We all know that Minecraft worlds are endless. You can play for decades, and the world will keep generating new discoveries as long as you continue to expand your horizons.
Within those adventures is something called Trial Chambers — complex combat challenges that require you to perform at your absolute best to succeed. While defeating these Chambers results in common loot as well as rare loot, there’s a way to find some truly unique gear through the Ominous Vault.
This guide will cover everything you need to know about the Ominous Vault, including how to know when it appears, how to unlock it, which Mobs to fend off, and more.
But before getting into the Ominous Vault in Minecraft and how to find it, as well as its related Ominous Trial Keys, we must first discuss Ominous Events.
Ominous Events
Ominous Events are entirely optional, modified versions of traditional events in Minecraft. These Events are more difficult than their non-ominous counterparts, but provide much better rewards as a result.
However, to even activate an Ominous Event, you must first have the Bad Omen effect applied.
Bad Omen Effect
The Bad Omen Effect is what triggers Ominous Events. You can apply the Bad Omen effect to yourself by consuming an Ominous Bottle, which can drop from Raid Captains.

Raid Captains are Banner-wielding Illagers that roam the world of Minecraft looking for villages to Raid.

Once you acquire an Ominous Bottle, consuming it inflicts you with one hour and forty minutes of the Bad Omen effect.

This effect does nothing by itself but instead can trigger either an Ominous Raid or an Ominous Trial. Higher levels of the Bad Omen effect will make respective challenges harder, but you’ll get better rewards as a result. Bad Omen effects can be anywhere from levels one through five.

Ominous Raid
An Ominous Raid is a more difficult version of the traditional Raid, in which enemies come into villages, break down doors, and defeat Villagers.
Walking into a Village with the Bad Omen effect applied will turn it into a Raid Omen. A Raid will begin within a minute of you walking in.

You must defeat all waves of a Raid to get rid of it. The number of waves in a Raid depends on your difficulty level. Easy difficulty means three Raid waves, Normal means five, and Hard means seven. Higher level Bad Omen effects will increase each difficulty by one wave.
Completing an Ominous Raid will give you the Hero of the Village status effect. As long as this effect is active, Villagers will give you free gifts and discounts at their shop if you’re playing Minecraft: Java Edition. Bedrock Edition players will only get the discounts.
Ominous Trial
The Ominous Trial is where the Ominous Vaults come into play.
You see, a few updates ago, Minecraft introduced the Tricky Trials update. This brought with Trial Chambers — underground areas that present you with tough challenges. These challenges typically involve taking down monsters that come from Trial Spawners. After defeating all of the monsters that come from a Spawner, it will deactivate, and you’ll earn some loot.

Defeating enough Trial Spawners will result in a Vault Key. Use the Vault Key on a normal Vault, and you’ll receive some decent loot.
However, the Ominous version of this trial means taking on Ominous Trial Spawners and more challenging enemies as a result.
To trigger Ominous Trial Spawners, you must walk into a Trial Chamber with the Bad Omen effect applied. This will turn it into a Trial Omen, which converts any Trial Spawner within fifteen blocks of you into an Ominous Trial Spawner.

Enemies that come from an Ominous Spawner will have armor like Enchanted Diamond Chestplates with the Flow Armor Trim or Enchanted Bows and Swords. Make sure to have your own Enchanted Armor and Weapons to combat this.
Now, clearing out Ominous Trial Spawners will eventually drop an Ominous Vault Key. These are the more powerful versions of the standard Vault Key, and unlock access to the Ominous Vault Block’s unique loot, such as rare Smithing Templates or Enchanted Golden Apples.

Of course, you also need to find the Ominous Vault after defeating Ominous Trial Chambers. Fortunately, they’re never too far away. Once you find an Ominous Vault, use the Ominous Trial Key to open it and explore the rare loot.

Ominous Vault Minecraft Loot Table
Here’s everything you can find in an Ominous Vault:
- Arrow of Slowness IV (37.5% chance)
- Block of Diamond (25% chance)
- Block of Emerald (2.8% chance)
- Block of Iron (13.8% chance)
- Diamond (26.4% chance)
- Emerald (56.2% chance)
- Enchanted Crossbow (11% chance)
- Enchanted Diamond Axe (8.3% chance)
- Enchanted Diamond Chestplace (8.3% chance)
- Enchanted Book (5.5% chance)
- Enchanted Golden Apple (22.5% chance)
- Flow Armor Trim Smithing Template (22.5% chance)
- Flow Banner Pattern (15% chance)
- Golden Apple (8.3% chance)
- Heavy Core (7.5% chance)
- Music Disc (7.5% chance)
- Ominous Bottle levels III-V (13.9% chance)
- Wind Charge (47.4% chance)
Now, understand that you can only open an Ominous Vault once. After opening it, you must find another one. This can sometimes mean you need to find another Trial Chamber, as well as more Ominous Bottles to apply Bad Omen.
Fortunately, the world of Minecraft is endless and always generating, meaning you can technically never run out of Trial Chambers to find. As long as you keep up the motivation, that is.
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Max is a freelance writer with a love for gaming and technology. He’s always looking for the next big game to play and tinkers with tech in his remaining free time.
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