uniquely capable of some kind of magic absorption and reuse. If this property is carried over in a fermented spider eye, it might allow certain magical effects to be more readily absorbed by those who consume it. This would explain why the eyes of normally non-poisonous spiders still carry a poison effect; the act of consuming the spider eye simply bypasses the body's defences, making the very slight vestigial poison of the spider much more impactful. This would also be the reason for fermenting the spider eye. Fermentation is basically the process of having microorganisms chemically break something down, which would explain why a brown mushroom is needed and why sugar is added as an easily digestible starting point for the fermentation process. This process would remove the vestigial poison effect, but leave the aforementioned absorption effect intact. However, the absorption would also come part and parcel with whatever effects the brown mushroom might have. Since we know from mooshrooms that brown mushrooms can "infect" other creatures, it might be possible that the absorption effect of the spider eye allows allows the mushroom to bypass a creature's natural defenses, allowing the brown mushroom to drain their energy until the effects of the spider eye wear off. Alternatively, maybe the poison effects of the spider eye are just counteracted by the extra magic of the brown mushroom to the point that what would normally be a damaging poison just inflicts a weakening effect. Regardless, how does this relate to the grey skin of illagers and witches? Well, as we've already discussed, both of those groups likely understand how weakness potions work and their function in curing zombification. If we assume that my theory about how weakness potions work is correct, then the basics of the process are that the spider eye allows the benign brown mushroom to circumvent a zombie's normal bodliy defences, with the golden apple then empowering the brown mushroom enough that it can wipe out zombie infection. This would mean that normal mushrooms are in some way counteractive to your theorized fungal zombification. This is supported by the fact that normal mushrooms are associated with a different form of infection, that of the mooshroom, which is considerably easier to alleviate since it can literally just be sheared off. Additionally, brown and red mushrooms are featured in a number of recipes as both sources of nutrition and theorized magical power. Finally, we can even see that in mushroom island biomes, zombies and all other mobs save mooshrooms are incapable of spawning naturally. In these mushroom dominated biomes, the ground is covered in grey mycelium. My theory is that there is some way to cultivate the effects of mycelium in the body using brown mushrooms, providing a layer of defense against the zombie plague while also turning the skin a sickly grey color. Since zombies are clearly able to identify and differentiate between undead mobs (they attack living villagers and band together against clearly non-fungal skeletons who attack them), it might be the case that the zombies simply do not detect grey skinned illagers and witches as suitable prey since they are already "infected" by something else. I know this is kind of stretch theory, but hey it's fun to speculate.

Hey dude you should do a deep dive video theory on the gigantic bones in the nether, where do they come from and what creature do they rapreset?

Surprising it did go with out controversy

Hey RGN, nice video, i wanted to ask you what you thought of a little theory i have. referring to your deep dive videos, you have talked about how you think the color blue seems to be connected to death, like with soul sand and soul fire. you have also talked about how you think green is associated with life, with exp and the totem of undying. All of this made me think about the end credit roll of minecraft with the blue and green text. My initial thought was that they could be representing life and death as almost the gods of minecraft. would you agree? or is there a flaw in my logic. (also if you've already made this theory my bad lol, idk)

The rascal also seems to be something like a cave troll or something like Golum from lord of the rings.

You should do a spawner deep dive, you mentioned it in a past video