Waychest 1.21.5

May 25th, 2025

Greetings, Wayfarers! We’re just a few days from the one-year anniversary of Waychest’s full, non-whitelisted launch on June 1st, 2024. It’s been a lot of fun to see so many players discover the server and place their own Waychests. In addition to finally upgrading the server from 1.21.1 to 1.21.5, I’m excited to share a major content update with you today!

Waychest Flight Adjustments

Waychest Flights still look and feel the same as they always have. However, there are a number of quality-of-life improvements that make the experience smoother and more enjoyable.

Failing a flight is now much less punishing. Previously, if you failed a flight by running out of time or crashing, the Waychest Wings you were using would be destroyed. Now, failing a flight returns the Waychest Wings, unless someone completes the flight.

Flights now indicate approximately how many rings are left to fly through before reaching a destination.

On lower flight difficulties, the flight continues even if you miss a ring. Previously (and still on higher difficulties), missing a ring meant needing to circle back to it, which broke up the flow of the flight. But watch out, because missed rings no longer replenish firework rockets on any difficulty.

Flying in a group wasn’t the most enjoyable experience, since failing a flight meant being returned to the start while everyone else continued. Now, if you fail a flight, you will spectate other players who are still flying. When the player you are spectating completes the flight, you will be teleported to the destination with them, free of charge.

There are a few more minor changes to flights:

• Spicy difficulty now only replenishes a firework rocket on a perfect ring pass.
• A floating pair of Waychest Wings now appears when a flight is about to start. They remain at the start location as long as one or more players are still flying. Interact with the floating wings to spectate the flight.
• Elytra loaned during a flight are now unbreakable, so XP earned during the flight is no longer reduced by an Elytra mending itself.
• Potential spoiler for endgame content: Free Flights no longer have an XP penalty compared to flights started with Waychest Wings.
• The fireworks at the end of a flight no longer damage players.
• Wayfaring Wings now stack up to 64.

X-Way Potions

It’s a little too easy to place a Mini Waychest where nobody will ever find it. It’s frustrating to visit a build and see the “nearby Mini Waychests” counter stuck at 5/6 after leaving no cobblestone unturned.

To help with this, you can now brew an X-Way Potion that will reveal 1 undiscovered Mini Waychest within 256 blocks.

To brew one, simply infuse an Awkward Potion with a Rift Locator Egg.

One Rift Locator Egg will brew up to 3 X-Way Potions, and each potion will reveal a different Mini Waychest. Use them wisely, as they also give you 30 seconds of mining fatigue - tunnelling to the revealed Mini Waychest is not considerate of the build you’re visiting!

Waychest items from Wandering Traders

Wandering Traders now sell 2 custom Waychest items each. From most to least common, they can sell Rift Locators, Wayfaring Wings, Mini Waychests, Waychest Shards, and Rift Wings. Each Wandering Trader only has a handful of each item in stock, so track down the ones you can find!

Waychests in the Nether and End

The warp network in the Overworld has grown extensively, but the Nether and End are still tedious to traverse. To make it a little easier, Waychests can now be placed in the Nether and End. It would be hard to fly to a Waychest in the Nether and even harder to dream about one, so these Waychests may not be marked “Discoverable”. Use them for your own personal warp points, or to help your friends travel to your Nether or End bases.

Of course, this means that Jump Networks can now be created in the Nether and End as well, and builds may be protected in any dimension.

Rift Locator Egg Texture Change

The Rift Locator used to resemble an axolotl spawn egg, but Mojang improved the textures of each spawn egg to resemble the mob it spawns. Axolotl gills just didn’t fit the mysterious vibes of a Rift, so the egg is now black and purple to match the Rift’s colors more closely. Same contents as before!

Other Minor Changes to Custom Content

• Vanilla Minecraft compasses are now tied to your Spawn Code. A compass you craft will always point to the spawn point of your Journey, even if someone on another Journey picks it up.

Minecraft 1.21.5 Vanilla Additions

Finally, this update brings the server from Minecraft 1.21.1 up to 1.21.5, which includes new content from Mojang.

Bundles

Farm Animal Variants

All cows, chickens, and pigs in the world pre-1.21.5 will be converted to the new variants based on the biome they were in when the update was applied. If you have cows, chickens, or pigs that you want to keep as a specific variant, you can contact an admin to have them converted to the variant you want.

Also, wolves have 6 new sound variants. All untamed wolves in the world pre-1.21.5 now have a randomized sound variant.

Pale Gardens?

Mojang added the new Pale Garden biome in 1.21.4 along with the creaking. They will arrive in the world of Waychest soon! (It’s not easy to add a whole new biome to a finite world, but we have a plan to make it happen!)

As always, please report any bugs you find to an admin via Discord! There are a lot of internal changes in Vanilla Minecraft in this update, so please let us know if you find any problems.

Enjoy!

-Chips