CARTOGRAPHER

A Cartography Table next to a jobless villager makes it a cartographer, and it is the one profession in the game that can hand you a map pointing straight at a woodland mansion, a structure most players would otherwise spend a long time searching for on foot or by boat. It buys paper, glass pane, and compass for emeralds, and it sells item frame, banner, and banner pattern (globe) on top of its explorer maps as it climbs toward Master.

Every one of its 6 explorer map offers also asks for a Compass on top of the emerald price, an ingredient this villager never sells you outright. Bring your own or craft one before you start climbing tiers, because the Novice-tier empty map trade is the only sell-side offer on its whole list that skips the compass requirement.

The map itself does not arrive finished. It ships with an X marking the target and a small ring of terrain already sketched in around that spot, but everything past the ring stays blank until you walk it in yourself, the fog clearing the same way it does on a plain map as you move. The target is not random either: the game just hands you whichever matching structure sits nearest to wherever you are standing the moment you buy. Trade for the same kind of map twice from a cartographer parked at your base and there is a real chance both copies mark the exact same building, especially if the closest one is also the one you already found and cleared a while ago.

Unlike some of the other trading professions, the Cartographer is not biome-specific: the same trade list appears whichever biome its village happens to sit in. What does change is how much of that list a given villager actually shows: below Master, which map or item comes up is partly random, but by the time it reaches Master both of its remaining offers, the woodland mansion map included, show up on every single villager. No rerolling needed once one gets that far.

A Cartographer climbs five career ranks, and each rank it reaches adds a fresh batch of offers on top of the ones below it. The experience gates are fixed: the Novice tier opens immediately with 2 offers, 10 more trade-XP points unlock Apprentice (4 offers), 60 more trade-XP points unlock Journeyman (3 offers), 80 more trade-XP points unlock Expert (2 offers), and 100 more trade-XP points unlock Master (2 offers). The full price list for every rank is laid out below; emerald costs marked as a range roll randomly within that band each time the trade is generated or restocked.

Carry a stack of compasses: almost every map this villager sells asks for one on top of the emerald price, and the cartographer itself never sells you one. Craft what you need from iron and redstone in advance rather than discovering mid-trade that you are one compass short of the offer you climbed all the way up for.

Push for Master if a mansion map matters: once a cartographer reaches Master, both of its remaining offers show up guaranteed, no gambling on the roll. That is the tier that decides whether it can sell you the woodland map at all, so getting one there beats rerolling a lower one over and over.

Reroll the early tiers instead: a fresh Apprentice cartographer only shows 2 of 8 possible offers, so which of the village, swamp, or jungle maps you get is down to chance, roughly 25% for any one of them. Untraded and unhappy with the pick, break the cartography table and give it back for a new roll. Our villager rolling guide covers the reset in full.

Funding it: the same cartographer takes 24 paper per emerald at Novice, and 11 glass pane per emerald once it reaches Apprentice. Either sink funds the map and compass costs above without touching your emerald stash from other villagers.

Buy close to where you actually want to land: the map always marks whichever matching structure is nearest to your position at the moment of the trade, not the one you were hoping for. A cartographer parked at your main base tends to mark the same nearby mansion or chamber every time, often one you have already cleared. Travel toward the region you actually want first, find or place a fresh cartography table out there, and only then buy. It costs more time upfront, but it stops you from paying emeralds for a marker you could have walked to blind.

Cure for a discount: a cured cartographer drops its prices across the board, maps included, the same way curing works on every other profession. See our zombie-villager discount guide for the method.

Cartographers are often born in a village far from your base: How to Transport Villagers in Minecraft gets one back safely, and until the first trade How to Reset Villager Trades in Minecraft lets you reroll his Novice offers. His maps lead to places worth farming: How to Farm Trial Spawners in Minecraft (Trial Chambers), How to Build a Guardian Farm in Minecraft and How to Build a Witch Farm in Minecraft.

• Paper, 24 per emerald at Novice: How to Build an Automatic Sugar Cane Farm in Minecraft