GUNPOWDER

Every mob that drops this is one you would rather not stand next to. No recipe in Java 26.2 produces it: it drops from creepers, ghasts and witches. A creeper punishes a bad approach with a crater, a ghast fights from the far side of lava, and a witch answers melee with poison of her own. Hunting for gunpowder on purpose means hunting for a fight that goes wrong more often than most.

A trader sidesteps all of it. 1 emerald buys 4 gunpowder with nothing more dangerous than a conversation, assuming the one in front of you happens to be carrying the line.

1 emerald for 4 gunpowder, up to 2 times, for a maximum of 2 emeralds spent on a single trader's entire stock. The number does not shift between traders the way a profession's price range does.

No job villager buys or sells it. The Cleric's brewing stock covers finished potions rather than the raw ingredient, and the Fletcher, closest thing this site has to a combat-supply profession, never lists it either. The trader is the only route in either direction.

He asks 1 emerald for 4, which works out at well under an emerald each, and 11 of the other 75 come cheaper. Price is the easy part: he draws a rare slot from a shared pool, so catching one that happens to be carrying gunpowder is the real constraint.

The Wandering Trader asks 1 emerald for 4 gunpowder. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

a diamond against 24 paper for the same 1 emerald, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 37.5 real seconds of shelf, gathering not counted.

The Wandering Trader has no village, no workstation and no tier ladder, so none of the usual tricks for steering a profession's offers apply. He appears near a player with two llamas, lingers briefly, then leaves on his own schedule regardless of what was bought.

His stock locks in the moment he spawns, 2 lines drawn from a pool of 16, so a trader either has gunpowder that day or he never will, no matter how long you wait beside him. The only thing that changes the odds is meeting more traders.

Found one carrying it, the whole transaction is 2 purchases for 2 emeralds, done in moments and safer than the alternative of tracking down a creeper, a ghast or a witch on purpose. A name tag keeps him around if you would rather return than search for a second one.

Weigh the trade against the fight. A charged creeper farm produces gunpowder in volume but takes real setup and real risk to the builds nearby, so buying a slot's worth from a safe trader is the better call for anyone who only needs a modest amount for fireworks or TNT.

Also on the wandering trader's list: podzol, potion of invisibility, acacia log, birch log, dark oak log, jungle log. His full stock, both directions, is on the Wandering Trader page.

Most gunpowder comes off creepers, which is a supply line nobody enjoys running. Ghasts and witches drop it too, and it turns up in a fair share of the game's chests, so an explorer usually has some before a fighter does.

What it is for is not only TNT. Gunpowder is what turns a potion into a splash potion, which is the difference between healing yourself and healing your friends, and it is the base of every firework in the game.

The firework use is the sneaky one: fireworks fired from a crossbow are a weapon, and rockets made with one gunpowder are what keeps an elytra in the air. A trader who sells it is selling flight time.

The wandering trader's 4 Gunpowder for 1 emerald sits in his rare stock and runs out after 2 trades, which will not fill a stack of rockets. Creepers are the steady source of Gunpowder: How to Build a Gunpowder Farm in Minecraft and How to Make a Creeper Farm in Minecraft both build around them.