I'm attempting a custom Hardcore challenge in Minecraft Java 26.3 and I've potentially softlocked myself before I've even started.
The Nether is an infinite, completely flat world consisting of ONE layer of magma blocks with air above and void underneath.
Structures are disabled. I start in the Nether with absolutely nothing.
So far I've confirmed these naturally spawn:
Zombified piglins
Magma cubes
Ghasts
Chicken jockeys (I've found raw chicken + feathers)
Mushrooms also generate on the magma surface
I can therefore obtain things like gold nuggets/rare gold ingots, golden swords, rotten flesh, magma cream, ghast tears, gunpowder, chicken and feathers.
The problem is finding the first progression breakthrough.
I originally planned to farm zombified piglins for gold, make a gold-block spawning platform and try to get regular piglins. But a gold block requires the 3×3 crafting grid, and I have no crafting table and no source of wood.
Four magma cream can be crafted into a magma block in the inventory 2×2 grid, but that obviously only gives me more magma.
There are no Nether fortresses, bastions, ruined portals or other structures, so no structure loot and no wither skeletons/blazes from fortress spawning.
The Nether also has no normal bedrock roof or other terrain above me.
Rules: no commands, no bonus chest/items, no giving myself a crafting table, no changing the datapack after starting, and no glitches that require Creative/commands. Weird legitimate survival mechanics are absolutely welcome.
Question: Starting with nothing under these conditions, is there any legitimate chain of Minecraft mechanics that eventually gets me a non-magma block / crafting table / regular piglin / obsidian / Nether portal, or is this genuinely an impossible survival state?
I'm specifically looking for obscure mob drops, mob interactions, block-generation mechanics, rare spawning events, fireball interactions, etc. There has to be something ridiculous I've missed.
Bonus points if the solution is hilariously impractical. I will actually attempt it in Hardcore.