🧟‍♂️ Undead Riders

Undead Riders is a Fabric mod for Minecraft that adds naturally spawning undead horsemen to the overworld surface. Six types in total, each tied to a fitting biome. Fully configurable and difficulty-scaled.

✨ Features

• 🐴 Zombie Horseman — Zombie on a Zombie Horse. All biomes except Desert. Night only.
• 🏜️ Husk Horseman — Husk on a Zombie Horse. Desert only. Night only.
• 💀 Skeleton Horseman — Skeleton on a Skeleton Horse. All biomes except Desert/Swamp/Frozen. Night only.
• ☀️ Parched Horseman — Parched on a Skeleton Horse. Desert only. Day and night.
• 🌿 Bogged Horseman — Bogged on a Skeleton Horse. Swamp and Mangrove Swamp only. Night only.
• ❄️ Stray Horseman — Stray on a Skeleton Horse. All frozen biomes. Night only.
• 🐗 Zombified Piglin Rider — Zombified Piglin on a Zoglin. Crimson Forest, Nether Wastes, and Bastion Remnants.
• 💀 Nether Skeleton Horseman — Skeleton on a Skeleton Horse. Soul Sand Valley only.
• 🎁 Saddle drop — Horses only spawn with a saddle at a low configurable rate (default 15% zombie, 30% skeleton). Saddles are looting-aware: Looting III gives ~20% drop chance. Players must hunt at night for saddled horses!
• 🔥 Optional Skeleton Horse sunlight burn — Skeleton Horses can be configured to burn in sunlight. A separate option can make saddled Skeleton Horses protected from that sunlight burn. Vanilla Skeleton Horse traps and their triggered horsemen are always excluded.
• 🛡️ Horse armor — ZombieHorses have a configurable chance to wear armor (default 30%).
• 🔑 Tameable Skeleton Horses — After killing the rider, Skeleton Horses can immediately be saddled and ridden.
• 🛡️ Shield on Hard — Zombie and Husk riders have a 40% chance to carry a shield.
• 👶 Rare baby variants — Supported riders can rarely spawn as baby variants, using the same biome rules as their adult versions.
• 🏹 Enchanted bow on Hard — Skeleton, Parched and Stray riders have a 30% chance for a Power I–III bow.
• ⚠️ Unarmed on Easy — Zombie and Husk riders have a 25% chance to spawn without a weapon.
• ⚔️ Difficulty-scaled weapons — Zombie/Husk riders carry tier-appropriate weapons including spears introduced in modern Minecraft versions.
• 🔀 Independent toggles — Each type can be enabled/disabled separately.
• ⚙️ Fully configurable — Spawn rates, saddle/armor chances, distances, timing, and more.
• 🧭 Optional Open Parties and Claims support — When OPAC is installed, Undead Riders respects claimed chunks where hostile natural spawning is disabled.
• 🖥️ Optional Mod Menu support — On clients with Mod Menu and Cloth Config installed, the config can also be edited through an in-game screen.
• 🔄 Live reload — /undeadriders reload applies config changes without a restart.
• 📋 Info command — /undeadriders info shows the current status of all types in-game.
• 🚫 Non-interfering — Never touches vanilla's spawn system.

📊 Difficulty Scaling

Zombie / Husk Horseman — horse armor

Armor only spawns at the configured probability (zombieHorseArmorChance, default 60%).

Zombie / Husk Horseman — rider weapon

Drop chance: 5%. On Hard: 40% chance of a shield in offhand (no drop).

Skeleton / Parched / Stray Horseman

Rider equipment handled by vanilla's finalizeSpawn(). On Hard: 30% chance for a Power I–III enchanted bow (drop chance 10%).

Biome restrictions

⚙️ Configuration

Generated automatically on first launch at:

<game>/config/undeadriders.json

With Mod Menu + Cloth Config API installed, you get a full in-game config screen.

⚠️ After updating the mod, delete config/undeadriders.json once to regenerate it with any new fields.

Open Parties and Claims compatibility

If Open Parties and Claims is installed and openPartiesAndClaimsSupport is enabled, Undead Riders checks OPAC claim settings before spawning a horseman.

Claims that have hostile natural spawning disabled, for example through OPAC's "Allow Hostile Spawn" setting, will block Undead Riders natural spawns in that claimed area.

🔄 Commands

These commands require gamemaster permission, like reload and info. Highlighting defaults to off, is personal to each admin, and resets on disconnect or server restart. Glowing is visible to all nearby players. Count includes named pets and riderless mounts but excludes vanilla trap horses and unrelated Zoglins.

🏜️ Test Server

Feel free to join my Minecraft server to test my mods: play.swordfishbe.eu