There once was a race of intelligent builders. Until one day, a mysterious virus appeared out of nowhere. This caused the split of their race, one group wanted to escape eventually discovering a way to make an interdimensional portal, the nether portal. The other group was originally immune to the virus, so they decided to stay and build villages, making golems to protect them from zombies. The one that went into the nether, discovered that there were already a race of pig like humanoids, the piglins. Originally they were at peace, bartering with each other using gold. But the piglins weren't the only things in the nether. Although rare, there were giant ancient powerful withers, that rise from the trapped souls of creatures. The piglins already made a building to protect themselves from the withers, but the ancient builders didn't have a building which caused many of them to die. Eventually, they successfully made a fortress. In search for power and weapons to defeat the wither, they abandoned their peaceful relationship with the piglins. They stole their gold, and tried to steal their netherite but couldn't. Eventually after thousands of years of fighting the withers, they discovered soul magic, and with that came the wither skeletons (made from withered dead skeletal remains and souls from soul sand in the nether), ghasts (machinery made to protect thr fortresses, powered by trapped souls), and blazes (machine like creatures made from trapped souls and fire and lava). Eventually, they managed to make the wither race extinct. Their relationship with the piglins became worse, since the virus that they brought from the overworld evolved to infect the piglins, making zombie piglins. The souls that they used for their machinery and experiments began to fight back, the ghasts, started to attack them, the piglins started to attack them, the wither skeleton started to attack them, the blazes, hoglins, etc. So they fled back into the overworld. They were surprised to see that the builders that didn't go to the nether looked different and the overworld virus became worse and it can now infect the builders who stayed. The builders who stayed, now are villagers, worked together with the builders who went to the nether. The golems that the villagers made, can now respawn via soul magic. Eventually, they split again, some of the villagers stayed, some went together with the builders. The builders talked about the withers to the villagers. The villagers, intrigued by the wither, thought that it was the cure to the virus. Eventually, they successfully made one, but to their surprise all hell broke loose. Some of the builders fled far away, some of them fled underground, some of them stayed to fight the wither. The villagers, tried to fled to villages but were rejected because they looked different because they were a little withered, some of them fled together with the builders that chose to go underground. The builders that chose to fight Eventually killed it. The ones underground built strongholds alongside the villagers that fled with them. Eventually, a cure was found, but it only worked for the villagers. Eventually, the zombies found their way underground, and the builders were forced to make another interdimensional portal, the end portal. Arriving at the end, they were surprised to see ender dragons. The dragons were peaceful at first, that was until one of the builders killed one for their wings. This event split the builders into 2 factions, one where they wanted to befriend the dragons, and one where they wanted the wings of the dragons for elytras. Needing a faster way of transportation, they eventually made the ender pearls, imperfect interdimensional teleportation devices made from chorus fruits and other unknown items. Eventually the faction that wanted to kill the dragons died out, and what's left was the ones that wanted to befriend the dragons. But the dragons were still enraged and destroyed their way home, making them trapped in the end. Time passed and their bodies start to evolve and merge with the ender pearls and chorus fruits and eventually evolving the ability of perfect interdimensional teleportation. A few endermen managed to teleport out of the end into the nether and overworld. The builders that fled far away when the wither accident happened was finding a way to achieve immortality with soul magic. Many experiments failed, creating skeletons. Eventually after many trial and error, they created a being capable of carrying multiple mountains worth of weight without tiring, a being capable of healing with only food, a being who doesn't need water to survive, a being who can respawn everytime it dies, that being was You, the Player. The villagers that were banned from entering villages saw this and the creation of the end portals and tried to recreate it but failed. The only thing that they managed to recreate was an imperfect totem, capable of bringing anything that holds it back to life at the cost of the totem itself. The outcast villagers, now illagers, have a grudge against the villagers which is the reason for their long rivalry up till now. The illagers, were withered hence their gray skin, so the undead and other hostile mobs don'tbother to attack them. The builders that created the Player eventually died out. Time passed and what's left of the previous civilization began to fall. The Player was unconscious during all this, and eventually waking up in the middle of nowhere, fated to never die, fated to always be alone, fated to kill the last dragon, fated to recreate and kill the wither.