Minecraft has numerous status effects that players can experience but there is one that stands out as especially ominous: the Bad Omen. This effect comes about when players kill a patrol captain in an illager patrol and it can have some dramatic effects.
The Bad Omen status effect in Minecraft looks like an illager face with crossed axes underneath and it will remain with the player for 100 minutes. Illager patrols spawn all over the Overworld and usually contain a small group of pillagers with a patrol captain holding a banner. Once the patrol captain is killed, the player will be alerted immediately that the Bad Omen status effect is now attached to them. This means the player has become a target for illagers and, once that player enters a village, a raid will automatically commence.
Raids are in-game events in Minecraft in which waves of different types of illagers spawn and attack a village. These hostile mobs can include evokers, pillagers, vindicators, and ravagers and can be quite the challenge. The rewards for successfully defending the village from the raid include the loot from the illagers (usually crossbows and emeralds), a totem of undying, as well as the status effect Hero of the Village. This effect leads villagers to offer the player gifts as well as discounts when trading.
What Minecraft defines as a village in this case is an area with at least one villager present and a claimed bed. This status effect can be increased in its potency in the Java edition of the game through the killing of murder of multiple patrol captains. This increases the amount of waves as well as their difficulty but also offers more rewards.
Players who do not want to participate in a raid and/or are trying not to inflict damage on villagers, must either wait the 100 minutes before entering a village or locate a cow. Cows (as well as their red counterparts, mooshrooms) are great sources of milk in Minecraft and this liquid is the only cure for any and all potion and status effects. By crafting a bucket, players can approach either animal and click on it to fill the empty bucket with milk. Drinking this milk clears the Bad Omen status and allows players to enter villages without starting raids.
The only other way to remove the Bad Omen status is through player death. This will reset all status effects but, obviously, isn't ideal. It is important to note that the same is not true of raids once they have been started. Raids usually can only end through the death of all illagers, the death of all villagers, or if all the beds in the area have been destroyed. In conclusion, a bucket of milk, a raid, or death are the only options for those players in Minecraft looking to get rid of the Bad Omen.
Minecraft is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.