Totems

The vanilla Totem of Undying is one of the best items in the game — and also one of the most boring. It saves you once, plays the same animation, gives the same tiny heal, every single time. You hold a stack of identical totems and death never feels different.

Totems takes that single item and explodes it into 62 unique material totems. Every one of them still does the core job — the killing blow is cancelled, you survive on 1 heart, your effects clear — but from that moment on, each material saves you its own way. A totem is no longer a panic button. It's a choice: which death do you want to walk away from, and how do you want to walk away from it?

Some totems heal you into a tank. Some blast the mob that hit you across the room. Some freeze the whole battlefield into ice, drop a snowstorm out of a clear sky, teleport you to safety, or call in a pack of allies to finish the fight. You build your kit around the material you already mine, and every pop feels earned.

How it works

Carry any totem in your main or off hand. When a hit would kill you, the totem is consumed and:

You survive at 1 heart with your effects cleared — exactly like vanilla.
Every totem grants the classic Undying kit on top of its own effect: Regeneration, Fire Resistance and Absorption (skipping any of those a totem already gives you, so nothing is wasted).
The material's own signature fires — its unique blend of buffs to you, curses and damage to nearby foes, summons, weather, teleports, explosions, or terrain changes — with a themed particle burst so every pop reads as that totem.

It works fully in single-player and on servers, in PvE and PvP (foe effects hit hostile mobs and other players).

The 62 totems

The classics — survival & defense

Iron: Resistance + summons 3 iron golems to guard you.
Gold: full heal, Regeneration II and long Absorption II.
Diamond: full heal, Resistance II and huge Absorption III.
Netherite: the ultimate: a griefless explosion, knocks back, burns and hurts everything near you, full heal, and a stacked Fire-Res / Resistance III / Strength II / Absorption IV / Speed loadout.
Emerald: heal + Hero of the Village + Regeneration.
*Quartz / Crying Obsidian / Starlight: clean heals and layered resistance/regeneration; Starlight (Nether Star) is a mini-Netherite panic heal.

Aggressive — punish whatever hit you

Copper / Patina: call down lightning on nearby foes.
Redstone / Tuff / Slime: shockwave knockback.
Echo: sonic boom: knockback, heavy damage and Darkness to foes.
TNT / Netherite: real, block-safe explosions that fling enemies back.
Blaze — erupts a 60-fireball ring and buffs your Strength.
Magma / Soulfire / Netherbrick / Ancient: set surrounding foes ablaze.
Dripstone / Cactus / Amethyst / Prismarine / Dark Prismarine: spike damage to everything around you.

Control: lock the enemy down

Ice: flash-freezes the terrain around you into solid ice, damages and heavily slows foes, and hastes you.
Snow: calls a 10-minute snowstorm even in warm biomes (clears with /weather clear), buries foes in a 28-snowball barrage and slows them.
Honey / Obsidian / Blackstone / Sponge / Warped / Soul / Sand: slow, weaken, blind, nauseate or poison nearby enemies.
Glowstone / Glow Lichen / Froglight / End Rod: blind or mark foes with Glowing while giving you Night Vision.

Escape & mobility

Ender / Chorus / Chorus Flower / End: blink you out of danger (Ender also blinds pursuers).
Lodestone: reverses it: yanks every nearby foe toward you.
Phantom: Invisibility + Slow Falling + Speed to slip away.
Coal / Calcite / Red Sand / Azalea: burst of Speed to run.
Slime / Bamboo: shrink or grow your body (with Jump Boost / Speed) — a genuinely different way to survive.

Support & utility

Bone: summons a wolf pack.
Lapis: instant 300 XP and long Luck.
Moss / Coral / Melon / Redcap / Nether Wart / Toadstool: regeneration, saturation, water breathing and Dolphin's Grace.
Wool / Dripleaf: Slow Falling + Absorption for fall-death saves.

(Every material in the game that made sense has a totem: 62 in total, each with its own particle color and effect.)

How to craft

Every totem is simple and intuitive: 8 of its material surrounding a vanilla Totem of Undying on a crafting table.

e.g. 8 × Diamond + 1 Totem of Undying → Diamond Totem
8 × Blaze Rod + 1 Totem → Blaze Totem, and so on for all totems.

The Netherite Totem is the exception — it's upgraded from a Diamond Totem at a smithing table with a Netherite Upgrade template and a Netherite Ingot, exactly like netherite gear.

Check the gallery below — there's a crafting image for every single totem.

Compatibility

Runs on Fabric, Forge and NeoForge, Minecraft 1.20.1 through 26.2 (42 builds). Fully compatible with vanilla totem.

Support

Email: zeio.gamedev@gmail.com

Discord: zeio_dust

Extra More Iron Totems