Amphithere

**Amphitheres** are mystical feathered serpents that soar through the dense jungle that can be tackled and cowed into fast flying mounts.

## Appearance

Amphitheres are large, colorful reptiles that possess the general look of a snake, with a serpentine physique, a noticeable lack of walking legs, a moderately long neck, a large head with big, toothy jaws, and a long, tapering tail. However, they also possess many traits derived from tropical birds; they boast massive, feathery wings, a crown of feathers adorns the back of their head, their snout ends in a large, hooked beak, and their tail ends in a large, feathery tail fan. They come in 5 different colors:

* Blue: Has blue scales and blue feathers.
* Olive: Has olive scales and red-orange feathers.
* Red: Has red scales and red feathers.
* Green: Has green scales and green-cyan feathers.
* Yellow: Has yellow scales and yellow-orange feathers.

## Spawning

Amphitheres can be found gliding through Jungle biomes.

## Drops

Upon death, amphitheres drop:

* 1-7 amphithere feathers.
* 1 amphithere skull (2.5% chance).

## Behavior

Amphitheres are neutral, and will not attack players unless provoked; in fact, they are relatively skittish, and will always stay away from players, no matter how hard they try to reach them, only turning back to fight when provoked. When attacking, amphitheres will take a bite out of their foes, dealing 3.5 hearts (7 HP) of damage with each bite; however, they are also known to spin around in order to knock away their targets with their tail, and they have even been seen rearing up and violently flapping their wings in order to create powerful gusts of wind that send their foes flying. On land, amphitheres are already fast, being able to slither faster than a player's sprinting speed; in the air, however, they are even faster, and are perhaps one of the (if not *the*) fastest flying mobs in the mod. Surprisingly enough, amphitheres will also protect any villagers they come across, and will fight off any mob that tries to kill the villagers; they will even scuffle with formidable dragons in order to save their friends.

If an amphithere is hit with an arrow, snowball, or any other projectile while flying, it will plummet from the sky and automatically transition to terrestrial movement.

### Taming

Unlike other mobs, taming an amphithere is a daunting task. First, one must catch up with the amphithere's quick slithering speed and mount it by interacting with it with an empty hand; if it is found flying, one must knock it out of the sky with a projectile before initiating the chase. Once the amphithere is mounted, it will repeatedly turn its head over its side to bite its rider; in order to tame it, one must survive its bite attacks long enough (or use a shield to nullify any damage it deals) before it breaks and starts to serve its superior. Once the amphithere is tamed, it can be ordered to either follow its owner, wander around, or sit by interacting with them with an empty hand while sneaking; however, keep in mind that, when ordered to wander, it can still fly away at will. Fortunately, however, a Dragon Bone Flute can be used to call a flying amphithere down to the ground. As well as this, a tamed amphithere will attack mobs and players that its owner attacks; any tamed amphitheres that are flying in the air and not sitting will swoop down to the ground and start fighting the mob or player that their owner targets; this could be used as another way to call down your amphithere if it flew away. Feeding a tamed amphithere cocoa beans will heal it.

Sneaking while interacting with a amphithere with a Dragon Command Staff will set a home position where it is currently at, and it will not go far away from that position. The home position can be removed by sneaking while using the Dragon Command Staff again.

It takes 1 day for a baby amphithere to reach adulthood.

### Breeding

Two amphitheres can be bred by feeding them cookies. They are bred in the same manner as other vanilla animals; in this case, right-clicking each amphithere with the cookies will cause them to breed. Breeding the two amphitheres will produce a baby amphithere.

## Usage

Usage of these aphitheres can be for gliding and flying from place to place smoothly, they do not stop in mid air. But they rather just keep moving, they can be used if you tend to have lag (due to lack of moving parts) and they can also serve quite decorative. Unlike the Hippogryph, they are slightly slower in the air and land which can be better for steering.

### Riding

Tamed amphitheres can be mounted by interacting with them with an empty hand. Unlike dragons and hippogryphs, which use **WASD** controls, amphitheres are controlled similarly to a perpetually firework-boosted pair of Elytra; looking up makes the amphithere rise, while looking down makes it dive downwards. **Spacebar** makes the amphithere start flying, and **G** makes it use a strike attack, attacking the mob or the player is currently looking at.

While there is no set landing key, it has been discovered that if you ride your amphithere while touching the ground, and you use the Dragon Bone Flute, it will land on the spot.

## History

* 1.7.0:
	+ Introduced.
* 1.7.1
	+ Can now heal by being fed cocoa beans.
* 1.8.0:
	+ Now associated with a new Legendary Weapon: the Amphithere Macuahuitl.
	+ Now occasionally drops a placeable skull.
	+ Previously-set home positions can be removed.
	+ Now spawns much less frequently than it did before.
	+ Now has a wider turn radius.
	+ Amount of experience dropped upon death has been rebalanced.
* 1.8.4:
	+ Player-controlled flight has been reworked.
* 1.9.0:
	+ Idle animations are now smoother.

## Trivia

* Where as the other flying mobs fly in a linear orientation, ascending, descending, and turning slightly sharply, amphitheres will make ascents, descents, and turns as smoothly as an Elytra user would.
	+ Before, amphitheres were the only mobs in the mod to utilize this flying AI; however, as of version 1.8.0, dragons now use it as well.
	+ Alexthe666, the official coder for Ice and Fire and the modder who coded the amphithere, discovered that its AI was independently coded very similarly to the Phantom, a flying mob introduced in release 1.13 for the base game. Before version 1.8.0, the amphithere flying AI was very buggy, as it would sometimes fly into blocks, not make any turns when flying around (giving off the illusion that they are strafing), flutter around in place, or even vibrate in place while failing to get off the ground; as the Phantom's AI is also currently very buggy, this could explain why amphitheres were the way they were before they finally got fixed.
* There is a bug where baby amphitheres always spawn untamed.
* Amphitheres' protective attitude towards villagers, Aztec-themed legendary weapon, and general title of "the guardians of the jungle" may possibly be a callback to Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent deity prominent in many Mesoamerican religions.