Last updated: 10 September 2026

How to Get a Totem of Undying in Minecraft

A Totem of Undying is the closest thing to a free life in Survival Minecraft — hold one when you take fatal damage, and it saves you instead of killing you, even in Hardcore. There is exactly one reliable source: Evokers. Here's where to find them, how the totem's save actually works, and how to stock up on more than one.

01The Only Source: Evokers

Evokers are the sole source of Totems of Undying in Survival mode. Every Evoker you kill drops exactly one totem, 100% of the time — the drop is not affected by the Looting enchantment, so there's no need to hunt for a specific weapon before fighting one.

Evokers spawn in two places:

• Woodland Mansions — rare structures that generate only in Dark Forest and Pale Garden biomes, usually thousands to tens of thousands of blocks from spawn. Each mansion has a handful of Evokers, giving you a one-time batch of totems.
• Raids — triggered by a player with the Bad Omen effect entering a village. Evokers start appearing around wave 5 and become more common in later waves, with up to five showing up in a single raid on Hard difficulty.

02Why Raids Are the Better Farming Method

Woodland Mansions give you a limited supply — once you've cleared the Evokers inside, that mansion is done. Raids are renewable, which makes them the standard way to stock up on multiple totems.

1. Get the Bad Omen status effect by killing a Pillager Patrol captain (the pillager holding a banner).
2. Walk into a village while Bad Omen is active to trigger a raid.
3. Survive each wave — later waves on Hard difficulty spawn multiple Evokers at once, each guaranteed to drop a totem when killed.
4. Repeat with a fresh Bad Omen stack (killing another captain, or stacking Bad Omen levels from multiple captains before starting) for back-to-back raids.

One catch: on Easy difficulty, raids end too quickly for Evokers to reliably spawn, so totem farming from raids effectively requires Normal difficulty or higher.

03How the Totem Actually Saves You

The totem only works if it is held in your main hand or off-hand — one sitting anywhere else in your inventory or hotbar (unless it's the selected hotbar slot) will not trigger, so keep a spare in your off-hand at all times if you're relying on it.

When you take damage that would otherwise kill you, the totem consumes itself and grants:

• 1 half-heart of health, so you survive instead of dying outright.
• Regeneration II for 45 seconds.
• Fire Resistance I for 40 seconds.
• Absorption II for 5 seconds (4 extra absorption hearts).
• Removal of all negative status effects you were carrying at the moment of activation.

It works in every game mode, including Hardcore, and on any mob holding one, not just players. The one thing it can't stop is void damage or the /kill command — both bypass the totem's save entirely.

04Getting the Most Out of a Totem

Since a totem needs to be actively held to work, most players keep one in the off-hand slot permanently during risky fights (Wither, Warden, PvP, Nether exploration) so it's always ready without taking up a main-hand weapon slot.

Because raids can drop several totems per run once you're fighting Hard-difficulty waves, it's worth stockpiling a few extra beyond your one "always equipped" totem — one for the off-hand, and spares in an easy-to-grab chest slot for whenever the first one gets used up mid-expedition.