Bleak Companions

Have you ever wanted to tame a Zombie? Well, with Bleak Companions, you can! Along with regular Zombies, you can also tame Husks, Drowned, and Zombie Villagers!

Regular Zombies, Husks, Drowned, and Zombie Villagers can all be commanded, equipped, transformed, and put to work in their own unique ways.

Getting Started

To tame any of the undead, you're first going to need two things:

a Zombie Head
Brain Matter

Zombie Head

Wear a Zombie Head to disguise yourself from Zombies and their variants. While disguised, they will not attack you on sight, though they may still notice you if you get too close!

Brain Matter

Brain Matter is a rare drop used for taming undead and several other useful recipes! It can drop from Illagers, Villagers, Witches, Endermen, Piglins, Piglin Brutes, Zombie Piglins, and of course, Zombies and their variants!

Brain Matter can only drop once per valid mob. Looting increases the chance of getting it!

Brain Matter Uses

Bottle O' Enchanting

Brain Matter can be brewed into Bottles O' Enchanting using a brewing stand and three bottles of water.

Presto... ... change-o!

Trading

Some Clerics will want Brain Matter for a decent sum of Emeralds.

Brain Soup

You can even create a Brain Soup: a potent dish that provides you with Enlightenment when consumed. While Enlightenment is active, any experience you gain is tripled. Now that's using your brain!

The order of the vegetables doesn't matter; they just have to be in a cross shape surrounding some Brain Matter!

Enlightenment lasts for five minutes and can be reapplied when Brain Soup is consumed!

You can also eat Brain Matter raw to give yourself Nausea and Hunger, plus three experience orbs!

Taming the Undead

Once you've got your hands on some Brain Matter and are wearing a Zombie Head, taming an undead is as easy as walking up to it and right-clicking it with Brain Matter.

When you go to tame an undead, be warned: they may demand a lot of Brain Matter. Each failed attempt will make the undead you're taming chase you! Just hide around a corner or put some distance between you and the undead for a few seconds so they calm down. If they manage to hit you, they'll be more persistent in chasing you.

Once you've tamed your undead, you'll see heart particles.

Our very own nautical friend! One of three movement modes. Right click to cycle through them!

Commands And Combat

Tamed undead can be commanded to:

Follow
Wander
Stay

They will attack anything you attack and you attack and defend you when you are hurt. Unless told stay, however, tamed undead will attack Villagers and Wandering Traders they encounter. Keep an eye out to prevent unneccesary collatoral damage!

Your tamed undead are very versatile. If they're holding something you want, you just need to shift/right-click them to retrieve it. That also goes for any worn pieces of armor or gear they may have equipped. Give tamed Zombies and Drowned helmets to prevent them from burning in sunlight!

Healing, Food, And Buffs

If they're missing health, your tamed undead will gladly consume any Rotten Flesh, raw meats, or Brain Matter to heal. If overfed while at full health, they will receive combat buffs! The buff levels and duration are determined by the food quality they consume.

Tamed undead will eat valid food items from their hand whenever they are missing health or aren't buffed. You can also feed them manually. If your tamed undead have a free hand, they will even seek out valid food items that are dropped!

Look at 'em munch!

Rotten Flesh heals 4 health points and provides Resistance I for 10 seconds

Raw meats heal 6 health points and provide Resistance II and Strength I for 15 seconds

Brain Matter heals 12 health points and provides Resistance III and Strength II for 30 seconds

Shearing

Aside from obviously gearing them up for combat, tamed undead can provide other unique benefits: they are all able to be sheared. Doing so will provide you with items they'd normally drop when killed! Ingots, Rotten Flesh, Potatoes, and more!

Shearing has a one minute cooldown. While on cooldown, your tamed undead won't be able to feed itself automatically. Shear responsibly!

Shearing cooldown lasts for a minute!

Transformations

If you find yourself wanting to transform your undead tames, Bleak Companions allows you to! Whenever your tamed undead transforms, they will still recognize you as their owner and still be holding any gear or items prior to transforming!

Submerge a tamed Husk in deep enough water to turn it into a Zombie
Submerge a tamed Zombie in deep enough water to turn it into a Drowned
Place a tamed Drowned or Zombie on sponge block for 45 seconds to dehydrate it

Dehydration transforms Drowned into Zombies and Zombies into Husks. The sponge block they were standing on becomes a wet sponge.

Suspicious Stew

Feed suspicious stew to a tamed undead to convert it into its baby form, or to cause a tamed baby undead to grow into an adult!

Before Suspicious Stew... ... after Suspicious Stew

Drowned

Tamed Drowned can be given tridents and can give you amazing ranged support. Turn them into undead turrets by commanding them to stay in place - with their tridents, Drowned are the only tameable undead that can attack while staying in place!

Ranged support like no other!

Tamed Drowned are also capable of filling empty bottles and buckets with water when right-clicked with those items. Never go thirsty again!

Not very sanitary, but it works!

Zombie Villagers

Tamed Zombie Villagers are rather intelligent, as far as the undead go. Unlike other tamed undead, who will drop any items they cannot eat or use as weapons, tamed Zombie Villagers will collect and put any dropped items they find into their 8-slot inventory.

They'll even put them in chests or barrels, prioritizing ones that already have the item they want to deposit before placing it into any random storage inventory!

Tamed Zombie Villagers even scan chests for viable food items (prioritizing lower quality foods first) and hold onto a stack to keep themselves healed and buffed. Tamed Zombie Villagers will also take excess food items from chests to deliver to any nearby tamed undead who are able to hold food. How considerate!

Work your tamed Zombie Villagers to death, they don't mind!

The Macabre Effect

After hanging around your tamed undead for a couple of moments, you'll get a new status effect: Macabre. It lasts for five minutes, and gets reapplied when you're close to your tamed undead.

Drinking milk won't cure this; take a bath!

Benefits

While Macabre is active, you don't need to worry about wild Zombies, Zombie Villagers, Husks, or Drowned attacking you unless you get too close - similar to wearing the Zombie Head! You still need to wear it in order to tame undead, but Macabre is a nice camouflage for players in situations where they're forced to deal with the undead and every armor slot counts.

Macabre allows you to approach and trade with witches. They offer a selection of interesting goods for gold!

These are just some of the many lucrative trades Witches can offer you!

Drawbacks

However, Macabre isn't without its drawbacks. If you have Macabre, Villagers and Wandering Traders will flee from you and refuse to trade with you even if you manage to catch up. Iron Golems and Snow Golems that weren't created by you will attack you on sight!

Villagers don't like the smell of rot on you...

... neither do Iron Golems!

Piglins will also flee and refuse to barter with you.

Removing Macabre

If you find yourself wanting to remove Macabre, it's simple! You can:

Stand in any kind of water, source or flowing
Dip into a cauldron filled with water
Throw a splash water bottle nearby yourself
Be exposed to rain
Wait it out while being far enough away from your tamed undead

Config Support

If at any point you feel certain aspects of Bleak Companions aren't to your liking, it comes with an expansive and user-friendly config. Want tamed Zombie Villagers to interact with custom modded storage blocks? Want more items to be used to tame the undead? Want more mobs to flee when you have the Macabre effect? Want to create your own custom witch trades or add more mobs that can drop Brain Matter? All of that is doable!

Future Plans

Way more is planned with this mod. At some point, I hope that every vanilla hostile mob is going to be enhanced in some way with Bleak Companions. Stay tuned!

Please leave comments or concerns regarding the mod or any bugs that arise. I'll do my best to address and fix them!