DYES:

In Minecraft, there are goods that can be sold for any price depending on what is used in it. This price can be done from the materials, to the region or land it came from, to the time it took to transport. One important variable that also is included is the dye that is used. The history of dye isn't too interesting, so this entry will focus more on the general applications and some basic background of history.

Beginning is the standard red dye. Red dye can be derived from roses, poppies, and beets. In pre-diamond and pre-nether times, red dye was considered to be used as a symbol of war, death, and blood. Once the medieval ages entered, the dye slowly formed into a colorful dye that can be used for banners, wool, and even clay. Now the dyes are mostly replaced by PR replication technology, but in poorer and less industrialized areas, it is still used as a dyeing material.

Yellow dye, as red dye, was used pretty much since the ancient times. Sunflowers and dandelions were the main sources of the yellow dye and the use of it in mimicking gold made it pretty demanding. History shows this as there have been small ruins that have yellow dyed walls and materials along with yellow clay blocks that may suggest it can withstand the test of time.

Orange dye is the mix of the two and is rarer in society. The reason is obvious since you need both red and yellow dye and some regions had one or the other. However, there have been some civilizations that have used tulips, as with other dyes, to extract orange dye. Examples can be the Esutas flag containing around 80% orange dye, and enough dye to create almost 800 flags worth.

Brown dye is a more foreign dye that took longer to reach many parts of the world. While the running joke of it looking more like fecal matter is still big, the truth behind the dye actually comes from the jungles. Also a food, the cocoa bean pods when ripe can break into three beans and be used for more cocoa beans or brown dye.

Black dye has a version interesting history as did the previous dye. Before, squids were hunting constantly to be used in ink, calamari, and black dye. Now, a flower has been discovered that can replace ink sacs. Unlike the cocoa beans, this caused a negative effect on the dye companies that used ink sacs as major black dye manufacturing. Another issue is that the ink manufacturers have very low prices in ink, making it troubling to keep up.

Gray dye is made by combining bone meal and ink sacs. Since bones came from many living beings and ink sacs came from squids, thus giving rise to gray dye. Gray dyes weren't used a lot except for paints and metal conditioning that improved the "grayness" of it. Now, changes have been made to gray dye, sharply declining its main industry production.

Light gray dye, unlike it's darker cousin, can be produced from three different flowers while also retaining a crafting recipe. It's more common and used in crude bleaching, but also used to manufacture Victorious White. The dye can be made from bone meal and gray dye, but since the flower route is both more efficient and cheaper, this recipe gets obsoleted.

White dye has been mostly known as bone meal. However, like cocoa beans and ink sacs, bone meal was replaced by a flower dye that can produce the dye and has abruptly disrupted the dye industry. The good news is that the farmers who use bone meal for their fertilizer were much thankful and have grown more and more food now. Bone meal is also used in several dye recipes, which are lime, gray, pink, light blue, and light gray.

Lime dye isn't as popular as many other dyes, but is has been updated. Now, sea pickles can be used to manufacture the lime dye along with the crafting recipe, but it of course is much cheaper to grab the pickles.

Green dye is probably one of the trickiest to get due to the location and the process. Desert biomes have the cactus plants which are the raw dye. Once it is cooked thoroughly, it is then turned into green dye and used to make other dyes or by itself. It is used for making the recipe above and below, but is more used in the dye below than the lime dye above.

Cyan dye is probably one of the least used dyes, if not the least used due to the expense of the lapis and cactus needed to create it. Very little history can be said since only the royalties have ever used it and there has never been any big scale of the dye.

Light blue dye, unlike Cyan, was more affordable due to the presence of flowers that can produce it. Another interesting point of the dye is how the people have used them as a substitute for lapis by mixing in ink sacs.

Blue dye, or lapis lazuli, is an expensive dye, second to Cyan, that is a both famous in several areas and useful, and deadly. First off, lapis falls under the non-ores category where when mined it doesn't remain an ore and breaks apart, like redstone or diamonds. Next, because it is needed to mine at such a low level, the expense to fund that kind of excavation requires a good amount of money. And lastly, the dangers that come by with it make it a trouble to acquire it. But once you have it, at least there's no more problems to go with it… well, actually…

The problems with lapis continue, even after being mined. In the old times, it was a highly priced commodity like redstone, gold, and diamonds and this led to both theft and robberies. Counterfeiting lapis took form of darkening light blue dye claiming it is lapis. Another huge issue is that lapis is notoriously known for its own disease: Enchanting Disease, or full name, Enchanting Particle Reduction Syndrome. The disease was most common with enchanters who use lapis a lot for enchanting objects. The disease works similar to DR, only instead it turns any organic matter into experience particles.

The pros of lapis, on the other hand, include the fact it is used in enchanting, it's used in various works of art, and the use of it in military history and in general history. Lately, there has been a new flower that has replaced the lapis with a literal blue dye and it has altered the industry a little. Now, lapis has been put into more explosive means and also more enchanting means.

Purple, magenta, and pink dyes aren't too well used. First off it requires specific recipes and while that isn't a problem, purple dye requires lapis, and magenta and pink are used by flowers, and aren't really used by flowers since the flowers are used for other purposes.

There are also no longer used colors that have been used for centuries. Glowstone and nether wart were used for yellow and red dyes in the nether. While being toxic, it didn't affect the Skeletons or Pigmen, but did have impact on the players and other mobs that used it.

Now, there have been backlashes on the colors for possible failures in standards, accidents, movements, bankruptcies, and global issues, but these dyes have importance uses throughout the history of Minecraftia.