Freeform portals
Build Nether portals in any shape or size, then cross into a rebuilt, more dangerous Nether.
On Sunday Market a Nether portal does not have to be the standard rectangle. Frame any shape you like in 
obsidian, light it, and it opens. A ring, an archway, a keyhole, a jagged cave mouth — if the obsidian encloses an open space and you strike it with 
flint and steel, it becomes a working portal. That freedom lets a portal fit its build instead of forcing a plain doorway into the middle of it.
Build one
- Lay out a closed loop of obsidian around an open interior. It can be almost any shape or size — tall and thin, wide and low, curved, or irregular.
- Strike the inside face with flint and steel.
- The enclosed space fills with portal, matched to whatever outline you drew.
Step through the same way you always would. The only rule is that the obsidian has to fully surround the gap.
The 1:8 ratio still applies
Freeform shapes change how a portal looks, not how the Nether measures distance. The standard 1:8 compression holds: one block walked in the Nether covers eight in the Overworld. That is what makes a Nether hub the workhorse for map-spanning trips — tunnel 100 blocks below and you surface 800 blocks away up top.
To build a route, step through your home portal, note where you land, then dig toward your destination counting eight Overworld blocks for every one you tunnel. Frame a return portal at the far end and the two link up. Sign each portal so a hub of them stays readable. The full hub math lives on the Nether portals page.
The Nether here has been rebuilt into a larger, more hostile place. Expect unfamiliar biomes, tougher structures, and mobs you will not have met in a vanilla Nether. Wall and roof your tunnels, light them against spawns, and carry spare blocks. Treat every trip as a fight you might have to win.
Keep portal frames well apart. Two portals built too close in the Overworld can link to the same Nether portal and route you to the wrong exit. Spread them out and test each link by walking back through.
See also
- Nether portals — the 1:8 hub math in full
- Waystones — instant hops between named stops
- Travel overview — the full travel toolkit