Rainbeau's Sky Islands (Overworld Replacement Version)
A World of Floating Isles Hovering Over an Endless Sea
(A Data Pack for Minecraft 1.19, 1.19.1 & 1.19.2)
In vanilla Minecraft, the sky is just... empty. There's so much of it, but there's nothing in it.
Well, no more! Now, the sky is full of flying islands, which is actually a good thing, because the world's surface is just water.
Amongst the islands, you'll find variations on most of Minecraft's vanilla Overworld biomes. But that's not all. Whatever cataclysm created this bizarre world of gravity-defying land masses tore through the walls separating dimensions, and so you'll also find islands that don't belong in the Overworld at all, such as islands of netherrack and basalt, populated by piglins, islands of end stone, populated by flocks (herds? gaggles? murders?) of endermen, and even islands of prismarine and sandstone, populated by, well, honestly, not much at all.
(Note that while cave biomes, per se, don't exist, many of the features normally associated with those biomes can instead be found in the perpetually-shaded areas where one island floats forever above another. However, as there is no deep dark biome on "Sky Islands" maps, you won't find any ancient cities.)
But don't make the mistake of thinking that you can just jump off the island you spawn on and swim to one that you like better. Aside from the question of how to get back up from the water to your intended new home, there's the fact that while the dive into the ocean won't necessarily kill you, it's unlikely that the drowneds and guardians who make the sea their home would be so considerate.
And speaking of unfriendly denizens, be aware that far more villages than you're used to have been abandoned to the ravages of the undead. Don't assume that you've found a safe haven, just because you see houses on the horizon.
You'll also find that all ores, gems and stone types can be found at any elevation. Given the nature of the world, elevation-based limitations really don't make much sense. This might seem overly generous, and certainly, for example, it makes it potentially easier to find diamonds early in the game. But bear in mind that there is substantially less mineable rock on a "Sky Islands" map than you're used to. Large-scale strip mining is literally impossible. So later in the game, resource scarcity is likely to become an issue, even given the adjustments I've made.
Along similar lines, and for similar reasons, I've adjusted emerald ore so that it now spawns in any "Sky Islands" biome, rather than just in "mountains," which is frankly a rather meaningless concept now, anyway. But to keep things interesting, I've also adjusted infested stone (the type of stone from which silverfish emerge) so that it, too, can appear anywhere.
This data pack should be compatible with any data pack or mod that adds custom dimensions or alters world generation of the Nether or the End. However, it won't be compatible with anything else that alters the Overworld or its biomes, since it completely replaces the vanilla Overworld. My own "Flying Villages," "Ocean Villages," "Ships On Seas" and "Undersea Villages" are exceptions to that rule, as I've specifically made this pack compatible with them, but be aware that as "Sky Islands" terrain generation is much more chaotic than that of vanilla worlds, I can't guarantee that you won't come across oddities like villages simply embedded in islands.
ACCESSING THE "SKY ISLANDS" REALM: Simply load and enable this data pack as you're creating a new world, and you'll find yourself spawning into the "Sky Islands" realm. Don't try adding "Sky Islands" to a game world that already exists, though, as you'll get rather bizarre results if in fact your game even loads at all.
CREDITS (Concepts): Special thanks go to Sanonasu. This data pack originated as an adaptation of his "Floating Islands" pack, and if he hadn't conceived of the idea and done the original world generation work, "Sky Islands" wouldn't exist! Similarly, the idea for the prismarine forest biome and the "petrified" coral trees therein came from the prismarine cliffs and petrified forest biomes in MC_DA's "Many More Biomes" data pack, and my crystal forest biome draws from that pack's frozen and crystallized forest biomes.
-- Rainbeau Flambe (Darryl Burgdorf)
